Veil of Ash (The Veil Saga #1)

Chapter 1 Broken and Bound

brOKEN AND BOUND

The bare bulb burns my eyes. Too many days in solitary confinement have turned light into a weapon. I force my gaze to stay open long enough to count threats. One man sits across from me at the metal table. The door is at my back, the only exit in the windowless room.

My pulse stutters as I search for the blonde woman with the sadist’s smile—the one who catalogs my screams and scars like data points. She isn’t here.

Relief—small and fragile—surfaces for just a moment. It doesn’t settle before the man across from me speaks.

“Brielle Breslin.” His voice is smooth. Deliberate. He has neat hair and an expensive suit that doesn’t belong in a place like this. His gaze falls to the restraints around my wrists, then to the chains around my ankles.

Dread opens one eye from where it slumbers in my chest. I don’t like that this stranger knows my name. Names mean recognition. Recognition means expectations. And expectations mean pain.

I try to place him—to remember if he watches or participates in my torture.

The first time they brought me into this room, I had been na?ve. I hadn’t fought or even questioned them as they attached countless wires to my skin, claiming they would help them understand my “condition”—what landed me here in this hell chamber.

The first jolt of electricity made me scream until my ears rang. The next left me sobbing.

I lost track after the twelfth.

Eventually, I passed out, but they resuscitated me… and did it again.

And again.

And again.

Until pain became routine.

They didn’t see me as human—only an experiment. An abomination.

I don’t know how long ago that was. I’ve lost track of how many weeks I’ve been here.

At first, I counted every sunrise, as if measuring time would keep me connected to the outside world, as if it might keep me sane.

That was before another woman tried to carve out my left ovary with a piece of scrap metal.

Before I spent weeks in the infirmary, where no one would tell me if it was day or night.

Before the stretches of darkness in isolation, when I couldn’t tell if hours or days were passing.

When I’m not in solitary confinement, my life is an endless loop: roll call, cold showers under watchful eyes, folding laundry while praying they’ll feed me. Then free time. The period I dread most. When the guards look away and allow survival of the cruelest to determine who lasts another night.

Prison.

I never imagined I’d end up here. Never thought I’d endure torture and starvation. Or sleep with the lights on and a sharpened toothbrush under my pillow.

Before this, I was another twenty-one-year-old running on caffeine and stubbornness, juggling college and two part-time jobs while battling a constant fear of wasted potential.

Then hell’s doors swung open and dragged me inside.

I keep fighting not to lose myself, but there are hours—entire days—when I don’t recognize my own thoughts or actions. Whatever freedom and normalcy I once had have been swallowed by terror and corruption that rule here.

Somehow, I keep pushing. Keep reminding myself that kindness exists outside these walls, but despite my efforts to care, I sometimes don’t—can’t. Survival has become my only focus.

Everyone knows why I’m here.

Four days after I arrived, a woman tried to attack me in my sleep. I woke to her weight pinning me, the glint of metal in her hand. As she tried to bring the weapon down on me, her skin was encased in flames.

I don’t know who was more horrified—her or me. But the guards in this hell-forsaken place weren’t afraid.

They beat me unconscious, then strapped me to a chair in a room filled with people in hazmat suits, as though breathing the same air as me might contaminate them.

They were convinced I’d set her on fire—that I’d intentionally caused the burns that ravaged her body.

I had nothing and no explanation. No control. Just the echo of her screams.

I begged. I pleaded. No one listened.

Weeks later, it happened again in the cafeteria.

I no longer know if I deserve freedom.

I no longer know if I deserve this hell.

“What happened to her?” A second male’s voice behind me makes me pivot. Fast.

Even before losing track of time, I learned never to allow anyone to stand behind me.

This place has taught me a lot.

Too much.

The man has reddish-brown curls and a neatly trimmed beard framing his scowl. He doesn’t try to hide his disgust—not for the room. For me.

Relief hits me. I hate that it stings—that my ego bruises from the same assurance that he won’t try to touch me or demand that I change in front of him like previous guards have.

Behind him stands another man. Quiet. Watchful. The light shadows his face, but I don’t need details to recognize a threat.

My pulse slams against my ribs, screaming at me to move back, but my feet feel like they’ve been glued to the floor.

My fear is still loyal to those who have hurt me.

If I knew how to set people on fire on purpose, I doubt these fears would still consume me, but I don’t understand how it works—only that when it does, few stand a chance.

