Daughter of the Veil

Chapter 1

SERIS

The iron burned.

It always burned, but this morning it felt like liquid fire wrapped around my wrists, eating through skin that had already scarred and healed and scarred again.

I pressed my face against the stone wall of my cell, breathing through the leather straps that cut into the corners of my mouth. The metal bit sat heavy on my tongue, rusty and bitter, designed to stop me from speaking. From screaming. From doing anything that might let the magic slip free.

Three months. Three months since Mira had smiled at me over breakfast, her dark eyes soft with what I thought was friendship.

Three months since she pressed a cup of tea into my hands and watched me drink it down, chatting about the weather while poison coursed through my veins.

Three months since I collapsed in her tiny cottage, paralyzed but conscious, listening to her count the silver pieces they’d given her for my location.

“Fifty silver for information,” she whispered to the soldiers who came for me. “But you promised a full gold piece if she was the one you were looking for.”

The leader called over a mage. He placed a hand on my shoulder and closed his eyes to sense my magic.

“She’s the one,” he said, and Mira had smiled wider than I had ever seen. “The last of the Veil-touched line.”

The last. Because they burned all the others.

Now I live in a cage built for monsters. Blackstone Keep squatted on the edge of the kingdom like a diseased growth, all black stone and iron spikes, designed to hold the worst of the worst. Political prisoners. Rebels. Things that used to be human. And me.

The guards called me “the Wretch” because I wouldn’t tell them my name. Because I bit the first three who tried to touch me, leaving teeth marks that scarred. Because I’d rather be nothing than give them the satisfaction of knowing who I really was.

But I wasn’t nothing. That was the problem.

The magic stirred under my skin like a living thing, restless and angry.

It had been doing that more and more lately, pressing against the iron shackles that were supposed to suppress it.

The chains were inscribed with runes that should have been enough to contain any Fae-blood’s power, but mine was different. Older. Wrong.

I’d always known I was different. The otherworldly magic pulsing through my veins and steaming off my skin put most on guard.

Even before they knew what I was, I was an outcast. Other children had thrown rocks at me, calling me cursed, demon-spawn, freak.

Their parents crossed the street when they saw me coming and made warning signs behind my back.

My mother tried to hide it. She taught me to keep my head down, my mouth shut, my magic buried so deep it felt like drowning. “You’re special, Seris,” she whispered on the nights when the power writhed under my skin like snakes. “But special things get hunted. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

I promised. Right up until the day they dragged her through our village, tied her to a stake, and set her on fire for the crime of being a Fae of the Veil.

The memory came with a familiar stab of pain, sharp enough to make my magic flare.

The iron chains hissed against my skin, steam rising where they touched.

I bit down on the metal bit, tasting blood, forcing the power back down.

Control. Always control. Because the alternative was burning everything to ash.

Footsteps echoed in the corridor outside my cell. Heavy boots on stone, moving with purpose. I counted them out of habit, four guards, based on the rhythm. They’d been coming more often lately, checking on me, whispering to each other when they thought I couldn’t hear.

The King’s impatience echoed in the guards’ shorter tempers and the increased frequency of their visits.

I’d caught fragments of their conversations over the past week. Something about rebel settlements in the north. Places that needed to be pacified. The king’s war with the neighboring kingdoms was going badly, and he needed a weapon that could tip the scales.

He needed me.

He deemed the remaining Fae perfect targets to test his new weapon.

The thought made my stomach twist. I’d heard stories of Fae who were forced to use their magic for the crown.

They burned out from the inside, their minds shattered by power they couldn’t control.

The lucky ones died quickly. The others spent their last days drooling and empty-eyed, more ghost than person.

But I wouldn’t get that mercy. My magic was too strong, too old, too connected to things that shouldn’t exist anymore. They could use me for years before I broke. Maybe decades.

The footsteps stopped outside my cell. Keys jangled against the lock, and I closed my eyes, breathing through my nose. The leather muzzle reeked of the last person who wore it, fear and desperation and the metallic tang of blood. I wondered what happened to them. I wondered if I wanted to know.

