Chapter 4 #2
Grim, veiled as always, barely inclined his head. “You are fixated on this,” he mused. “You never ask to hear about the necromancers or the immortals.”
“The necromancer makes me ill.” Ilys made a face, tugging absently at the hem of her gloves. “They never teach me about the Veilmarch. It feels like rabbit.”
Grim huffed, amusement curling at the edge of his voice. “Rabbit?”
“Yes.” She folded her arms. “Something kept from me, so now I must have it.”
“Do you understand the Veil?” he asked, sharp as a peck. “You must, before you can understand the March.”
“I understand it,” she said, though without conviction. In her defense, Mother Inrith had droned on endlessly.
He gave a low chuckle, half sigh, half amusement.
“Then you know the Veil is what steadies the weave. Think of it as the cloth stretched between worlds. When a life is cut, the thread slips through the Veil and feeds back into the Skein. Without the Veil, the threads would tangle, the pattern would collapse. That’s the balance it keeps: life on one side, death on the other.
And if you meddle by trying to preserve what was meant to be lost or undo what’s already been cut, you don’t just endanger a single thread. You snarl the whole loom.”
He went on, voice braced. “The Veyth, life threads, rest in the Veil until they can be carried back into the Skein. That is one of our charges, alongside Death.”
“You spend months just… moving dead people?” Ilys asked, eyebrows raised, her whole notion of the March tilting sideways.
He cleared his throat and leaned back, making himself comfortable. “The true March—what you’d call ‘moving the dead,’ you little chit—comes only at the very end. The rest of those months we spend walking at Death’s side, culling tainted threads.”
Grim shifted, rolling his shoulders. Then he asked, “Do you know why Death needs us, Ilys?”
“To aid his hunger for souls,” she answered, repeating a lesson.
She felt Grim’s smile even if she could not see it. “Not quite.”
He adjusted his gloves, the leather creaking in the quiet. “Death needs Veilwalkers because he is but a collector. He carries souls at the natural end of their life. When a being has unnaturally extended such life, he requires a Veilwalker to execute them so that he may collect.”
Ilys grimaced at this truth, her fingers tightening over the folds of her cloak.
“Then once a cycle,” Grim continued, “Death walks the souls he has gathered into the arms of the Fates. That is the true Veilmarch.”
Ilys released a heavy breath. “And you go with him?”
“We go with him,” Grim confirmed. “It is required of every Veilwalker.”
Ilys opened her mouth to push further, another question forming on her lips, but Grim let out a slow sigh and leaned back against the seat.
“I’m tired, Ilys.” His voice stretched softer, coaxed with finality. “Hush now.”
She swallowed her next words and sat back, letting the clatter of hooves speak where she could not.
Ilys stepped down from the carriage, the veil heavy over her face, dimming the golden light of the midmorning sun. A breeze stirred the banners that hung above the scaffold, pale and stitched with the sigil of the Veil.
The snow had melted, leaving the streets thick with mud, the scent musky and sulfuric. Buds had begun to form on the skeletal branches of the trees and the river ran full with the thaw.
The capitol people formed a loose semicircle around the raised platform, watching, waiting. Some hummed prayers under their breath. Others spat onto the muddy ground as Grim passed. Their hatred made no sound, settled like a second skin.
Grim ignored them. He climbed the scaffold’s worn steps with slow, steady movements.
The prisoner stood at the center, bound at the wrists, their breath coming quick and shallow.
Iron chains looped around their hands, and Ilys saw their fingers twitch.
Whether in defiance or terror, she did not know.
Ilys stopped at the foot of the platform, watching. She saw more now. The way the people turned their faces away as Grim drew his blade. The way their shoulders tensed, their breaths hitched, bracing for a pain not their own.
She noticed Grim's flickering hesitation, the shift in his stance, the tightening of his grip before he forced himself forward.
The prisoner did not beg. Their lips moved in silent prayer, eyes closing as Grim raised the sword.
