Chapter 39
Thirty-Nine
Veilstrider
Something was wrong.
The Commander screamed. His agony tore through me like a heated knife tearing open my skin. It shredded every single piece of calm in me.
I jumped off the bed, rushing to where he knelt on the floor. The sun had dipped behind the horizon, casting the room into darkness that the Commander was bleeding into.
“Stay away!” he roared, flinching away from me as if I were the danger. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t leave him like that. His canines flashed in a vicious snarl as I knelt next to him.
A show meant to scare me, but it didn’t work. A shadow lashed out and coiled around my hand, sinking in with brutal, icy agony. I choked on a gasp but splayed my hand against his chest anyway.
“What is happening?” I managed, voice cracking. I needed an answer. I needed him to look at me.
His shadows burned like ice as they tore at my skin, but I forced my wrist towards his mouth anyway. It was the only thing I could think to do, the only thing I had to offer.
If my blood could anchor him and soothe the darkness, I would give it. All of it, if I had to.
A guttural sound ripped from his chest, half-beast, half-man as he struggled with control.
He squeezed his eyes shut before his canines pierced my skin and cold agony dug into every nerve as his darkness crawled up my arm.
Warmth oozed through his bite as he drank from me. But his venom wasn’t enough, I bit down on a cry. He had endured this pain just to be near me. I could endure it too, for him, even if his darkness consumed me.
His suffering crept into me, it was like a hole inside his chest I somehow knew I could fill. I closed my eyes and imagined my pool of shimmering blue magic pouring towards it.
The bond ignited, flooding between us in a searing rush.
His panic slammed into me, raw and suffocating as his pain coiled around my heart like a vice. My magic thrashed in response, filling the empty hole in his chest—
His mouth ripped away from my wrist. “Stop,” he breathed, horror creeping into his voice.
I couldn’t stop. Not when his shadows were tearing holes through him. Not when the bond pulsed like a second heartbeat between us. Not when I could feel how much he needed me.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, though my voice shook.
His eyes widened, broken and beautiful as my power seeped into the gaping cracks in his soul. I felt it leaving me, my own soul weakening.
“No,” he rasped.
He tore himself away from me, breaking my touch.
His shadows recoiled, slamming back into his body hard enough to send him flying.
The connection snapped. My magic came rushing back all at once, violently rejected, flooding my chest like a dam wall exploding.
I pitched forward onto my hands, gasping down ragged breaths.
“Don’t ever do that again,” he wheezed as he rolled onto his side, voice raw and filled with terror.
I lifted my head and the room spun. “You needed—”
“I need nothing worth losing you!” He yelled over me, hands fisting as if he were barely restraining himself. “Do you even know what you were doing?”
I shook my head, tears swimming in my eyes.
“Your magic was trying to fix me by sacrificing yourself.” He gathered me into his lap, arms wrapping around me with a gentleness that broke me. The Fire Fates words echoed through my head, “the destroyer, if she does not save her Fated Mate.”
I curled against him, fitting as if I were made for him. The room felt quiet. Heavy. The only sound disturbing the darkness was the uneven sounds of our breathing.
“I will not survive my darkness,” he whispered. “But you will.”
Realisation crashed into me with a heartbreaking squeeze, sharp enough to steal the air from my lungs.
“It won’t be for long,” I whispered, repeating his words from yesterday.
The words tasted like ash. That feeling in the bond.
The quiet ache. That relentless, hollow sorrow that radiated through him.
The way he held me like someone memorising a goodbye.
“You’re dying.”
He didn’t say anything, just stroked my hair softly and letting his silence stretch too long.
“It’s true, isn’t it? That’s why the bond feels like you’re mourning something. That’s why the shadows are getting worse—”
My voice broke, tears welling in my eyes. I had just found him.
His eyes fluttered shut and he held me close, brushing a kiss onto my forehead.
“My death…” He paused and opened his eyes, tears shimmering like starlight against the endless abyss of his gaze. “It is the cost of having you, Little Drownling. One I am willing to pay,” he said, voice low and ragged.
