Chapter Forty
I open my eyes and am shocked to recognize this realm of the afterlife.
I sit up from a ground that is water-like, yet is not water at all. Everything is black, yet…not. I am ensconced in a colorless void that is endless, formless. The familiar fog hovers over the rippling floor at my feet, beckoning me closer to the veil of mist where colors talk.
Where a poison-induced version of myself teetered between life and death as the Mirefiends threatened to clip the strings of my life.
I know Bathara’s entrance exams are known to be lethal, but nobody said anything about venomous creatures lurking at every corner, waiting to pump toxins into you.
A burst of color materializes in the hovering mist, catching my eye. With slow steps, I approach, never taking my eyes off the deep pink and rich purple as it swirls and shifts. A voice soon follows.
“ You’re back ,” it says, low and deep. A voice of ages. A voice that is worn and beaten and tired.
“And you’re real,” I reply. With a cocked head, I take another step, peering into the veil as far as I can see—which isn’t very far given how dense the mixture of mist and fog is.
“ I am. ”
“Can you show yourself?”
“ If you come to me. ”
I frown. “And how do I do that?”
A bright white light appears, flaring brilliantly. “ Step through the mist.”
My brows pull together as I observe the light carefully. “You said you have much to tell me—that there is much I should know.”
“ There is, and I do.”
I fold my arms across my chest and set my features. “So tell me, then.”
“ No ,” the voice declares, leaving no room for negotiation. “Not here. It requires too much of me.”
I glance around the place of beginnings and ends. “And where is here, exactly?”
“ The Veil ,” he answers. “ You have the gift . Just like your mother. ”
The shock washes over me in two parts. The first layer is composed of denial, rich and hot. That what this hauntingly smooth voice is saying isn’t possible—I am hallucinating.
Yes, that must be it. I am hallucinating from the venom, just as I probably hallucinated when under the Mirefiend’s poison.
But clearly my mind wants to play Merikh’s advocate, because as soon as the thought crosses, it’s instantly countered with one simple fact…
Veilreaders sip from a potent elixir typically featuring some form of a hallucinogenic or mind-altering substance. It’s the only way they can enter the Veil. So, the poison, the venom—it’s the reason why I’ve been able to enter the Veil.
But…
I can’t be a Veilreader. It’s just not possible…
right? I mean, I know nothing about it. Not in any way that counts.
My mother…she never said much about her ability.
She didn’t like to enter the place called the Veil.
She only did so out of necessity—which was so, so rare.
And she certainly never told me the things she saw or how she managed to interpret them.
I wasn’t even allowed to see her on the days she entered.
I would sleep with Gray in his family’s chambers, my mother picking me up in the morning and immediately taking me to her favorite greenhouse, after.
The second layer of shock comes in the form of questions and anger.
I’m angry because I don’t understand. I’m angry because there is so much about myself—about my mother —I clearly know nothing about.
Because this…person, thing—whatever the hell lingers behind the misty fog, the Veil —knows enough of my mother to reference her ability.
An ability she told very few about.
A cold fire burns my skin. “How did you know my mother was a Veilreader?”
“ I told you ,” the voice answers, the colors shifting in the mist with it. “ There is much that I know. And much that you should, too .” That white light brightens, pulsing. “ Now, come.”
“Why did you heal me that time? How did you heal me? Who even are you, and what the hell do you want from me?”
The final question strikes me like a blade.
“ So many questions. Step through, and I will tell you anything you want to know .”
As if I conjured the memory, the light floating within the fog charges with a series of bright, vivid colors.
A scene forms, and I see an Abdite standing over me—though it's not the Abdites from the valley.
There are flames burning behind the gnarled-looking wielder, whose eyes are blackened shards of burning coal.
It speaks two words, sharp and clear: A gift .
“ The Veil responds to you .” That sultry, male voice almost sounds impressed. “ Please. We are wasting time. Come to me. I will show you how magnificent you truly are.”
I shake my head and back away.
The memories ravage me. The Abdites. Meiji. Their lunatic ravings. The dark voices whispering as something sinister entered the air. I still hear it in my nightmares. Erhé akta maht.
And of course, the explanation I’ve never understood.
You are the key. And the one hunting you will stop at nothing until you are his. That’s why we were sent. To recover the key.