The door creaked open. “Time to go, Wretch.”

I didn’t look up. Didn’t give them the satisfaction of seeing the unease that must have been written all over my face.

Instead, I focused on the way the stone felt against my cheek, cold, rough, and real.

Solid things. Simple things. Things that weren’t magic or prophecy or the weight of a dead bloodline pressing down on my shoulders.

“I said, time to go.” A boot kicked my ribs, not hard enough to break anything, but hard enough to hurt. “King’s waiting.”

Four guards. I’d been right. Two with swords, one with a crossbow, one with a staff that hummed with suppression magic. They weren’t taking any chances.

I wore a black tunic beneath the chains, stiff with old blood and grime. It hung loose on my frame now, heavier than it used to feel.

The one who kicked me, Captain Morris, I’d heard the others call him, grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. The chains around my ankles made walking difficult, but not impossible. They wanted me mobile. They wanted me functional.

They wanted me compliant.

“Cooperate, and this goes easy,” Morris said, his breath hot against my ear. “Fight us, and we’ll drag you unconscious. Either way, you’re going to do what the king wants.”

I met his eyes then, letting him see everything I thought of him and his king and this whole rotting kingdom. He stepped back, just a fraction, and I filed that reaction away. Even muzzled and chained, I could still make them afraid.

Good.

The corridor stretched ahead of us, lit by torches that cast restless shadows on the walls. Other prisoners pressed against their cell doors as we passed, some reaching through the bars with desperate fingers. They whispered things I couldn’t quite hear, but their voices followed us like prayers.

Or curses.

“The Wretch,” someone breathed as we walked by. “They’re taking the Wretch.”

“Poor girl,” another voice said. “She’s just a baby.”

“Baby nothing,” came a third voice, bitter and knowing. “That one’s got demon blood.”

I kept my face blank, my eyes forward. Let them think what they wanted. It didn’t matter anymore.

As we climbed higher, my black tunic caught on one of the chains, tearing slightly at the hem.

We climbed stairs that spiraled up through the keep’s guts, past empty chambers and abandoned guard posts.

Blackstone Keep was falling apart, just like everything else in this kingdom.

The stones were cracked, weeds growing through the gaps.

Water dripped somewhere in the darkness, a steady rhythm that sounded like a heartbeat.

Or a countdown.

The higher we climbed, the more my magic stirred.

It could sense something, freedom, maybe, or just the absence of so much suppressive stone.

The iron chains grew heavier with each step, fighting against the power that wanted to break free.

My skin burned where they touched, leaving marks that would scar.

Just another reminder of what I was. What I’d always be.

“Almost there,” Morris said, and there was something in his voice I didn’t like. Anticipation. Hunger. Like he was looking forward to what came next.

That scared me more than the chains. More than the muzzle. More than the knowledge that, in a few hours, they’d force me to burn people I’d never met for crimes I didn’t care about.

We reached a landing where two corridors branched off into darkness.

Morris took the left path, leading us toward sounds I recognized, voices, movement, the scrape of metal on stone.

The room that had become the site of my pain was close.

I could feel it like a weight pressing down on my skull, all that power and authority concentrated in one place.

The king was waiting.

My magic pulsed against the iron chains, and for a moment, I almost let it loose. Almost let it tear through metal and stone and flesh until nothing was left but ash and memory. It would be so easy. So simple. Just stop fighting. Stop controlling. Stop caring about the consequences.

But then I thought about my mother. About the last words she said to me before they dragged her away: “Don’t let them make you into what they fear. Don’t give them that power.”

I’d made her a promise. And I’d kept it for seven years, through hunger and cold and the kind of loneliness that ate you from the inside out. I could keep it a little longer.

Even if it killed me.

The corridor ended at a massive door carved with the royal seal, a crown wreathed in thorns. Very subtle. Very him. Morris knocked three times, and something heavy shifted on the other side.

“Enter,” came a voice that had haunted my nightmares for months. King Aeron Thorne, architect of genocide, murderer of my people, destroyer of everything good in this rotting kingdom.

