8. Thyra
EIGHT
THYRA
Achill runs through me that has nothing to do with the corridor’s temperature.
I’ve read the records. I know what happens when a keeper’s death releases bound magic without proper containment.
The first keeper’s death killed seventeen archivists when the power discharged. The second killed forty-three.
The grimoire is stronger now than it was then. Much stronger.
“Burn me, and whatever’s inside those pages goes free. You know what that means.”
“The Order wants the grimoire destroyed. They don’t care about collateral damage.”
“Do you?”
Another flicker. Another hesitation. His hand is still pressed to his chest, fingers spread over the mating mark I can feel pulsing beneath my own skin.
The mark responds to him. Recognizes him. Wants him.
He reaches out—slowly, deliberately—and catches my wrist. His fingers wrap around the bandages covering my palm, pressing against wounds that haven’t finished healing.
The contact ignites every nerve in my arm. Not pain—not exactly. More like awareness. Recognition. My body lights up, screaming at me to lean closer, to close the distance, to—
“The mark changes things.” I don’t pull away. Can’t make myself pull away. “The original binding was a chain. This is a leash. The grimoire can feel what I feel now. See what I see. If I find a way to destroy it, it will know before I can act.”
“Then find a way it can’t predict.”
“During the battle. The grimoire fed on your destruction. Every construct you killed made it stronger.” I take a step back, putting distance between us that feels necessary and wrong at the same time.
“Your fire woke the Author. Your burning fueled the attack. If you keep fighting the way you’ve been trained to fight, you’ll just make things worse. ”
“I’m supposed to, what? Let the next attack kill me?”
“I’m supposed to find another way.” I meet his gaze. “That’s what keepers do. We find ways to contain what can’t be destroyed. To manage what can’t be killed.”
“And if there is no other way?”
The question echoes between us. I don’t have an answer.
I hold up my bandaged hand—three fingers extended, blood seeping through the white linen. “Give me three days. I’ll find a solution, or—“
“Or I burn you both.”
“Yes.”
The sigil on my collarbone explodes with heat.
I gasp, hand flying to my chest. The burning is intense—worse than the initial marking, worse than anything I’ve felt since the cascade a year ago. Red-gold light blazes through the bandages, bright enough to illuminate the entire corridor.
And then Korrath makes a sound.
Not a word—a growl of pain and shock that echoes off the stone walls. His hand tears at his shirt, ripping fabric to expose his chest.
The mating mark is burning.
I can see it now—the sigils over his heart, glowing with the same red-gold light that’s pouring from my claiming mark. But there’s more. New lines are forming beneath his skin, tracing patterns that mirror the ones on my collarbone. The same script. The same words.
MINE. KEEPER. CLAIMED.
“What—“ He’s breathing hard, one hand pressed to the fresh marks. “What is this?”
I stare at his chest, at the grimoire’s sigils burning themselves into his flesh. The same marks that branded me. The same claiming. The same possession.
The grimoire didn’t just mark me. It bound us to each other.
The realization hits like a physical blow. I stumble back, shoulders hitting the corridor wall. The sigil on my collarbone pulses in time with the one on his chest—two hearts beating in forced synchronization.
“It’s using me.” The words come out numb. Distant. “The blood I’ve given it. Six years of feeding it. The grimoire used that link to reach you through me.”
“Reach me how?” His voice is strained. The new marks are still forming, still burning, still carving the grimoire’s claim into his skin.
“The mating mark.” I push off from the wall, moving toward him despite every instinct screaming at me to run. “Your mating magic. The grimoire saw it forming and used my binding as a conduit. It piggybacked on your claim to create its own.”
“That’s not possible.”
“It shouldn’t be.” I reach for his chest—not thinking, just acting—and press my palm against the fresh sigils.
The heat is overwhelming. The sense of him floods through me, intense and immediate, washing away any doubt about what I’m feeling.
“But the grimoire doesn’t care about possible. It cares about survival.”
The burning fades slowly.
We stand in the corridor, breathing hard, my palm still pressed to his chest. Beneath my fingers, his heartbeat pounds—fast, unsteady, nothing like the controlled rhythm I’d expect from a man who’s spent twenty years walking into danger.
He’s afraid. The spell-burner is afraid.
The thought should bring satisfaction. He came here to kill me, to burn the grimoire, to end six years of sacrifice with fire and ash. Fear is what he deserves.
Instead, the craving intensifies. The urge to comfort him. To lean closer and press my body against his and tell him everything will be fine.
