Orc’s Mark (The Veil Lands)

Chapter 1

ONE

RHEA

The Veil River runs black beneath my mare’s hooves as we cross the half-collapsed stone bridge. Each step echoes wrong—too hollow, too sharp—the sound fleeing this cursed place before we do.

My bay mare, Sweetie, tosses her head and balks three steps from the bridge’s end. Her ears pin flat against her skull, nostrils flaring wide. Muscles bunch beneath me, ready to bolt back toward civilization and sanity.

"Easy, girl." I slide from the saddle, boots hitting wet stone with a squelch. The air here tastes of metal and ash, thick enough to coat my tongue. Mist coils around my ankles.

Sweetie snorts, backing toward the other side of the bridge. Smart horse. Smarter than her rider.

But I didn’t ride three days through the Thornlands to turn back now. Not when the Blackspire Abbey’s lost archives wait somewhere in those shattered spires ahead. Not when the Codex Mortuum—the most complete grimoire of necromantic theory ever written—might finally be within my grasp.

The text that could revolutionize everything we know about death magic.

Sister Morrow called it a fool’s errand when I told her where I was going.

Said some knowledge comes at too high a price.

But the coven’s libraries hold nothing but sanitized theory and watered-down hedge magic.

If I want to understand the deeper mysteries—the real power that flows beneath the surface of all magic—I need sources they’d never allow.

I press my palm to Sweetie’s neck, whispering the old protective chants. The words feel rusty in my mouth—half-remembered fragments of faith I never fully embraced.

"By stone and steel, by blood and bone, let no shadow claim what walks alone."

The incantation settles unease in the air. Sweetie’s breathing evens, though her ears stay alert. She’ll wait. And if I stay too long, she knows how to get home.

I shoulder my leather satchel, heavy with chalk, salt, and the few grimoires I managed to smuggle out under Sister Morrow’s nose. My fingers find the familiar weight of my silver athame at my hip. The blade is cold through my woolen skirts.

Ahead, Blackspire Abbey rears against the bruised sky—a broken bone of stone and shadow. Its towers lean at impossible angles, some snapped clean off, others twisted into spirals. Even from here, massive holes punch through walls that once held beautiful rose windows.

What the hell happened here?

Stories say the abbey fell to shadow-spawn during the Veil War two centuries ago.

Stories say the monks fought entities that devoured light itself.

But stories also claim the abbey’s libraries contain texts that predate the Veil’s shattering—grimoires written when orcs and witches worked together instead of viewing each other as enemies.

Ancient magic. Forbidden magic. The kind that could unlock secrets the coven would kill to suppress.

Knowledge is power. Fear is control.

I repeat the words as I pick my way across the rubble-strewn courtyard. Gargoyle heads lie scattered among moss-covered stones, their snarling faces cracked but still menacing. Weeds push through cracks in what was once beautiful stonework, nature reclaiming what shadow broke.

The scent hits me stronger here—damp ash mixed with rust and old iron. My stomach clenches.

Blood.

I stop before the abbey’s main doors. Massive oak planks, reinforced with iron bands that have gone red-brown with age and weather. But it’s not weather that stained them. Dark streaks run down the wood, and the iron bears gouges that look suspiciously—

Claw marks. Big ones.

The door frame draws my eye next. Runes cover every inch of wood and stone—not the neat, measured symbols I learned in the coven, but frantic slashes carved deep enough to bite.

Some I recognize as warding sigils, others as binding marks.

But there are patterns here I’ve never seen, geometric shapes that seem to shift when I’m not looking directly at them.

I pull out my journal, flipping to a clean page. My charcoal scratches across the paper as I copy the unfamiliar ward structures. These markings feel important, dangerous. Whoever carved them was desperate to keep something contained.

Or to keep something out.

Wind stirs through the courtyard, carrying voices that aren’t quite voices. Whispers that almost sound—

Rhea...

I freeze, charcoal hovering over the page. The sound came from behind me, but when I turn, only mist and shadow fill the courtyard. Sweetie stands where I left her, ears pricked but calm.

Just echoes. Old stones, strange acoustics.

But my hand finds my athame’s hilt anyway as I face the doors again. The iron handle feels solid, real. Proof that I’m still in the world of living things and rational thought.

I set my shoulder against the doors and push.

They swing open with a groan that echoes through the ruins.

