Chapter 23 #2
She stops mid-sentence. Her gaze goes unfocused, eyes going distant as though she’s looking through the walls rather than at them. Her pupils dilate, swallowing the silver of her irises until her eyes appear almost entirely black.
“Velentha?” I warily move towards her, careful not to scare her. I know being jolted out of any kind of vision can be not only jarring, but potentially harmful.
Her breath catches, a thin, fractured sound tearing from her lips like something’s breaking deep inside her chest. Her hand shoots out blindly, fingers clawing for purchase until they slam against the window’s edge.
She grips it so hard the old stone gives way with a sharp crack, splintering beneath her palm.
Panic overruns reason before I even register moving. I seize her shoulders, the heat of her skin startling against my hands. “What do you see?”
Her eyes snap open. The silver in them blazes, incandescent, like molten metal. “Shadows. Chains. Moonlight.” Her voice trembles, each word dragging out of her. “And blood. A lot of blood.”
A chill rolls through the chamber, causing goosebumps to erupt over my flesh. The air suddenly feels suffocating, pressing against my ribs so painfully I’m afraid I won’t be able to take another breath.
Lucifer mutters from somewhere behind me, his voice low and grim, “Well, that sounds promising.”
I pull her into me, lowering my voice instinctively, as if speaking too loudly might shatter whatever fragile connection she still might have to the vision. “Can you see her?”
Velentha’s throat works as she swallows. “No. Just darkness.”
The words hit like a hammer. Darkness. Not death. Not yet, anyway. Just an unknown absence. It’s enough. It has to be enough.
I drag in a slow, steadying breath, forcing the frigid air into lungs that feel way too tight. “Then we get her out before the darkness swallows her whole.”
Velentha moves from my hold, her hand trembling as she reaches down and presses her fingers to the ruined runes. “Then we’d better hurry. Because whatever’s waiting for her in that realm—it didn’t want her returning home.”
Lucifer frowns, the expression tugging his mouth downwards in a way that looks unfamiliar on him. I stare at him, dread already coiling in my gut. “What?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. His gaze drifts to the lifeless circle on the floor, then to Velentha, then back again—calculation sharpening his features.
“If they’re in trouble,” he says slowly, “we can’t just pull them back. Someone will have to go through and retrieve them,” he mutters. “We don’t have another anchor to open a leyline into Aurora’s Veil. We can only open it from this side.” He glances at Velentha. “Right?”
“Shit,” I growl, scrubbing a hand over my face as the reality settles in. “He’s right. Someone will need to be at the other side to help them.”
“But none of us can pass through the Gates,” Lucifer continues, almost too casually. His eyes slide deliberately towards Velentha. “Unless…”
Understanding hits me hard. “No,” I snarl instantly, stepping forwards into his vicinity. “Absolutely not. No fucking way.”
Lucifer’s gaze lifts to mine, cool and unbothered. But something sharp glints behind it. A challenge, maybe, or simple indifference to my authority in this moment.
“Aran,” Velentha says softly. “I’m the only one that can travel through the Gates.”
My chest constricts. “And if the Six are watching?” I shout, the words tearing free before I can temper them. “If this is a trap? If they’re waiting for exactly that?”
Her eyes go distant again, silver dimming as she reaches inward, searching the threads of possibility.
Panic drives me to follow, instinctively calling on my own sight.
The world fractures into shards of futures, images flashing too fast to grasp.
Gateways yawning open. Darkness. Movement.
Blood. I force the visions towards the Gates, towards Aurora’s Veil, towards anything that might show me what waits on the other side.
But nothing stays long enough to understand. Just haze. Static. Absence.
When the room snaps back into place, my head is pounding and Velentha is watching me with wary concern, as if she knows exactly how hard I just pushed. Since Saevyn fractured my memories, my sight is harder to access, and even harder to control. Using it takes more energy than it should.
“I saw nothing,” she says quietly. “I just saw myself passing through the Gate, and then it goes hazy again.”
“I saw the same thing,” I admit hoarsely. “Just the crossing. Nothing beyond it.”
Lucifer shifts his weight against the wall, his wings splayed out against the old rock, his arms folding loosely, though the tension in his posture betrays how invested he actually is. His gaze flicks between us, impatience simmering beneath the surface.
“Well,” he says, voice edged with darkness, “either we act, or we wait here while they bleed out.”
My heart hammers hard enough to make my vision pulse, his words landing hard.
“I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” I mutter, even as the argument sounds weaker to my own ears.
Because doing nothing feels worse. Because every second we hesitate is another second Daisy is alone out there. And Maelker.
Velentha walks over to me and places a hand on each of my cheeks. “Aeshira, let me do this. If they’re in trouble, I’m their only way out. Lucifer has god blood in his lineage, so he can open the leyline on this side. Daisy and I will open it in Aurora’s Veil. We can’t leave her there.”
I sigh heavily, and nod once, dropping my forehead to hers.
She’s right, I know she is. No matter what, whether Daisy and Maelkar are in trouble or not, they need help opening a new leyline connection.
I know Velentha can do this; she has mastered going undetected for centuries.
But I still can’t shift the uneasy feeling in my gut.
Because I’m sending my wife, my Aeshira, into the wolves’ den, and I have no way of protecting her, or my queen.