The door swung open, and golden light spilled out, bright enough to make me squint after so long in the dark. Beyond it lay the throne room, all soaring columns and glittering tapestries, beautiful in the way poisonous flowers are beautiful.

And there, sitting on a chair carved from black stone, was the man who killed my mother.

He smiled when he saw me. “Ah, the famous Wretch. Right on time.”

Morris shoved me forward, and I stumbled but didn’t fall. I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Around us, the court watched with hungry eyes, nobles and mages and hangers-on who fed on cruelty like parasites.

“Do you know why you’re here?” the king asked, his voice echoing off the vaulted ceiling.

I stared at him through my lashes, memorizing his face. The weak chin hidden by a carefully groomed beard. The pale eyes that had never seen a moment of real hardship. The soft hands that had signed death warrants for thousands.

“No? Allow me to explain.” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Tonight, you’re going to help me solve a little problem. Some rebels in the northern territories have been… resistant to my rule. They’ve hidden themselves away in caves and forests, thinking distance will protect them.”

My blood turned to ice.

“But you, my dear Wretch, are going to show them how wrong they are. Your magic will burn them out of their holes like smoke. Every man, woman, and child who dares defy their rightful king.”

The magic under my skin turned violent, pressing against the iron chains hard enough to make them smoke. Several courtiers stepped back, and I heard someone whisper a prayer.

“Oh yes,” the king said, noticing my reaction. “I know exactly what you are. A daughter of the Veil-touched line. The link to powers that once almost destroyed our world. Do you have any idea how long I’ve been searching for someone like you?”

Too long, apparently.

"The ritual chamber is prepared," he continued, settling back on his throne. "The targeting crystals are aligned. All you have to do is let that pretty magic of yours off its leash, and by dawn, the resistance will be nothing but memory and ash."

I closed my eyes and thought about children sleeping in hidden caves. About mothers holding their babies close, singing lullabies to keep the dark at bay. About fathers standing guard with weapons they'd never used, hoping against hope that tomorrow would be different.

They were going to die because of me. Because I was too weak to fight, too broken to escape, too afraid to let the magic loose in ways that might actually matter.

"Take her to the chamber," the king said. "We begin in three hours."

Morris grabbed my arm again, his grip tight enough to bruise. As we turned to leave, the King called out one last time.

"Oh, and Wretch? If you're thinking about being difficult..." He gestured to something behind his throne, and my heart stopped.

Four Fae children, not even ten years old, hung by their feet.

They hung from chains just like mine, their young faces bruised and swollen, clothes torn and bloody. The King had given me a choice. Kill the children you can’t see or save the ones you can.

After I witnessed my mother being burned at the stake, I spent a few years clawing for survival as a slave.

When I was able to escape, I moved forward without looking back for months.

My body gave in near a small village on the outskirts of the kingdom.

I was discovered by Mira, someone I thought was my friend, and others. I thought I had found a new family.

I was both right and wrong. Mira had sold me out, and the others who had helped me were taken and executed. Because they brought me food when I was hiding in the forest outside their village. Because they showed kindness to a monster.

"They all die if you don't cooperate," the king said casually. "Slowly. Creatively. I have such talented people working for me these days."

One by one, their eyes met mine across the throne room, wide and terrified.

I wanted to scream. Wanted to tear the muzzle from my face and burn this whole place down around us. Wanted to unleash everything I'd kept locked away for seven years and watch it reduce the king and his court to nothing but shadow and smoke.

Instead, I nodded.

Because that's how monsters become what they are, trying to protect those around them.

Morris dragged me from the throne room, and the door slammed shut behind us with a sound like thunder. Or a coffin lid closing.

Three hours.

In three hours, they'd come for me, and I'd burn people I'd never met to save the four innocents that were right in front of me. I'd become everything my mother had died to prevent, everything the kingdom already believed I was.

I was going to become their weapon.

But as they dragged me back down into the dark, one thought kept echoing in my mind like a promise:

If I was going to be a monster, I'd be the kind that chose who deserved to burn.