He dismissed me with a flick of his fingers.
As I turned, Gabriel was already at my side. “He bled,” he said under his breath.
“Yes.”
We both said nothing after that.
The music continued. The nobles drank. And Kaelith sat atop the throne, expression calm, gloved hand resting lightly on the arm of the throne.
Across the ballroom, I caught sight of Lysara and Santiago mid-spin—the former a flash of deep crimson silk, the latter smiling wide enough to fool anyone watching.
A normal night, for anyone looking in. But something had shifted. I could feel it in my bones. Change—unseen, unstoppable—had already taken root.
“You look far too serious for a celebration,” came a voice just behind me.
I turned. A woman in emerald silk stepped closer, her smiletoo knowing. A noblewoman I had once pulled from the fire of a riot.
“Ask me to dance,” she purred. “For old times’ sake.” Her fingers grazed my arm, lingering. I didn’t move.
“I remember a time when you would’ve jumped at the chance. When we used to?—”
I caught her wrist. Firm, but not cruel. “That was a long time ago,” I said evenly. “And you are not who you were then.”
She blinked, taken aback. But I didn’t stop.
“You once carried Eryndis’s sigil. Stood shoulder to shoulder with those who bled for her. And now you bow for coin and comfort. You’re holding on to scraps, Elira, and even you know it.”
Her mouth opened. Closed.
I released her wrist. “Enjoy your evening,” I said. And walked away before she could make me regret saying it.
I began down the corridor toward my chambers, but something shifted beneath my skin—an old hum, low and magnetic, dragging me off course.
The shadows moved differently, curling toward Kaelith’s wing.
I stopped at the door to his chambers. It was shut, locked with more than iron, woven through with spellwork too intricate to be seen.
And still, I heard it. A heartbeat. Low and distant.
It faltered. Then fell silent, long enough to make me still. Long enough for quiet to turn into dread.
I pressed my palm to the door. The magic responded with a crackle of resistance, heat blooming along my skin.
So I stepped sideways—into the space between.
My body remained in the corridor, but my shadow peeled free, separating. It slipped forward without weight or sound, pulling my awareness with it as it threaded through the narrow fractures in the warded door.
This was not simple shadow-walking. It was crossing—a traversal through the Veil.
To move this way was to become something else. Essence without anchor. A creature made of dusk and breath and memory, caught between what is and what lingers.
Light recoiled. Magic trembled. My limbs no longer felt like limbs at all, only extensions of will moving through folds of forgotten space.
I was not unseen. I was simply…unheld.
Only those marked not just by shadow, but by Eryndis herself, could cross this way. Shadow Elves could slip through cracks of light and dark, yes—but the Veil was different. Older. Hungrier. A place even Kaelith’s wards could not touch. And it knew me.
The Veil demanded blood as its compass. Wherever I had shed it—on battlefields, in temples, on thresholds—I could return. A tether drawn in iron and shadow, guiding me through the folds between. And tonight, it pulled me here.