Nightbound (Veil Breaker #1)
Prologue
They called it Achyron, after the river of woe that once flowed through the gods’ own shadowed dreams. A land of impossible beauty —star-touched forests, crystal lakes deeper than memory, mountains crowned with thunder and of terrible wounds.
Long ago, the gods of the pantheon divided Achyron among their favored children.
The humans were gifted growth and abundance, their cities blessed with golden harvests and gentle seasons. From their kingdom of Eryndor, they built spires of marble and glass, prayed at altars shining with flame, and sang songs of triumph over death.
The fae claimed the wild places, weaving moonlight and power into magic older than any mortal tongue. They ruled hidden glades and crystal groves, kingnd lords of beauty and cruelty in equal measure.
The vampires were shaped from immortal hunger, scorned even by the gods, banished to the deepest shadows and the edge of the continent. They took their sustenance in blood, their courts dripping with red-stained jewels and secrets. Although not forced into darkness they preferred it.
But what was divided could not remain apart.
In secret, the fae and the vampires found each other, drawn by forbidden desire. Passion. Power. Blood. From those unions were born the nightbound— children carrying the fae’s grace and the vampire’s deadly magic in a single, unstoppable form.
The gods saw this as an unforgivable defiance. A union that shattered their careful order, so they cursed the land of Achyron.
They poisoned harvests in Eryndor, sending plague and famine to its once-rich fields. The humans watched their children starve, their prayers to silent gods going unanswered.
They poisoned the moon-kissed groves of the fae, blackening their forrests and waters twisting their magic into nightmares, leaving them lost and fragmented.
They sent endless storms across the nightbound kingdoms, scouring their towers with lightning, driving them to feed upon their own kind to survive.
From that devastation rose shattered thrones: Nythra, Calanthe, Eryndor, and Vierlla.
Generations have passed, yet Achyron still bears the scars. Its forests are full of whispers, its rivers choked with nightmares, its people still searching for a way to mend what the gods themselves chose to break.
And deep within the Veil in that thin place between death and life, something stirs.
What is broken rarely heals without a price.