I sat up straight, anger snapping through me, bright and vicious and I made sure he could feel every single drop of it.
He had said it so calmly, as though his death was already decided. As if I would allow it.
“Why is your darkness killing you?” I demanded. Maybe if I knew why, I could help him fix it.
A breathless chuckle escaped him. “I cannot tell you—”
An impatient knocking wrapped against the door, shattering our quiet moment.
It swung open with force and Solas held his forearm over his eyes as he barged into the room.
“I love you like a brother Solas, but if you look at her, I will rip the eyeballs from your skull,” he snarled as he pushed me behind him to shield me with his body. Solas grimaced, turning his back to us completely. “I am not looking,” Solas snapped urgently. His usual light-heartedness, gone.
“What is it?” The Commander asked carefully.
“Veilstriders.”
That one word shot the Commander into action. He stood and grabbed his pants, pulling them on with speed. I knew without asking that it was more of Helion’s creations and hurried to dress quickly. The Commander grabbed his onyx sword that rested against the wall.
“Stay here,” he said as he followed Solas into the corridor.
I scoffed and followed him through the bedroom doors, two strides to their one. If he thought I would let him out of my sight from now on, he was wrong.
He stopped abruptly and turned, looking down at me wearily.
“Get back to the room,” he said on a rough exhale.
“No,” I challenged, squaring my shoulders and raising my chin. “People are dying because these monsters are hunting me. I will not cower and put more innocent blood on my hands.”
“It is not safe, Lyra.” He rested his hands on my shoulders and bent to kiss my forehead. “Please, do not make me use the bargain.”
I stiffened, stepping back and glaring at him with venom.
“Do it,” I hissed. “I will find a way to break it. And when I do, I will cut off your balls and feed them to the monsters.”
“We are wasting time,” Solas said, clearing his throat to stifle a small smile despite himself.
The Commander sighed heavily, shaking his head as he leaned down, took my hand, and pulled me down the hallway.
From now on, we would fight together.
We jogged down a sloped path carved into the mountain, boots slamming against stone. I had been unconscious when the Commander carried me through the gates and seeing what was behind those walls was breathtaking.
Nestled safely within the semicircle outer wall that joined with the mountain—or what should have been safe—was a town. But it was unlike anything I had ever seen before.
Lanterns twinkled, and strings of golden lights crossed the cobblestone streets like a festival frozen in time. Flowers bloomed from vines that had grown over the cottages. It was beautiful. Magical. But the people were frantic.
People scattered. Running. Hiding. A shopkeeper dragged in his baskets of fruit, slamming his shutters. Women ushered children through doorways, bolting them shut. The entire town was sealing itself in.
A bell tolled, deep and thunderous. It rolled over the town in a warning that made my mouth turn dry.
“Fuck.” The Commander’s head snapped towards the sound.
“They are inside the wall!” Solas shouted, picking up speed.
A child darted in front of me, almost making me trip. A little boy, no more than four. Tears streaked his chubby cheeks as he ran to an abandoned toy he must have dropped on the street. A small wooden horse, laying on its side.
“Leo!” a woman screamed from a doorway; arms stretched for him helplessly.
The street suddenly went silent, as if something had stolen the sound.
The Commander pulled his sword from its scabbard. The energy pulsing off it made my stomach churn, and I took an involuntary step backwards. An eerie ringing sounded in my ears. The complete absence of noise.
Gooseflesh tore across my skin. The street was not empty. Not quite. It was wrong. Like the air itself was holding its breath.
Solas eyed the dark as if it might lunge for him, gripping his sword with two hands as the lights above us flickered.
I walked towards the child, but my steps faltered the moment I saw it.
At the far end of the street, just past a flickering lantern stood a Veilstrider.
Too thin to be human, too tall. Its charcoal skin stretched tautly across its body, making it hard to see in the dark.
Its limbs stretched long enough to scrape against the cobblestones if it were walking.
But it stood eerily still. The little boy scooped up his toy and ran for his mother—but the door slammed shut, locking him out as she sealed herself inside the safety of the cottage.
