When I emerged into the sealed chamber, the magic in the walls recoiled. The space rippled briefly before finally stilling. Shapes returned. The haze cleared.
And I saw her.
Aurelia lay upon Kaelith’s bed. Her breathing was rapid, uneven. Her lips parted, cheeks flushed with fever. Something was wrong.
I knelt beside her, shadows curling protectively around theedge of the bed. I reached forward, my form still woven of smoke and will, and placed my hand against her cheek.
The moment I touched her, the world folded inward. Her breath slammed into my lungs, her fear knotted tight in my chest, her shadow-sick pulse roared through my veins—and for a heartbeat, none of it was hers alone. The Veil didn’t know the difference between us… and in that moment, neither did I.
31
Aurelia
I was surroundedby uncomfortable stillness.
I stood in a place where every stone knew the sound of my screams. A hollow chamber carved of old marble, gilded only by the breath of winter air leaking through cracks. Candles burned in sconces shaped like hands.
At the center of the room stood a table, old and worn, its surface stained with blood.
And atop it, an unmoving girl—thirteen, all angles and fear, my own body smaller than it ever had in life.
Skin pale as bone. Hair black as pitch.
Me.
I hadn’t been a child for years, but on that table I’d looked like one. I’d felt like one. They’d made me one.
The dress I wore was torn, the fabric soaked through with something darker than blood. My eyes were closed. My hands slack at my sides. And running the length of my body—just as it did now—was the jagged scar. Brow to chest. A fresh wound, still weeping in the dream.
The scar had been carved by the figures who now ringed the room—men cloaked in dark, their faces hidden. They had stepped forward the night my parents were dragged into the square. After the ash of my parents’ bones fell over the pyre.
One approached now, blade glinting in the candlelight. The blade was meant to leave something permanent where innocence used to live. Each line they carved shimmered briefly, then sank beneath the skin. Sigils I did not yet understand.
A voice rose from the shadows:“She is not one of us.”
Another followed, sharper.“She carries what we cast out.”
And a third, dripping with contempt:“Then bind her to the dark. Let her rot within the skin she was given.”
I tried to move. To scream. I bit the side of my cheek—no pain. I tried to wake.
But the dream pinned me down. My body would not obey. My voice caught in my throat.
From the edge of the circle, a figure stepped forward.
A boy. No older than twelve. Dark curls clung to his cheeks, his eyes far too solemn for his age. He looked at me once.
Then, with hands steady where no child’s should be, he pressed his palm to my chest—just above the jagged wound, where blood still pulsed.
With a single finger, he drew a mark. A crescent moon cradled in shadow.
It glowed faintly, woven of starlight, then sank beneath my skin…and vanished.
In the space between one breath and the next?—
Light broke through the chamber like glass. And I was somewhere else entirely.
I stood in the woods now.