The grimoire’s doing. Has to be the grimoire’s doing.
But my hand doesn’t move. My body doesn’t step back. And when his fingers close over mine, pressing my palm more firmly against his chest, I don’t pull away.
“The binding.” His voice is low. Rough. “You said the grimoire can feel what you feel now. See what you see.”
“Yes.”
“Can it feel this?” His free hand rises to my collarbone, fingertips tracing the edge of the claiming sigil through the bandages. Lightning sparks beneath my skin at the touch. “Can it see what I’m doing?”
“I’m not sure.” The honest answer. The only answer. “The new binding is untested.”
“Then we need to find out.” He releases my hand, steps back. The loss of contact leaves me cold and aching. “You said three days. We have less than that now.”
“Why less?”
His jaw tightens. “Because the Order doesn’t trust me to handle this alone. They’re sending reinforcements. High Purger Midori. She’ll be here in two days, maybe less.”
High Purger Midori. I know the name. Every keeper knows the name—the zealot, the fanatic, the spell-burner who believes all magic is poison. If she arrives before we find a solution…
“She’ll burn everything.” I don’t make it a question. “The Archive. The grimoire. You and me.”
“Me?” His brow furrows. “I’m Order. I’m one of hers.”
“You’re bound now.” I gesture at the sigils on his chest, still visible through his torn shirt. “The grimoire’s mark. Midori won’t care that it was forced on you. She’ll see contamination. She’ll see a threat that needs eliminating.”
The truth of it settles between us. Two days. We have two days before the Order sends someone who won’t negotiate, won’t wait, won’t hesitate.
The grimoire’s voice echoes through the corridor.
Not from the Restricted Stacks—from everywhere. From the walls, the floor, the very air around us. The sigils on my chest and his flare in unison, pulsing with light that matches the rhythm of the voice.
“Bound.”
One word. One declaration. The grimoire doesn’t need to say more.
I feel it now—the new link between us, forged from six years of my blood and the impossible magic of his mating mark. When I focus, I can sense his heartbeat without touching him. Can feel the edges of his emotions—rage and fear and beneath them, buried deep, a want that mirrors my own.
The grimoire bound us. Keeper and burner. Prey and predator. Now neither of us can move against it without the other feeling the consequences.
“Clever.” Korrath’s voice is bitter. “Use the mating mark as a conduit. Use her blood as a foundation. Create a link that can’t be severed without killing them both.”
The grimoire laughs. The sound floods the corridor—old paper and older pain, something vast amused at something small—wrapping around us like chains.
“You came to burn me, spell-burner. Now burning me means burning her. And burning her means burning yourself.” A pause. “How does it feel to be trapped?”
Korrath doesn’t answer. His hand has found mine—when did that happen? Who reached first?—and his fingers lace through mine with a grip that borders on painful.
I see it in his face. The fury. The helplessness. The desperate need to destroy something, anything, to exercise the addiction that’s been his companion for twenty years.
And beneath it all, threading through the rage like gold through dark cloth, I see how he looks at me. The way his breathing steadies when I step closer. The way his hand in mine quiets the tremor in his muscles.
Which binding is real? Which pull is manufactured?
Does it matter?
The grimoire’s laughter fades. The sigils dim. And we’re left standing in a dark corridor, hand in hand, bound by magic older than either of us understand.
Two days until Midori arrives.
I look at the spell-burner—at the man who came to kill me, who’s now bound to me in ways neither of us chose—and I make a decision.
“We need to find the Author’s weakness.” I don’t release his hand. Can’t make myself release it. “Before Midori gets here. Before the grimoire realizes what we’re doing.”
“How?” His fingers tighten around mine. “The binding—you said it can feel what you feel. See what you see.”
“The binding is new. The grimoire is still learning what it can access.” I step closer, close enough that our chests nearly touch, close enough that the sigils on our flesh pulse in synchronization. “We have a window. A small one. If we move fast…”
“If we move fast?”
“Then maybe we can find a way to end this before the grimoire realizes we’re trying.”
His free hand rises to my face. Rough fingers trace my cheekbone, my jaw, the corner of my mouth. The touch is gentle in a way I didn’t expect from him. Tender in a way that makes my chest ache.
“And if we can’t?” His voice is barely a whisper. “If there’s no solution?”
I don’t have an answer. But I lean into his touch anyway, let my eyes close, let myself feel the gravity between us without fighting it.
Two days.
We’ll make them count.