Grim’s voice steadied as he spoke the words of the blessing, “Thy thread is cut.”
Ilys inhaled, then echoed, her voice softer, “Thy thread is cut.”
Grim did not waver as he continued, “Thy name is lost.”
“Thy name is lost.”
The blade came down.
A sharp intake of breath rippled through the crowd. A few hands lifted to mark the sign of the Veil, warding off the presence of Death.
Blood splattered the wooden planks, stark against the sun-bleached scaffold.
Then Grim spoke the final words, a low and measured decree, “The Veil shall hold.”
“Vasha.”
The body crumpled and the guards moved in to deal with what remained. The people turned away, shuffling back to their lives, some murmuring relief, others barely concealing their contempt.
Grim descended the stairs, bearing himself like a man twice burdened. Ilys studied him, seeing the way he carried regret, tucked into the quiet spaces of his being. She saw the way the people hated him. And she saw the way he welcomed it.
Without a word, she fell into step beside him, eager to return home and musing on why she had been desperate to leave.
Never had there been a more awkward dinner.
The table stretched between the small party, candlelight flickering along the dark wood. Ilys pushed her food in idle circles, the meal’s warmth unable to chase the memory of blood from the wood.
Grim ate in measured bites, his movements slow and methodical. Neither of them had spoken much since returning. The heaviness of the day clung to them both, thick as wool.
Then Baron strolled in. He paused just inside the doorway, gaze flicking from Grim to Ilys. He crossed the threshold with ease, holding a bottle aloft like a peace offering. He rested his chin on the top of Grim’s head, dotingly.
“Well,” he said, voice lighter than the air deserved. “You will never guess what I got my hands on today.”
Neither Grim nor Ilys responded. She blinked at him once and Grim didn’t bother to look up.
Baron plunked the bottle down at the center of the table. “Port. Half-decent, too.”
They offered no respite from the awkwardness.
He sighed and uncorked it himself, pouring three glasses without comment. The rich scent curled into the air, earthy and sweet, a small gesture of normalcy.
Baron slid a glass toward each of them. “Don’t worry, I’ll drink yours if it comes to it,” he promised, lifting his own. Grim finally glanced up, exhaling.
Baron took a sip, then leaned back with theatrical satisfaction. “So. Jorrin. You remember Jorrin? Face like a terrified hare, barely knows which end of the sword cuts?”
Ilys tilted her head, curiosity stirring. A mention of Jorrin was a sure way to her attention.
Baron grinned. “Today I find him trying to saddle a beast that clearly wants him dead. The horse is foaming. The boy is whispering sweet nothings like he’s wooing a blushing maiden instead of a demon whore with hooves.”
Grim let out a breath, half amused, half warning.
Baron ignored it, grinning wider. “The horse kicks him clean into the wall. Poor bastard’s ribs are broken.”
A sharp laugh escaped Ilys before she could stop it.
Baron continued, offering smaller absurdities from the day.
Complaints from the baker. A crow that shits daily on the western watch.
Sluggishly, the room warmed. By the time the meal dwindled, Baron and Grim were speaking in lower tones, while Baron kneaded the muscles in Grim’s hand and forearm.
Ilys tuned them out, nudging crumbs on her plate.
She glanced up. “May I be excused?”
“Where?” Grim’s reply arrived suspiciously.
She wavered, then shrugged, deciding not to play coy. “To see Rowenna.”
At that, Grim turned his veiled face toward her.
Baron, sensing the unspoken tension in the room, leaned back in his chair and drained the last of his port. His eyes steadily met Grim’s, communicating in their silent way. He mouthed, let her.
Grim’s posture eased. He caught Baron’s hand, pressed a small kiss against his knuckles, then studied her.
His fingers tapped once against the table.
His voice, when it came, sated with compromise, bid her be careful.
Yet what she wanted—what she ached for—was to be anything other than careful. Anything other than the Veilwalker.