“You…you sent them, didn’t you?” My voice is a harsh whisper. “Those Abdites in the valley. You are the one they call Master.”
A long pause .
And then—
“ I am .”
It’s like a blow to the gut. “Someone died because of you.” My voice is a low, broken rasp. “Because of me.” I flick my eyes back up to the shrouded vapor. “What could you possibly want with me?”
But before he can answer, I feel a small tug, and then a forceful yank, and I am being pulled backwards, away from the Veil. Away from the swirling mist and fog—the floating colors.
I hear his final words like a softened parting. “ Fine. If you will not come to me, then I guess I will have to come to you .”
It takes a moment for everything to come into focus.
For Nuri’s face, her dark brows pinched together with concentration over me, to fuse together into a cohesive image.
“It’s almost out,” I think I hear her say.
I pry my tongue from the roof of my mouth and try to speak.
Nuri shoots me a sharp look. “Don’t try to speak or move. I’m erasing the venom from your bloodstream, and I don’t want to lose its trail.”
My head throbs, and I gasp for air. I stare up at a canopy of leaves washed in hazy light, and I blink as I attempt to make sense of the last…
Wait, how much time has passed? Where is Gray? And Marcella? What of the Adder?
“Calm down,” Nuri says in a soothing voice from above. “Just keep breathing. I’m almost finished.”
I force myself to do as she asks and keep breathing. Deep and thorough. I command my lungs to expand and retract, trading fear for hope. I try to focus on the twinkling night sky instead of the raging thoughts in my head, but…it doesn’t work.
I can enter the Veil. Which makes me a Veilreader, just like my mother was.
That hadn’t been a dream or a hallucination. It was real. The voice is real. It belongs to the person who sent the Abdites after me. To the one they call Master. The one they claim won’t stop until I am his—whatever that means.
And I haven’t the slightest clue what to make of all that. Where I should even begin to do something with that information. Because it feels like, somehow, I know even less than I did before.
I certainly have more questions than I did before.
“There,” Nuri says, leaning back into a crouch on her heels. “All finished.”
Tentatively, I blow out a breath and sit up. My head reels, my vision swimming with fuzzy dots. But eventually, the sensation washes away, and I flex my fingers and wiggle my toes, relieved to find everything working as it did before.
I immediately scan the terrain once I’m capable of doing so, looking for Marcella and Gray. My eyes find that crimson pool of blood almost instantly. Only, Marcella isn’t lying in it. No one is.
I crane my neck as far back as I can, and when I catch a glimpse of blue scales, I whirl around completely, scurrying backwards on my hands and knees.
Nuri grabs me, stilling my movements. “Don’t make too much noise.”
“What is going on?” I ask her, my eyes roving across the massive length of the Blue-Horn’s frozen body.
“Your friend, Gray, has the Adder locked in an illusion. It thinks it's frozen in a block of ice or something.” She flicks her eyes over toward the east, near a line of staggered trees, and I follow her gaze.
Gray stands in front of the Adder, unmoving. Like he, himself, is frozen by a block of ice. His arms are adorned with golden veins, and his pushed-up sleeves reveal his wielder’s mark glowing brilliantly in the night.
But not as brightly as the gold awakened in his eyes, like gilded suns.
For a moment, I’m too stunned to speak. Because that is Gray, the boy I have known and loved all my life, but that looks nothing like Gray.
“I healed my wounds as quickly as I could,” Nuri explains in a hushed voice.
“And when I returned, I found him like that. He seems…transfixed. I don’t think he can move so long as he keeps the Adder under the illusion.
I could barely get him to utter the words, ice block .
” She blows out a quiet sigh. “I was only able to piece it together because I touched the Blue-Horn’s scales, and they are as cold as a frozen river. ”
I whip my gaze back to her. “So that means he is creating a visceral response?”
She dips her chin. “He must be. It’s probably why it’s taking so much of his magic and concentration.”
I look back at him, my lips parted slightly. “And Marcella? Where’s Marcella?”
“Unconscious, but alright. I’ve healed her most concerning wounds and moved her to a safer location. All she needs to do now is wake up.”
I could cry from the relief washing through me at those words.
“What should we do?” I ask Nuri, swiveling my gaze between her and Gray. “How do we help him?”