Chapter 18 Kielyne
EIGHTEEN
KIELYNE
The Veilspire Cathedral is a corpse. As we search the structure’s front room for the Reliquary, testing every stone for cracks, every crevice for hidden contents, a weight slowly crushes me.
“This place feels wrong.” My voice echoes off the walls, bouncing back to me from a dozen directions. The acoustics are strange—whispers carry, multiply, make it impossible to tell where sounds originate.
Blorjorn moves beside me, his body positioned between me and any potential threat as he lifts floor stones. Blood from the guards he killed outside is drying on his face, his arms, the ritual scars that map his skin. He looks like something from a nightmare—dark and massive and deadly.
He looks like safety.
I push the thought away before I can examine it too closely. There’s no time for that. No time to untangle whatever this thing between us has become—this knot of want and trust and something deeper that I refuse to name.
“Stay close.” His hand finds the small of my back—warm, steady, grounding. “I agree. Something’s not right.”
We move deeper into the nave. The floor is fractured flagstone, stained dark in patches that might be old blood or might be shadow.
Broken pews have been shoved against the walls, leaving the central aisle clear.
At the far end, the altar rises—massive granite, split down the middle but still standing—and behind it, a towering window somehow remains intact.
The window depicts a figure in white robes, arms outstretched, surrounded by kneeling supplicants. A saint, maybe. Or a god. The colored glass bathes the altar in that pulsing red glow, and I have to fight the urge to look away.
“There should be another exit.” Blorjorn’s voice is low, tactical. “Behind the altar. These old cathedrals always had passages for the priests—”
The wards slam shut.
I feel it before I see it—a pressure against my skin, a sudden weight in the air that makes my ears pop and my lungs strain. Magic, old and powerful, crackling to life after decades of dormancy.
Invisible walls of force seal every exit. The doors we barricaded. The collapsed sections of wall. The shadowed alcoves where side chapels once stood. One by one, I feel them close—a cage locking into place, bar by bar, until there’s nowhere left to run.
Blorjorn spins, testing the nearest barrier with his hand. His palm hits empty air and stops cold, the muscles in his arm straining against something that doesn’t exist.
“Ward magic.” His voice is grim. “Old wards. Someone prepared this.”
“Not someone.” The voice comes from behind the altar—cold, cultured, carrying effortlessly through the cathedral’s strange acoustics. “Me.”
A figure steps from the shadows. Tall, lean, moving with the rigid precision of a career soldier.
His face is weathered, sun-darkened, carved with deep lines around eyes that hold no warmth.
A sword scar bisects his left eyebrow and continues down his cheek—a wound that could have been healed but wasn’t. A reminder, maybe. A trophy.
General Hadrin Rathmore.
I’ve never met him in person, but I know his face.
Every soldier in the Western Provinces knows his face—the Liberator of the Bloodscar, the man who’s spent thirty years building a reputation on orc corpses.
He commands the largest human army on the plains.
He’s killed more of Blorjorn’s people than any general in living memory.
And he’s been waiting for us.
“Kielyne Aelwyn.” My name in his mouth sounds like a verdict. “The healer who saves monsters. I’ve heard so much about you.”
Blorjorn shifts in front of me, his body blocking Hadrin’s view. A growl rumbles from his chest—low, dangerous, warning.
“And the monster itself.” Hadrin’s gaze flicks to Blorjorn with something that might be contempt, might be curiosity. “Captain Blorjorn Vezrik, formerly of the Northern Horde. Blade-Commander. Butcher of Thornhollow. Your kill count is impressive, even by orc standards.”
“I’m about to add to it.” Blorjorn’s axes rise.
“I doubt that.”
He lifts his hand with a small object on his palm. “The Sanguine Reliquary,” he says. Blorjorn freezes. “I believe this is what you are looking for.” The artifact is smaller than I’d thought, though I really had no idea what to expect.
“Don’t look surprised,” Hadrin continues. “Once we lost track of her blood signature, I knew what had happened.” His eyes narrow on. “Disgusting, really. A human with a monster. I should punish you by making you abide by your ill-thought-out decision. But I have different plans for you.”
With that, Hadrin drops the Reliquary onto the altar and slams down his sword, broadside, crushing it.
I can only stand there with my mouth gaping. Any hope of having freedom, literally smashed to pieces.
Hadrin snaps his fingers. Figures emerge from the shadows behind him—not soldiers, not anymore.
