Chapter 57 Heart of the Veil
Heart of the Veil
Asterious
The prince watched as his sister rode away, the footsteps of her undead guard still a haunting off-beat drumming in the distance.
He seethed, wishing he’d ripped out Wyran’s throat when he had the chance.
But he had to focus. He thought of Caramyn as he felt the familiar knock of rage at his heart’s door.
Where once she was the very thing that sent him spiraling, now she was the only thing keeping him grounded.
The icy snow on his hands as he climbed out of the hole shocked his system, snapping him out of his blinding fury.
He surveyed the treetops for the bird. A screeching caw rang out in the distance, and he followed it as fast as his feet would carry him across the mix of snapping leaves and crunching snow.
The sound of his breathing became the only steady sound around him, each gasp a white puff of frosty morning air that sped up the longer he ran.
Left. Straight. Right. Over a log and through a thorn thicket. Right again.
His boots nearly slid on the frozen ground throughout the tight turns in this labyrinth of trees. Shadows danced around him, calling with their song carried on the branches, luring him, but he stayed fixated on the bird above.
With each footfall, he became increasingly disoriented. He knew not which way was right or left anymore. The Shadows’ haze thickened, a deep dark smog slowly choking out his vision. He ran. He sprinted. He silently begged the damn bird to slow down. But he kept running.
The black and white forest blurred as he forced himself on, following only glimpses of black feathers flashing through the sunlight between branches.
He could no longer hear the chirping birds or crackling leaves.
His thoughts were void of words. Only visions.
Visions of her. And of what he’d do to them if they hurt her.
He could only stare, eyes locked onto black wings of hope darting through the trees.
The cold white ground disappeared beneath mist and shadow, a bleak thickness through which he waded, unharmed but not unaffected.
The raven’s call faded with each step, drowned out to the Shadow’s aria.
The clamoring echoes of the darkness grew maddening, an undeniable warning that he must be closer to the Veil than he’d ever imagined.
Like shrill violins, like shrieking widows, like the sound of war and blood, their wails split his ears.
A weight burdened his shoulders, tearing and tugging at the healing wounds on his back like an unwelcome passenger—but an expected one—as he raced to the Veil.
He gasped, the darkness so heavy it bound his very breath.
He ran beneath the crushing weight, each step heavier than the last. His bones cried out in agony as they struggled beneath the weight his muscles failed to hold back.
It was too much. Too much even for him. But not for a monster.
He could become it. There was no one around.
No one’s blood he could possibly shed. If he didn’t, he would not survive the weight of this darkness.
He would not reach the Shadowblood’s Blade.
He would not have the chance to break free of the curses that imprisoned him.
And he would not see her again. His mate.
He thought of her eyes. Those bewitching, haunting violet pools of peace, where surely whole dimensions ended and others began. Those eyes that had stared down on him from above, as her touch coaxed his body and mind.
And then he found the strength to summon the demon he always fought so hard to hold back.
The dark fog clouding his vision gave way to the keen eyes of a predator, sharp and focused, so that he could once again see the black wings guiding him above.
His fingers, curled into white-knuckled fists morphed into swooping razors rimmed with fur.
And his veins glowed silver as his Light magic tamed the Shadow coursing wildly within him.
Just enough. No further. The weight of the darkness tearing open his wounds became bearable.
It was enough. And for the first time, he walked the line between man and beast, and did something he thought to be impossible—he commanded the curse within.
He prowled the earth with savage speed, somewhere between animal and human, every sense and strength heightened to withstand the weight of the Shadows’ power. The wolf chasing the raven—to either his ruin or his salvation.
The smell of blood hit his senses, and he followed the scent to a dip in the forest floor where the Veil’s darkness lingered like a wall of Shadow in the distance, blotting out what few shards of sunlight broke through the claw-like canopy above.
Then he burst through a clearing, and the black bird swept up and soared out, lost somewhere in the black abyss.
Asterious dug in his heels, scraping into the earth as he skidded to a stop to find himself standing amongst trickling streams of blood that pooled into crimson puddles on the white snowy ground.