“We’re not here to hurt you,” the man in the suit says calmly.

The shadowed man steps forward so I can see his dark chestnut hair and peculiar amber eyes. He raises both hands, palms open, and for a heartbeat, the world calms.

It shouldn’t.

There’s something about his composure—an authority that terrifies me. Still, something inside me quiets for a single breath. It isn’t trust, and it isn’t hope. It feels like the pause before pain.

“My name’s Daire Ashbourne,” he says, his voice low and steady. “We’re here to help you, Brielle.” He’s taller than the man beside him, tall enough that even at my five foot nine, I’d have to look up at him if he stepped closer.

In another life—another place—the way my breath catches and my heart races might have meant attraction. Here, it’s only fear.

“She looks feral,” the bearded man says.

I haven’t seen my reflection in what feels like a lifetime, but if I look half as crazed as I feel, he’s right.

“It’s only been a few months,” the man in the suit says. “She’ll be fine.”

A few months?

It feels like I’ve been here for years.

Decades.

Centuries.

“Brielle.” The man in the suit straightens his tie, addressing me again. “Like Daire said, we’re here to help you.”

Hope blossoms in my chest like a snowdrop, pushing through late winter’s frost. I want to believe him so badly, but I’ve heard these same lies in the lifetimes months that I’ve been here.

The bearded man runs a hand over his stomach. “Where are the others? We need to go.”

I take a measured step back, the chains around my ankles clinking. “Where are you taking me?”

The man in the suit smiles. Pleasantly. Ignorantly. “We’re from the place you belong.”

Dread unfurls, twisting low in my stomach.

“But first—” He motions to the open file in front of him. “Have you noticed anyone else here who shares your... abilities?”

Adrenaline ripples through my veins as I shake my head. I hate everyone here, but I wouldn’t condemn them to the torture these people will inflict.

The bearded man steps closer.

I quickly double the distance between us.

“You don’t need to be afraid of us. We’re like you,” the man in the suit says, flicking his wrist. The file closes without him touching it.

I glance from him to the file. Ice cracks in my chest, and unwanted hope blooms again. “Do it again,” I whisper.

He grins and lazily gestures toward the chair across from him. Its metal legs rise several inches off the cement floor, hovering midair.

I take a step forward, looking for strings, a lever, something to explain this trick.

“What are you doing? How are you making it float?” I demand, but it sounds like a plea.

“My name is Karraelas Tacitus, and I’m an Elemental, like you.”

Like me.

His words echo in my head, colliding with months of being called a freak, a monster, an abomination. These men—strangers—are claiming they share whatever curse turned me into a killer.

But could this be another test? Another way to break me?

Yet the chair still hovers. The file moved without being touched.

“What does that mean?” My voice is a whip, working to separate truth from lies.

“There’s much to explain.” Karraelas peers around the room, looking uneasy. “We’re taking you home.” He pushes his chair back and stands. “We don’t have much time.”

Home.

The word cuts like a knife—exposing something raw and aching before hope and fear tangle into something too tight, too familiar.

“They’re here,” Daire says, waving a hand over the room. An invisible breeze flutters against my skin. “We need to go.”

The door rattles.

I step back.

“Daire, take her hand,” Karraelas instructs.

I shake my head and turn to the door, making it only three steps before movement flashes at the edge of my vision.

There’s a fourth man.

I have no idea where he came from. It’s as though he materialized out of thin air.

He couldn’t. I condemn myself for the thought.

I didn’t look. I let him nearly get the jump on me.

This man is smaller than the other three, but his glower has warning bells ringing in my ears.

“Touch me, and you’ll regret it,” I warn, feigning confidence.

“Fucking hell,” the bearded man says. “Why can’t this ever be easy?”

“What in the hell’s going on?” A gruff voice on the other side of the door demands. Keys shake in the lock.

“We don’t have time for diplomacy,” the bearded one says.

“She doesn’t know how to control herself.” Karraelas straightens his collar.

“Brielle—” Daire reaches for me.

Before his hand touches mine, the fourth man lunges.

His hands slam against my chest, and pain explodes through my body—so consuming I can’t scream or cry as it races up my spine, down my arms, before crushing my legs with the same agony.

I begin to crumple, my arms bending at irregular angles as my stomach twists and convulses.

“That wasn’t necessary,” Karraelas says.

Strong arms catch me before I hit the cold cement. I’m scooped up, Daire’s face a fractal in my vision, until the agony eclipses the light and the world turns black.