Their flesh is mottled gray-green, veined with black, their faces slack and empty.
Blight soldiers. Humans twisted by controlled exposure to shadow magic, stronger and faster than they should be, absolutely loyal because the process burns away everything else.
A dozen of them. Maybe more. They fan out across the nave, surrounding us, their movements eerily synchronized.
“Now,” Hadrin leans over and drags something from the edge of the altar, “let’s get down to business.”
In Hadrin’s hands—sigil brands. Metal rods tipped with glowing symbols that pulse with malevolent light. I don’t know what they do, but the way Blorjorn goes rigid tells me everything I need to know.
“You know what these are.” Hadrin’s voice is almost conversational. “Tools designed to break blood oaths by force. Painful for both parties, but effective. I’ve been developing them for years, waiting for the right opportunity to test them.” A thin smile. “Thank you for providing one.”
“What do you want?” My voice comes out steadier than I feel. Behind me, Blorjorn’s presence is a wall of coiled violence, ready to explode at any moment.
“Straight to the point.” Hadrin inclines his head, almost approving. “I appreciate that. So many people waste time with denials and protests.” He moves closer, circling the broken altar, the sigil brands still glowing in his hands. “What I want is simple, healer. I want you.”
“She’s not yours to take.” Blorjorn’s voice is gravel and fury.
“Isn’t she?” Hadrin’s pale gaze slides to me. “You know of my army, Kielyne. Fifteen thousand men, with more arriving every day. We fight orcs by the hundreds, the thousands, and every battle produces wounded. Men who bleed and scream and die because we don’t have enough healers to save them.”
He stops, just outside axe range, and his expression shifts. Something almost like sincerity surfaces beneath the cold calculation.
“You’re the best battlefield medic I’ve ever encountered. The soldiers who’ve served with you speak of miracles—wounds that should have been fatal, men who should have died but didn’t. Your skills are wasted on them.” A dismissive gesture toward Blorjorn. “I’m here to offer you a choice.”
He sets the sigil brands on the altar, the metal clicking against cracked granite. The sound echoes through the cathedral, impossibly loud in the waiting silence.
“Come with me willingly. Use your gifts to save human lives instead of orcs. Serve my army, and I’ll make sure you’re treated well. Protected. Valued.” His gaze holds mine. “And in return, the orc dies quickly. One clean stroke. He won’t suffer.”
Blorjorn’s growl intensifies. His hand finds my arm, gripping tight, pulling me back against his chest. Possessive. Protective.
“And if I refuse?”
“Then I use the brands.” Hadrin’s tone doesn’t change.
“I break the blood oath by force—which will be agonizing for both of you, incidentally—and then I kill him slowly, in front of you, piece by piece. And when he’s finally dead, I take you anyway.
” A pause. “Either way, you end up mine. The only question is how much pain you’re willing to endure first.”
The words make me sick to my stomach.
I’ve faced death before. Faced pain, faced fear, faced the particular horror of watching people I’ve tried to save slip away despite everything I could do. But this—
This is different. This is watching Blorjorn die because of me. Because I saved Grothak on a corpse road and set all of this in motion. Because I let an orc captain claim me, protect me, become something I refuse to examine too closely.
Something twists in my chest—fierce and desperate and terrifying. Not now. I can’t think about what he means to me. Can’t untangle the mess of feelings that tighten my throat and make my hands shake. There’s only this moment, this choice, this impossible situation.
All I know is that I can’t let him die. Can’t watch them hurt him. The thought of it makes something primal rear up inside me, snarling, ready to tear apart anyone who threatens him.
I don’t know what that means. I’m not ready to know.
“Don’t.” Blorjorn’s voice is low, rough, meant only for me. His grip on my arm tightens. “Whatever you’re thinking—don’t. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself for me.”
“And I won’t let you die.” I turn in his arms, face him, let him see the determination burning in my gaze. “I won’t watch them torture you. I won’t—”
“Touching.” Hadrin’s voice cuts through the moment like a blade. “Truly. The monster and the medic, bound by blood and something more. It would make a lovely tragic ballad.”
He picks up the sigil brands again. The glow intensifies, casting harsh shadows across his scarred face.
“But I’m not a patient man, Kielyne. And I’ve waited long enough for this war to end.” He nods to his blight soldiers. “Take the orc. Try not to damage him too badly—I want her to hear him scream.”
Blorjorn moves.