9. Korrath #3
Not the gentle pulse I’ve grown accustomed to—a blaze, bright enough to show through my shirt, hot enough to feel like brands pressing into flesh. Thyra gasps, her hand flying to her own marks, and I know she’s feeling the same thing.
The grimoire is speaking.
Not from the Restricted Stacks. Not from any single location. The voice comes from everywhere—from the walls, the floor, the scattered scrolls, the very air around us. The archivist screams and flees. Neither Thyra nor I move.
“How delightful.” The words carry that layered quality I remember from before, harmonics that suggest dozens of voices speaking in unison. “The High Purger comes at last. I’ve been waiting for her.”
“Waiting?” Thyra’s voice is steady, but I see her hands shaking. “What do you mean, waiting?”
“Did you think you were the only pieces on this board?” The grimoire laughs—that sound of rending paper and dissolving thought.
“The Author has been preparing for centuries. His faithful have been gathering for decades. And now, with the flame that burns everything riding toward us, the final move can begin.”
“What move?” I draw my blade, knowing it’s useless against a voice. “What are you planning?”
“Not planning, spell-burner. Executing.” The voice drops lower, more intimate. “The Author wakes. His faithful gather. And when the High Purger arrives to burn everything she touches, she’ll find something waiting for her. Something that’s been patient for a very, very long time.”
The scrolls on Thyra’s table begin to move. Pages turn on their own, revealing text that wasn’t there before—fresh script in that familiar blood-red ink, writing itself across parchment in real time.
THE INSCRIBED WALK AMONG YOU.
I feel Thyra tense beside me. “The Inscribed?”
FAITHFUL SERVANTS. WILLING TOOLS. SCHOLARS WHO CHOSE KNOWLEDGE OVER LOYALTY.
More text appears, crawling across multiple scrolls, spreading through the Scriptorium like a disease.
THEY HAVE WAITED IN YOUR ARCHIVE FOR YEARS. DECADES. HIDING AMONG YOUR COLLEAGUES. REPORTING TO THE AUTHOR. PREPARING FOR THIS MOMENT.
“You’re lying.” Thyra’s voice wavers. “The archivists are vetted. Tested. No one could hide that kind of allegiance—“
COULD THEY NOT?
The final message burns itself into the largest scroll, letters three inches high, glowing like embers.
HIS FAITHFUL GATHER. THE PURGER COMES.
BUT WHO SAYS SHE’LL FIND WHAT SHE EXPECTS?
The voice fades. The sigils dim. And we’re left standing in a Scriptorium full of the grimoire’s warnings, with less than twelve hours until everything changes.
“The Inscribed.” Thyra’s voice is hollow. “A cult. Within the Archive.”
“The grimoire could be lying.” I don’t believe the words even as I say them. “Trying to divide us. Make us suspicious of allies.”
“Could be.” She turns to face me, and I see the fear she’s been hiding.
The exhaustion. The desperate hope that’s kept her going for six years, finally starting to crack.
“Or it could be telling the truth. The Author has had three centuries to build a following. Why wouldn’t he plant agents in the one place capable of threatening him? ”
I think about the Archivist Elders. The scribes who fled when I entered. The messenger who brought news of Midori’s approach. Any of them could be Inscribed. All of them could be.
Trust no one. The grimoire’s playing a game, and we don’t know the rules.
“Dawn.” I sheathe my blade, forcing my voice to steadiness. “Midori arrives at dawn. We have twelve hours to find a solution.”
“And the Inscribed?”
“We deal with them when we find them.” I meet her eyes—dark, scared, determined despite everything. “For now, we focus on staying alive. On finding a way to sever your binding before Midori burns us both.”
“And the mating mark?” Her voice drops. “What do we do about that?”
The question hangs between us. I feel the mark pulsing against my chest, feel the gravity toward her that hasn’t faded since I walked into the Scriptorium. If anything, it’s grown stronger. More insistent.
What do you do about a mating mark that claims you’ve found your mate in the worst possible person at the worst possible time?
“I can’t answer that.” The truth, stripped bare. “The mating mark is orc magic. Old magic. Breaking it may not be possible.”
“Do you want it broken?”
Another honest question. Another hard answer.
“I haven’t decided.”
She holds my gaze for a long moment. Then she nods once, sharply, and turns back to her research.
I stand in the Scriptorium, surrounded by warnings written in blood-red ink, feeling the mating mark sear beneath my skin and the grimoire’s claim pulse beside it.
Somewhere in this Archive, the Author’s faithful are waiting.
Somewhere beyond the iron gates, Midori is riding toward us with fire in her eyes and destruction in her heart.
And here I am, bound to a woman I was sent to kill, wanting things I shouldn’t want, making choices I’ll probably regret.
This isn’t what you were trained for. This isn’t what you became.
But maybe it’s what I’m becoming.
I move to Thyra’s side and begin sorting through the scattered research.
Twelve hours.
I’ve faced worse odds.