Its head is the worst part—not because it has one face, but because it has dozens. They push through the skull-flesh like tumors, each frozen in a different moment of agony. A child's face weeps beside an old woman's silent scream. A warrior's snarl melts into a mother's desperate plea. The faces shift positions constantly, pressing forward through the creature's skull-meat before sinking back, only to emerge somewhere else. Each mouth moves independently, whispering fragments of last words, final prayers, death rattles that never quite finish.
The thing's torso splits open vertically from throat to groin, revealing not organs but a writhing mass of smaller creatures—pale, grub-like things with human teeth that gnaw constantly at the edges of the wound, keeping it from healing. Black ichor drips steadily from it’s central maw, and where it hits the ground, the stone begins to dissolve.
Its limbs are wrong—too many joints, bending in directions that make my eyes water to follow. The hands end not in fingers but in bone spurs that have burst through the flesh, each one stained dark with old blood. When it moves, I hear the wet crack of breaking cartilage and the sucking sound of meat sliding against meat.
"Oh, that's new," Kaan observes with the kind of calm that comes right before violence. He shifts Banu's weight in his arms, and I see him calculating. He can't fight while carrying her. Can't use his full power without dropping her.
The creature lunges.
I don't think, just act. My light magic explodes outward in a wave that meets the thing mid-leap. The impact sends shockwaves through the Veil, but the creature doesn't die. It screams—a sound that carries the anguish of a thousand trapped souls—and comes at us again.
Elçin moves to intercept, her blade already wreathed in her own formidable power. Steel meets nightmare flesh, and for a moment they're locked together—my cousin's warrior's determination against pure distilled fear.
"Go!" she shouts at us. "I'll hold it!"
"Like hell," I snap back. Because I've lost too much already. I won't lose her too.
But more creatures are converging. Shadow-things with blade-limbs and hunger that predates thought. The massive horror behind us draws closer, its approach marked by the Veil's screaming protests.
We're not going to make it. The truth crystallizes in my mind, sharp and undeniable. Not all of us. Someone has to stay behind, has to hold the line long enough for the others to escape.
"Nesilhan, no." Kaan's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. Through our damaged bond, he feels what I'mthinking. "Don't you dare. Don't you fucking dare volunteer for martyrdom."
"Someone has to?—"
"Not you." His shadows pulse with desperate intensity. "I've fucking lost enough."
The raw pain in his voice stops me cold. Because beneath the possessiveness and the darkness, beneath everything wrong between us, that pain is real. That loss is real.
The binding tugs sharply, and I turn to find Yasar watching me with an expression I can't read. Those eyes hold something that makes my skin crawl—not quite hunger, not quite calculation, but something between them that I've been too overwhelmed to examine.
"There's another way," he says quietly. Too quietly for the chaos around us. "If you'd stop fighting the binding for just a moment. Let me?—"
"No." The word comes out flat, final. Because Banu's warning still echoes in my mind.That's not calculation in your eyes when you watch her. That's hunger.
"Nesilhan, please. I can get us out. All of us. But I need?—"
A creature crashes into our circle, all teeth and malice. Kaan's shadows tear it apart, but the effort costs him. I see him waver, see exhaustion crack through his iron control.
Banu makes a sound—half whimper, half groan. Her eyes flutter open, unfocused, and blood bubbles at the corners of her mouth. She's dying. We rescued her from that cursed prison only to watch her die running through the Veil.
"Fuck this." The words tear from my throat. "Everyone hold on to someone. Now."
"What are you—" Elçin starts.
I don't explain. There's no time. Instead, I reach deep into my core, drawing on every reserve of light magic I possess. Thepower that's sustained me through impossible choices, through grief and rage and survival.
It's dangerous to use this much. My body isn't built to channel this level of power—not without Kaan's shadows to balance it. The last time I pushed this hard, I burned myself from the inside out.
But I'm not losing anyone else today.
The magic erupts from my core. Golden light and living shadow intertwine, spiraling outward in patterns that make the Veil's geometry look simple. I feel it reaching, searching, finding the weak points in reality's fabric.
Through the binding, I sense Yasar's shock. Feel him trying to channel my power, to direct it through our connection. I slam walls down between us—mental barriers that make the binding scream in protest—and keep control of my own magic, thank you very much.
"Nesilhan, you'll burn yourself out!" Kaan shouts, but he's gripping my arm now, and I feel his shadows responding to my light. The bond between us—damaged, broken, wrong—suddenly finds its rhythm. His darkness and my light don't fight each other. They dance.
The exit shimmer grows closer. Or maybe we're moving faster. Hard to tell when reality keeps rearranging itself, when the Veil's geometry folds in on itself like a paper crane collapsing. The ground beneath our feet ripples between solid stone and vapor, between here and nowhere, and each step requires faith that there will be something to land on.
