Chapter 12 Kael
TWELVE
KAEL
Her footsteps fade, swallowed by the stone. She doesn’t look back. Good. I’d rather she didn’t see what’s in my eyes.
The shadows settle around me like an old habit, curling close, whispering secrets only I can hear. Her scent lingers—bright, wrong in a place like this. Like warmth bleeding into a room that hasn’t seen it in years.
I close my eyes for a breath, then open them again.
Sunshine. Too bright for a place like this. A cruel kind of joke, if the Veil had a sense of humor. Or a twisted prophecy, depending how deep you want to dig into the bones of fate.
She doesn’t know what she is. Not really. But the Veil does. I felt it the moment she called to it, like something ancient stirred awake and looked back through her. Hungry. Curious.
The mark was only the beginning. She shouldn’t have survived that summoning. She shouldn’t have burned those creatures out of existence. The energy she wielded wasn’t trained. It wasn’t shaped. It was instinctual. And raw instinct doesn’t burn that clean unless something older is guiding the fire.
I let her go. Not because I care—not in the way she thinks. I let her go because the Veil isn’t finished with her yet. And neither am I.
I drag a finger along the stone wall, the pulse of old wards brushing up my arm. They don’t burn me the way they used to. Another perk of growing teeth where you once had a soul.
She’s light.
But something’s already pulling her into the dark. And when it finally takes her? I’ll be waiting.