He followed the blood paths, like red ivy veins claiming the forest floor.
And there, even without his sharpened sight, he would’ve been able to see it clearly, but his wolf’s sight enhanced it all the more.
Lodged within a colossal ancient tree’s twisting trunk—no doubt the very tree against which his father had slaughtered the last Shadowblood, still dripping with blood as fresh as the day he was killed—was a sword with a glinting black blade and a golden hilt etched with symbols.
The Shadowblood’s Blade, forged by Shadow magic and sealed in Lightborn blood.
The great tree stood taller than any other tree in the Woods, its thick roots mingled with the blood streams on the ground, and its branches formed an archway that stretched over and across the Veil as far as the eye could see, as if the single, sacred source of its power.
As though this tree was the very doorway to Veil itself.
No—not a doorway. A heart.
Asterious shifted fully back to his human form, entirely at his own command, and stepped through the rivers of blood as his quivering hands reached for the hilt.
He had to believe this time would be different, but he feared a fate worse than pain.
What if he was not worthy or strong enough to remove the Blade?
What if he’d come all this way for nothing, and he’d led everyone he cared about right into the hands of his sister?
His outstretched fingers touched the hilt. There was no searing pain, no stinging ache that coursed through his body. It called to him, in the same way that Caramyn called to him, through some unseen tether that pulled him to it. As if meant for him, and him alone.
He wrapped his hands around the handle and locked his feet in place beneath him as he prepared to dislodge the Blade. He expected resistance. But there was none. Not even a little. The blade loosened and slid out from the black bark with ease, yielding to his slightest effort to remove it.
A living, breathing weapon, he felt its essence overwhelm him with the whispers of the last Shadowblood’s dying breaths.
The blood dried up before his eyes, the last of it flowing into the roots of crimson veins leading into the base of the Veil.
A force pulsed out from the Blade, sending a strange ripple through the air that quickly faded.
It had clearly broken at least one simple curse. But could it spare him from the other? He pulled down the collar of his coat, and his heart sank at the sight of his black creeping lines on his skin, still there, still one more stolen heartbeat away from claiming his fate forever.
Unchanged, with nothing left to keep him hoping.
And then the sound breached Asterious’ senses. Boots crunching on the snow.
He turned to face it—Wryan, sword in hand and unfeeling amber eyes on the prince.
“You think I didn’t expect you’d follow me.” Asterious spat, looking up through the ruffled locks of hair above his brow.
“It makes no difference, Prince,” he mocked the last word, a sly grin twisting across his face. “The fact is you brought me here. And now I know just where to bring Sinevia after I deal with you.”
“You may have trained me, but you’re a fool if you think you stand a chance against me, Wyran.” The prince stepped forward, weighing the sword and silently relishing the feel of a blade in his hand after so long without. At least he knew one curse was broken.
“Oh, I’m not here to try to kill you,” Wyran smirked.
“We of course know that would be futile, anyway. But luckily, your sister has much more fulfilling plans for you.” Ignoring Asterious’ perplexed expression, he stepped closer, hand on the hilt of his own sword.
“Besides, is that all I am to you, Asterious? Your trainer? Not the man who mentored you every step of the way after freeing you from your father’s prison? ”
“You manipulated me. You were no better than my father.” Asterious snapped.
“No, Asterious. That’s where you’re wrong.” Wryan shook his head, closing in. “I’m far greater than your father. Because I refuse to waste powerful resources when I see them. And I refuse to let someone who does stand in my way.”
Then it dawned on Asterious all at once. “You—you killed the king. Not Sinevia.”
“About time you figured it out.” A darkness overshadowed Wyran’s face as his mouth lifted into a smile, not a stitch of denial in his voice.
“Your father was paranoid. And lazy. He dealt with you the easy way. Locking you away in that prison and throwing away the key. But you see, it’s much more difficult to imprison the mind.
To create a slave that doesn’t even realize they are one.
” He grinned, touching the edge of his blade as he took another step forward.
“You think I’m your slave? You think you control me?” Asterious shifted, hands clenched on his sword, his world crumbling beneath his feet more and more with each word spoken.