Chapter 30 Kael
THIRTY
KAEL
The world comes back in pieces.
Searing light behind my eyelids. The stench of scorched stone and grass in my nose. The iron tang of blood on my tongue.
Voices blur at the edges of my consciousness, muffled and urgent. I try to move, but my limbs feel like they’ve been carved from mud. My chest aches, deep and hollow. Something’s missing.
Then I remember, the veil bleeding, fighting, and Lindsay’s power.
I shove upright, the bed under me groaning. Shadows flare instinctively at my fingertips, unsteady and raw. My vision clears, heart pounding too fast.
I’m not outside anymore. I’m in the infirmary. The old wing. Ward runes glow faintly along the walls. Across the room, Raiden lies sprawled on a cot, tails twitching weakly as a healer murmurs over him. Nolan is unmoving on another cot, his hands wrapped in gauze, and a cut on his cheek.
But they don’t matter, not really. I skip my gaze over them, my eyes landing on Lindsay. She’s prone on the bed, the shadow silk of the dress I got her hanging off the sides. I stumble to my feet by sheer will. She’s too still as I move toward her.
Her skin pale against the white sheets, unnatural.
The bright blue of her hair spread across her pillow like an unruly ocean.
Magic cocoons her. The spell-scar on her skin glows on the edges, it’s growing, snaking further up her arm and across her collarbone.
It looks beautiful on her, even if it is from the magic overload.
I cross to her before anyone can stop me. I don’t know how I’m moving. My knees threaten to give. My shadow lashes out around me like it’s frantic and confused. I reach out, but a barrier flickers in warning. Protective magic. Strong and ancient.
“She hasn’t woken,” Matron Isolde Cray says as she comes up next to me. “It’s a suspend spell, not one we cast.”
“What happened…after?” I swallow, my throat hurts.
“She overloaded,” Matron Cray says. “Whatever she did...it saved everyone. Sealed the breach. Stopped the attack, for now. But she didn’t come back with her magic.” She hesitates. “She’s in a magically-induced coma. One I’m not sure she cast on herself.”
My jaw tightens.
“She’s trapped somewhere,” I say. I don’t need to guess. I know it. I felt it when her magic exploded across mine. When her power marked me. My fingers curl over the invisible spell-scar mark I can feel even now. If my father knew, he’d kill me.
“She’s not dreaming,” Matron Cray says quietly, her old wrinkled face reflecting her sorrow. “There’s no activity in the Dreamwalk runes. Wherever she is, it’s not here. And it’s not a normal Veil projection.”
Raiden groans behind us. Nolan stirs. But I don’t move.
I stare down at Lindsay. At the faint shimmer of power still glowing beneath her skin. She looks peaceful. But this is wrong. This isn’t rest or healing. This is a cage.
And she’s alone in it.
My fists curl tighter. My voice drops. “I’ll find her.”
Matron Cray doesn’t argue. She just says, “I hope you do. Before someone else does.”
The warning lingers in the air long after she walks away.
I sit beside her even after Matron Cray is gone.
Long after the muttering healers shift to Raiden and Nolan.
Long after the candles dim with the weight of exhausted magic.
Until the healers leave, and the old woman settles in the corner of the room, I keep sitting there.
Hours pass, and I still don’t move. Because I don’t trust anyone else to keep watch. Because I can’t leave her like this.
A council meeting was called an hour ago. I didn’t go, even though by birthright I’m technically part of it now by just attending this school. I didn’t need to—because I already know.
I’ve known what she was since the start.
Veilborn. The Key.
The one the Realms whispered about in their riddles and threats. The one we were told would unmake the balance. The one I was sent to find. To end, if necessary.
I look down at her again. At the girl in the bed with too much power stitched into her skin. The one who still smells like starlight and battle smoke. The one who should terrify me, but doesn’t.
I should’ve killed her when I had the chance.
Instead, I lean closer, my voice just a breath above silence. “The Realms will come for you now.”
Because they will. And I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop them. A pulse of heat flashes from her skin as if in answer. The mark at her collarbone flares blinding-bright—white and violet and deep, deep shadow.
It sears my senses, sends a cold shudder through the room.
The Veil shifts. Ripples out like water from around her. A shadow moves just beyond it. Not one of mine.
It watches her.
Smiling.
I jerk upright, shadows snapping tight at my shoulders. But the vision is gone. The mark dims, darkening on her skin. The room stills completely, nothing moves or breathes. I would think we were frozen in time, except for the way my heart is trying to claw out of my chest.
She’s not safe.
Not from them. Not from herself. Not even from me.
And the worst part?
It might already be too late.
To be continued…