He stood next to me with tears streaming down his face.
When I looked back up at the Veilstrider, it was gone. As though the world had blinked and misplaced it. The back of my neck prickled. I spun—
It was right there.
Where there should have been a scream, there was no sound. Just a suffocating pressure, like static crawling under the skin, prickling down the spine. Fear. Pure, distilled fear spread through me like an infection. I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe.
But the Commander was already there, stalking the creature. Shadows erupted with violent force as he sprinted towards us.
The monsters head snapped towards the Commander as if it could sense him. It had no eyes to see, but it knew he was there.
I blinked and it was gone. Erased, as though someone had wiped it off the face of the world.
The air suddenly felt lighter and the pressure vanished from my skull. The street brightened by a single shade as noise bled back to my ears.
The boy’s sobs echoed through the street, the sound no longer distorted by the strange magic.
The Commander stepped forward, shadows coiling violently around him like a storm that had not decided who to kill next.
His eyes were still black, hunting, searching for the Veilstrider.
“Cowardly things,” Solas muttered. If that thing had feared the Commander, enough to blink out of existence… What did that make him?
I crouched in front of the small boy, his bottom lip trembling as he clutched his toy to his chest. His large hazel eyes shone up, glittering with tears.
“You’re okay,” I told him and scooped him into my arms. The poor boy trembled violently, his skin too cold for the summer night.
“What is wrong with him?” I asked, wiping an almost frozen tear from his chubby cheek.
The Commander placed his hand on the boy’s forehead and bowed his head. The sorrow in his eyes as they crashed into mine took my breath away.
“He is dying.” The Commander said solemnly. “Veilstriders induce a fear so intense that it freezes their victims.” The little boy had stopped crying, his head resting against my chest weakly, his little breaths blooming against the night air.
“No. I will not let him die because of a monster made to hunt me!”
A scream echoed in the distance.
“More of my people are dying, Lyra.” The Commander looked at me, willing me to understand.
“Go. Save them. But I am not leaving the boy.” He nodded once. There was no time to argue.
“Keep her safe.” He said to Solas as his shadows consumed him, pulling him into the darkness.
“We should let the boy’s mother say goodbye to him,” Solas said softly, gesturing to the cottage.
I ignored him, squeezing my eyes shut and placing the small boy on the ground in front of me. I was a fucking goddess; I would save this boy even if it killed me.
I imagined my well of power, the swirling pool of glittering turquoise in my chest. I pulled at it, urging it to my hands that pressed over the boy’s weak heart.
I did not know if this was going to work.
But he was dying, and I was willing to try anything.
My hand turned warm and tingly as my power thrummed along it, sinking into the small lifeless body.
Nothing happened. Just the silent weight of a child slipping away and the hysteric wails of his mother who had opened the door.
“No,” I whispered, shaking. “No, no, no—come on.” The turquoise glow deepened, pulsing with streaks of shadowed black as I poured more power into him.
“Lyra,” Solas warned, voice soft and patient. “Goddess or not, if you force too much—”
“Stay back!” I snapped, tears burning hot trails down my face. “I will do this.”
My power surged again, hard enough to make my teeth grit together in effort.
The boy gasped. A shallow, fragile sound. Then another. Then another. His little chest hitched under my palms, and colour seeped back into his cheeks. He blinked up at me, eyes no longer hazel, but a clear crystal blue.
A sob burst out of me, half laugh, half relief, as I gathered him back into my arms. “There you are,” I whispered, “you’re safe.”
Solas knelt beside us, eyes wide with awe and something dangerously close to reverence. “Holy Gods,” he breathed out as the boy’s mother fell to her knees next to me. I tried to pass her the boy, but she stared down at him with fear filled eyes, muttering something in the Fae language.
“Take him,” I said, but she snarled at me. Solas took the boy from my arms, speaking to the hysterical mother in their native tongue. I stood on shaky legs and began walking towards the feeling of fear.
“Where are you going?” Solas called after me. I lifted my chin, breath shaking, but resolve like steel hardening beneath my ribs.
“To kill some fucking monsters.”