Chapter 9
The carriage had not been for the King.
Instead, Lord Veylen stood in his place, a spider poised at the center of its web. Torchlight danced along the stone, carving shadows across the sharp planes of his face.
Ilys halted in the doorway. “Such a late hour.” She noted, keeping her voice even.
Lord Veylen smiled, all teeth, the glint of his Ebon Choir ring catching in the dim glow.
“Sometimes Death needs a message delivered rather quickly.”
The words slithered between them, smooth and unhurried.
Ilys did not answer. Instead, she merely inclined her head and followed him from the Sanctum, her steps quiet against the stone.
She had walked these halls a thousand times before, but under Lord Veylen’s watch, they felt narrower. More suffocating.
When they stepped outside, the cold air bit at her through the folds of her cloak. A waiting driver pulled the door open and Lord Veylen gestured her forward, his ring catching the light once more.
“After you.”
He followed, settling across from her with the ease of a man who had never been denied a single thing in his life.
The carriage jerked forward.
Lord Veylen, of course, could not abide stillness. “You seemed disappointed that it was me who had come for you.”
She kept her gaze fixed on the long, dark road, the torches lining the streets casting flickering shadows along the path.
“Perhaps you miss the King’s attention,” he mused.
Still, she did not speak.
Veylen, undeterred, let his silk voice unravel. “He’s a very busy man, or else I am sure he would attend to you more often. You are such a darling of his.”
Ilys finally turned, meeting his gaze through the dim carriage light. Her eyes glinted sharp and as cool as a cat’s. “I find your common conversation beneath my office, Lord Veylen,” she said smoothly. “Perhaps entertain yourself by some other means.”
Veylen’s lips thinned, the amusement in his expression curdling. His fingers twitched where they rested on his knee, before rising to absently toy with his Ebon Choir ring, twisting it against his skin. Then, almost idly, he caught at her skirts, rubbing the fabric between his fingers.
“So grown,” he inveighed. “So sure.”
Her pulse hammered. Heat rose sharp and indignant in her chest, but her body betrayed her; still and rigid, Ilys found herself unable to drive his hand away.
The carriage lurched, jostling him back and breaking the nearness. He didn’t reach for her again.
As they neared the square, the air shifted.
First came the smoke, curling under the carriage door.
Then the acrid stench, layered with pitch and rot.
And finally, orange light bled across the rooftops like an open wound.
Ilys straightened, brow knitting as she caught the first flicker of orange light dancing beyond the rooftops.
Then came the noise.
Screaming.
Shouting.
The wailing of children as they clung to their mothers, pulled along by frantic hands.
Men moved through the streets in clusters, some fleeing, others pressing forward.
Shadows writhed in the firelight, some with torches, others with weapons.
Chants echoed through the square, fractured and discordant, their meaning lost in the chaos.
She turned to Lord Veylen, curiosity winning out over disdain. “What is happening?”
He smiled. A slow, predatory leer. “Death is not pleased, Veilwalker.”
She did not move, but her gut coiled tight.
Veylen leaned back into his seat, watching her with quiet amusement as the carriage rattled closer to the square.
“Thank the Fates,” he congratulated, tilting his head, “that he sent you to unravel this untidy mess.” His smile widened, flashing white in the firelight. “I would share more," he added, a mocking lilt to his voice, “but I find it would be beneath you.”
The carriage lurched to a stop.
Outside, the Caer Amon burned. The city of executions—the place she’d walked to countless times, her narrow glimpse of the world beyond—now writhed in flame, consumed by its own undoing.
The carriage door swung open, and heat poured in. Smoke curled in the air, abundant and noxious, stinging Ilys’s eyes even beneath her veil. Lord Veylen wrapped his fingers around her arm, pulling her to the street.
“By all means, don’t hesitate now,” he condescended, his grip bruising.
The square ablaze with torchlight, cowed while flames licking hungrily at the edges of buildings. The air roared with voices, a frenzied mix of rage and fear, the sound crashing in waves against the stone walls.
At the center of it all were six men.
They knelt on the scaffold, wrists bound in heavy iron chains, their clothes torn, dirt and blood smeared across their faces.
They had been dragged here, beaten before they ever reached this place of execution.
Guards stood in a dense line around them, shields locked, spears braced, but even they looked uneasy.
The crowd pressed close, their eyes gleaming in the firelight, pressing forward toward the men and chanting.