The nave stretches before me, beautiful even in ruin. Light streams through the shattered rose windows, painting symmetrical patterns across broken pews and fallen stones. The air tastes of centuries-old incense mixed with that persistent scent of ash.

But there’s something else. A heaviness that presses against my skin, making each breath an effort. The atmosphere itself feels wrong—thick with malevolence that has soaked into the very stones.

My boots crunch across the debris-scattered floor. Bones, I realize with a start. Not human bones, thankfully. Too small, too delicate. Birds, maybe. Or rats. Lots of rats.

Hymnals lie scattered among the debris, their pages eaten by damp and time. I pick one up, squinting at the faded script. The language is familiar but archaic—High Gothic, the formal tongue used in religious ceremonies before the Veil War simplified everything into Common.

"In shadow’s depth, the light endures. In light’s embrace, the shadow serves."

Cheerful stuff. I drop the book and continue deeper into the nave, each step echoing in the oppressive silence.

A glint of metal catches my eye near the altar. I approach carefully, athame drawn. But it’s just a journal, its brass clasps green with age. The leather cover bears the abbey’s seal—a bell wreathed in thorns—and beneath it, someone has scratched a name in shaking letters.

Brother Aldric

I flip it open, squinting at the cramped handwriting. The early entries are mundane—prayers, duties, observations about weather and visitors. But as I read deeper, the tone shifts. The letters grow more frantic, the ink darker.

"The dreams grow stronger each night. Brother Marcus speaks of the traitor in his sleep, names that should not be spoken. The bell calls to us though no hand touches rope, and we wake with ash on our tongues."

A few pages later:

"Found Brother Thomas in the catacombs again. He claims the ash-bound lord whispers to him through the stones. Abbot fears the shadow-sickness takes hold, but what if Thomas speaks truth? What if something stirs below that should never wake?"

The final entry makes my blood run cold:

"They took Marcus in the night. The bell tolled thirteen times, though no man rang it. The lord stirs beneath stone and binding. The traitor comes with promises of freedom. God forgive us, we should have burned this place when we had the chance."

Below the words, someone has scrawled in what looks suspiciously—

DO NOT BLEED HERE.

A page falls loose as I close the journal. More frantic scratches, almost illegible:

"The witch will come as the prophecy foretold. One drop of willing blood to wake what sleeps. The bell will toll for the living and the dead alike. God help her when she does."

My hands shake as I slip the journal into my satchel.

The witch will come.

Just stories. Mad ramblings from monks driven insane by isolation and whatever shadow-spawn attacked this place. Nothing more.

But the whispers return, threading through the broken arches with new urgency.

Rhea... come deeper... we have waited so long...

This time, I can’t pretend it’s just wind. The voices are distinct, multiple, desperate. They know my name though I’ve told no one where I was going. They want—

Need.

That’s why I’m here. Not for whispers or ghost stories, but for the texts hidden somewhere in this ruin. The abbey’s archives supposedly held volumes that could teach me arts the coven would never permit—forbidden knowledge, lost magic, power beyond what any hedge witch could imagine.

I square my shoulders and head for the side passage I spotted near the altar. If the archives survived, they would be in the lower levels where stone walls offered more protection.

The side door fights me, warped by centuries of damp and neglect. I brace my boot against the frame and heave, putting my whole body behind the crowbar I packed for exactly this purpose.

Wood groans. Iron screams.

The door gives way with a crack that echoes through the nave.

Beyond lies a narrow staircase carved directly into the abbey’s foundation. The steps descend into darkness so complete, my lantern seems to hesitate before piercing it. But there’s heat rising from below—unexpected warmth that makes no sense in a ruin this old.

Underground vents. Natural causes.

I light my lantern and start down.

The stairs are slick with condensation, treacherous enough that I keep one hand on the rough stone wall for balance. Strange how the walls grow warmer as I descend, not cooler. And that scent of ash grows stronger too, mixed now with iron and old burning.

The catacombs open before me.

Alcoves line the passage, stuffed with the detritus of centuries. Rotted books lean against tarnished religious artifacts. Moldering tapestries hang in tatters from iron hooks. Everything bears a thick coating of soot, as if the entire lower level has been breathing smoke for decades.

My lantern light flickers across symbols carved into every surface—more runes, more desperate warnings. But there are other markings too. And beneath it all, that persistent heat building with each step deeper.