Chapter 50
CHAPTER FIFTY
LEINA
I stride through the darkness, my anger pushing me forward in a way my legs can’t.
“He doesn’t understand,” I complain to Vaeloria, as I spin in a false imitation of a circle, looking for the outcropping of rocks. But they’re not here.
There’s nothing here.
“ No, ” she agrees. “ But then, do you?”
“ No,” I mutter. I look toward her and marvel again at the … shape she takes here. She’s all feathers and brightness. I’ve tried to bring in mirrors so I can see myself, but they never make it through with me.
I try again to jog Vaeloria’s memory. “Do you remember anything else about it?”
She huffs, too, just as frustrated as me. “ The Veil … it’s part of me. But remembering? No. I don’t think I’m meant to.”
I run a hand along her side, a quiet comfort. “It’s alright. We’ll figure this out together.”
The Veil shifts around me, pulsing like a living thing.
It doesn’t look like anything—not exactly.
It’s light and shadow folding in on each other, breathing in silence.
It shouldn’t be disorienting by now. I’ve been training here for months.
Every day. Pushing farther. Reaching deeper.
Failing harder. There are colors that aren’t colors.
Space that stretches and contracts. Sometimes it is endless. Sometimes it’s closing in.
I swing my scythe behind me. “Although part of me thinks we would figure it out a lot faster without the Elder giving us assignments . ”
Vaeloria makes a sound that might be a chortle. “ He’s quite determined to send you places, isn’t he ?”
I scan the shifting dark for movement—not that eyes help here, with the shadow-creatures that slither between thought and form. “Well, if I could drop into Morendahl and snap back on command, I’m sure he’d find that convenient.”
“ Yes ,” she says, turning slowly, her feathers catching glimmers of nothing. “ But I don’t think the Veil is about convenience. I think it’s about existence. ”
Existence.
I draw in a breath, focus on the thrum inside—the thread that connects me to the Veil. I pull. It responds, sluggish, something rousing from sleep.
I step forward.
The Veil snaps taut and twists. It seizes, jerking me sideways like a marionette with tangled strings. I stumble, lose balance. The world around us fragments—pieces collapse in the wrong direction, light shatters into something too sharp to be light.
I’m so tired. I want to cry— not again. I want to rest like I haven’t in months, maybe even years. I want gentle hands to anchor me, soft murmurs in the dark, and my mother’s voice whispering that everything will be alright with that fierce certainty only a mother can summon.
I almost fall. But … The Veil stills.
Something soft flickers in the distance ahead.
It doesn’t shift or warp or lurch. I take a step toward it.
The closer I get to it, the more everything else fades away.
The Veil is quieter here, softer. My fists unclench without me meaning to.
My breath evens out. The ache behind my eyes dulls.
That softness ripples and takes the shape of something not quite human.
A silhouette? A suggestion of curved lines and warmth.
It’s a presence I almost recognize though I don’t understand how or why.
The sensation that washes over me is small—like a hand brushing my hair back or a hum I used to know.
Something in my chest cracks open. Then, just as softly as it came, the silhouette begins to drift. I chase after it.
“Wait!” I cry out. “Wait, please!”
“ Strider!” Vaeloria chases me, too, but I don’t stop. I’m almost … almost there.
I reach out—too late. It dissolves into nothing, swallowed by the shifting folds of the Veil.
But the warmth lingers. Not in the air. Not in my skin.
I scan this new part of the Veil with something that’s not quite eyes. There . There’s another source of that soft warmth.
I reach for it, grasping with both hands.
We tumble into the cold snow, hitting the ground hard.
I land on my side with a grunt, half-buried in the cold, my breath stolen by the sudden return to air and gravity.
My fingers dig into the powdery white, and I gasp, blinking against the brightness.
The disorientation is always the same when we leave the Veil—utterly jarring.
We’re not at the Synod.
The cold here is gentler. The snow beneath me is thick and soft, untouched, more like a blanket than the hardness of the ice on the Faraengardian cliffs.
There’s no salt on the wind, no sting from the Ebonmere Sea.
Just stillness. And the trees here—they’re nothing like the spindly ones near the Synod.
They’re towering giants, with trunks so wide I couldn’t span them with both arms, and branches that reach for the clouds.
The air is thick with the scent of sap and something like grief, as droplets bead on the branches and slip down, silent and steady.
The Weeping Forest.
I push up on my hands and knees, as Vaeloria shifts beside me with a huff, her wings half-furled and dusted with snow. Her ears twitch as she catches a sound before I do.
“Tag! You’re it!”
I snap my head around.
Leo.
He’s barreling between the trees, all arms and clumsy enthusiasm, the snowshoes on his feet flopping comically as he runs.
His grin is so wide it practically splits his face in half.
Behind him, an older girl with a mess of dark curls shrieks with laughter as she lunges to tag him back, but she trips on her snowshoes and collapses into a heap of giggles and flailing limbs.
I slap my hand over my mouth to cover a sob, but Leo hears it anyway. He whips his head around to us. So does the girl, who looks at me with stark terror in her pretty grey eyes until she sees Vaeloria behind me. Then she grins.
“Hello, Vaeloria!” she says, as if they’re old friends.