“Tear the Veil, break it wide,
It steals our sons, it steals our lives!
Tear the Veil, break it wide,
It steals our sons, it steals our lives!”
Ilys stepped forward, her boots meeting the wood with a dull thud. She scanned the prisoners. Some trembled. Some spat at her feet. One, a man with a shattered nose and blood crusted at his temple, met her gaze through the veil. His lips curled back.
“You are no servant of Death," he sneered. “Only the King’s dog.”
Shouts, clashes of steel, the distant splintering of wood. The fire crept ever closer.
She exhaled laggardly and unsheathed her sword, the edge gleaming even in the smoke-drenched air. The prayers had to be spoken. The rites had to be done.
She stepped before the first man. He did not plead, did not flinch. His eyes met hers through the veil, unblinking, unafraid.
She lifted her blade. “Thy thread is cut.”
Steel met flesh. Blood surged over her hands like spilled wine from a broken altar. She drove the blade deep into his heart, twisting. His body convulsed, then stilled.
“Vasha.”
The second bowed his head, lips moving in silent prayer, his shoulders trembling.
“Thy name is lost.” The blade found its mark, piercing through ribs, tearing into his heart. A gasp breaking. “Vasha.”
The third snarled, rage burning bright in his eyes.
“The Veil shall hold.” She severed his fury with a single, brutal thrust. Blood gurgled in his throat as life drained from his body. “Vasha.”
The fourth sobbed, shuddering as he collapsed forward. She plunged the sword into his chest, swift and merciful, uttering the sacred words.
The fifth looked skyward, searching for a sight unseen.
“Thy name is lost.” This time, she drove between his ribs. He choked once, breath catching, then gone. “Vasha.”
His body still jerked as she stepped toward the next. The mob roared around her, a wall of sound and flame, smoke clawing at the sky.
She hesitated.
The final man’s chest rose and fell in ragged gasps, his eyes wide. She pressed the tip of the blade to his sternum.
“The Veil shall hold.” She muscled the hilt home. “Vasha.”
His body sagged, another thread severed, another soul claimed.
The people had not come to witness justice. They had come to see blood, to stoke their own rage. Ilys barely had time to sheathe her blade before she heard a woman’s voice, sharp and filled with loathing. “Fucking bitch.”
Spit, stocky and hot, slid down the fabric that separated her from the world.
A heartbeat later, someone rushed the scaffold.
The first blow knocked her off balance. The second drove her to her knees.
Hands tore at her cloak, wrenching her backward with such force that the fabric choked at her throat.
Fingers clawed at her arms, ripping at the seams of her sleeves, nails raking over her skin like talons.
Her head snapped to the side from a fist cracking against her jaw, the impact ringing through her skull.
A boot slammed into her ribs. Pain exploded through her chest, white-hot, and her breath ripped from her lungs.
Another blow, then another. Her knees buckled.
She lashed out—an elbow catching someone’s nose, a vicious kick sending another staggering back—but it felt like striking a wall.
The mob surged.
A hand wrenched her veil, twisting it tight, yanking her down.
Her skull cracked against the stone. Stars burst in her vision.
A knee drove into her back. A boot smashed into her thigh.
She twisted, gasping, her fingers scrabbling against the blood-slicked ground as fists pummeled her sides.
A hand wrapped around her wrist, twisting savagely, forcing her arm back at an unnatural angle.
The veil meant to sanctify her now choked her, reeking of blood and spit.
A heel ground into her ribs as the guards shouted, but they may as well have been miles away. The mob had her. The city had her.
Then the flames whimpered, swallowed up in a second. A wind swept through the square. The air froze in her lungs and a shadow darker than smoke drew itself from the scaffold’s edge, vast and endless, curling into the outline of a man.
Death stood before her, pressing a palm to her face.
Ilys surrendered to the darkness.
The world suffocated in as she came to: heat, cloth, breath.
Her veil strangled her, each inhale a ragged negotiation.
Blood, sweat, and predatory smoke clogged her senses.
Pain lacerated her body, sharp and jagged, blooming in her ribs, her arms, her legs.
Every inch of her throbbed, the echoes of fists and boots still reverberating like a war drum through her bones.
She tried to move, but her limbs felt distant and unresponsive, a puppet with her strings cut.
A swollen eye cracked open.
Blurry figures swayed in her vision. No one touched her now, but they circled like scavengers, their voices a muddled hum.