Page 66 of Orc’s Hex

I catch myself against the crypt wall.

The construct has destabilized significantly—its form wrong in new ways, the central density cracked and leaking shadow, the limbs less coordinated—but it is still enormous and its purpose has updated.

It turns toward Drazhul.

Not me. Him. The bloodline—and the man currently pulling a chain bracket from the wall with both hands scarred and bleeding.

The construct crosses the crypt floor toward him.

It raises what pass for arms.

The construct’s claws drive toward Drazhul’s sternum—toward the chest sigil, toward the same carving the consolidation ran through.

He is still in the chains.

I move.

Not to intercept—I cannot reach him before the claws do, not with what I have left. I move to the Foundation Crypt’s center. To the sigil carving in the floor, cracked and lifting and still active. To the position I need to be in when his blood hits the stone.

My hands are already moving.

The reversal work builds in my palms.

Break free, Drazhul.

Break free and bleed on the stone and I will do the rest.

I have been reading you since the first day in the Great Hall and I have not stopped and you are going to break free.

The chain bracket tears from the wall.

Drazhul is free.

SEVENTEEN

DRAZHUL

The bracket tears free and the chain goes slack and he is loose.

The construct’s claws are six inches from his sternum.

He does not step back.

He steps into it.

Both hands—hard and immediate, no warning, using its own forward momentum against itself. The claws swing wide. He pivots inside the construct’s reach, drives his shoulder into where its center of mass should be, and the thing staggers.

He has fought heavier things.

He reaches for the knife at his belt.

The rune-forged blade has been with him for forty years—carried through every territorial conflict, every garrison defense, every night alone in this fortress managing what the chest sigil does to him. He has never used it for this. He uses it now.

One cut. No hesitation. Over the chest sigil.

No ceremony. He opens his chest over the foundation sigil carving in the floor, still active beneath his feet, still carrying the full reversal work Ziva has been running through it—and his blood falls.

It hits the carved stone.