But even with the complete impossibility of it—of this strange child knowing Vaeloria by name, speaking to her with ease—I can’t form any questions for her.
I can’t take my eyes off Leo. He’s right there, whole and laughing and alive. He stares at me in disbelief for only a moment, and then his expression crumples.
He stumbles forward, trying to run to me, but trips over his snowshoes. “Leina!”
I lurch to my feet and close the distance between us in a sprint, catching him up in my arms and clutching him to my chest. Carefully, mindful of the strength I know how to control now.
“Leo! Oh, my gods, Leo! You’re alright!”
His little arms curl tightly around my neck. I breathe him in—earth and snow and that unmistakable smell of little boy—and press my face against his curls, heart pounding. Too soon, he starts to squirm in my arms. Still, he doesn’t let go completely. He grabs my hand and tugs me forward, grinning.
“Come meet Bri!” he says.
My eyes snap back up to the little girl. Bri. Seb mentioned her in his letter. But she has little interest in me. She’s walked right up to Vaeloria and is running her hands over the winged war horse’s chest with a smile.
“You’re much prettier than Cairwyn,” she tells Vaeloria. Then she giggles and puts her finger over her lips in a hush hush motion. “But don’t tell Cairwyn I said that. He’s sensitive.”
“Who is Cairwyn?” I ask, and I’m surprised by how calm my voice sounds—how normal it feels to speak, when nothing else about this moment is.
The girl turns back to me, startled. It’s as if she’d forgotten Leo and I were even here. Her gaze slides over me, lingering on the scythe slung across my back, the daggers strapped to my thighs. She studies me with the wide-eyed solemnity of a child raised around power—cautious, but not afraid.
“Cairwyn is my father’s faravar,” she says matter-of-factly. She lifts her chin and squares her shoulders, pride blooming across her face. “He’s the best one there is.”
Then, with a glance at Vaeloria, she softens. As if realizing she might’ve offended someone important, she casts the winged beast a sheepish smile and gently pats her leg—just high enough for her little arm to reach.
My eyes drift back to Leo, who’s watching Bri like she’s the sun and the snow and every adventure rolled into one. This entire scene seems like a strange dream. I crouch back down to Leo and gather his hands in mine. “You’ve grown so much, Leo!”
He stands even taller, and grins. “I’m learning to fight, Leina!”
I resist a wince at that. He’s so proud. But no child should have to learn how to fight, and it stirs that familiar anger again. I look around, taking in the Weeping Forest that wraps around us, and there—through a break in the trunks—I catch a curl of smoke. A camp.
I don’t know why the Veil brought me here. I don’t know what it wants. But for the first time in what feels like forever, I’m not angry about it.
“Leo,” I ask. “Is Seb at your camp?”
Leo nods furiously and grasps my hand tightly. “Yes! It’s only a little ways from here. Let’s go see him. He’ll be so happy.”
But Bri grabs my arm, stopping me before I can take a step. “You don’t have that kind of time,” she says.
I start to brush her off—what does a child know of any of this?—but the tendrils have wrapped around my ankles.
“Oh gods, no!” I drop to my knees and gather Leo into in my chest again. “I need more time!” I demand, though to whom I’m not sure. The gods. The Veil. Anyone who might be listening.
Bri touches my face, and her eyes aren’t the laughing, care-free eyes of a child anymore. They’re not old and wise, they’re just … timeless. Gooseflesh covers my arms.
“Don’t be afraid of the Veil,” she says.
A shiver runs down my spine, gooseflesh rising on my arms. How does she know about any of this?
Then she sings.
“ So, fear no dark, and fear no sky, The Veil will catch you when you fly .”
My breath hitches. “Oh, my gods,” I whisper. That song—it’s the lullaby my mother used to sing when we were small, when the nights were long and cold.
The dark tendrils slip higher, coiling around my wrists now.
Leo clings tighter to my neck. “Don’t worry, Leina,” he whispers into my ear. “If Bri says you don’t have to be afraid, then you don’t. She’s always right.”
I want to believe them. I do.
Bri tilts her head as if something is whispering to her out of earshot. Her eyes flutter closed. She turns slightly, like she’s listening. But there’s nothing—no wind, no voice, no sign of what she’s hearing. Just the soft breath of the trees, and the tightening pull of the Veil.
“My father says it’s smart to be afraid sometimes,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “To be cautious.” Her voice is low, thoughtful. “You should be wary of hammers, Leina. But don’t fear the Veil.”
My skin prickles, as I think about Tyrston and his hammer.
How does she know about that? Then she opens her eyes again, and they’re bright and young and entirely her —the child I met only moments ago.
She flashes me a grin and turns to Vaeloria, who’s remained unnaturally still.
Bri steps forward and lays a gentle hand along Vaeloria’s gleaming coat.
“I’ll see you again, Vaeloria,” she whispers. “You have time for one more hug, Leo.”
A man with dark hair and Bri’s grey eyes bursts through the trees, sword at the ready. “Bri! Leo!” he shouts. His eyes land on me and they’re hard. Almost feral. He brings his sword up. I tense. This must be Aelric.
Leo wraps his arms around me, fiercely—so fiercely I think maybe, just maybe, he could anchor me here. That the warmth of his hug might be enough to tether me to this place.
But it isn’t. The Veil rips us back.