Light imploded before sound arrived. The air split down its center with a sickening crack. Above, the oculus blazed white as wind poured down from nowhere and everywhere at once, tearing garlands from the rafters and ripping ceremonial flowers, their petals scattering like ash. Torches flared, flames clawing the air in wild arcs.
The marble pedestal shrieked as it split apart, a jagged seam opening in the center of the throne room—a wound in the fabric of the realm. The tear did not stop at the dais. It carved straight through the central aisle, slicing between benches, rending a path out the throne room doors and into the courtyard beyond, as if the very land itself were being unstitched.
Ella’s breath seized.
Hysteria swept through the throne room. Bodies surged toward the doors in a crush of silk and terror. Lords shoved past their own attendants, ladies lifted their skirts and ran, and guards fought to guide the spiraling crowd toward the outer halls. Someone screamed for the gods.
But a small knot of Orchid soldiers held their ground. She saw her father across the room shouting orders to the guards who hadn’t fled.
Demetrius reached Ella first, still standing on the dais. Nira stumbled up behind him, smoke coiling from her palms in thin gray ribbons. Marisol arrived at Ella’s other side, eyes wide but steady.
“We're with you, Your Majesty,” Demetrius said. None of his usual flourish colored the words. His voice was tight with determination.
Ella swallowed hard. “No. Not all of you.”
Their heads snapped toward her.
“Demetrius, Nira, go. Get the courtiers out. Your magic will not hold against this.” She touched Demetrius’s shoulder and then Nira’s trembling hand. “Your gifts will not help against creatures of the Veil. I have seen them. Save our people. That is an order.”
Demetrius hesitated, anguish flickering across his face. But he bowed and dragged Nira toward the fleeing crowd, smoke trailing behind them as they disappeared into the chaos.
Marisol stayed rooted beside Ella, flame flickering between her fingers like an instinct she could not suppress.
Jakobav appeared at Ella’s side in a rush of cold air and steel. His voice was low and certain. “You sure?”
Ella met his gaze. “Marisol can amplify flame. That could turn the tide. She stays.”
Marisol straightened, shoulders lifting with quiet pride.
Around them, Dravaryn steel answered the call. Maeren stepped in with her jaw set for war. Thane positioned himself at Ella’s left, blade drawn. She didn’t see Soren or Savina, but her gut told her they weren’t far.
They formed an imperfect half-circle around the split in the marble just as the wind bent inward and the seam pulsed. Thedais was wide enough to hold their line, yet suddenly it felt too narrow, too fragile, with the Veil’s wound carved straight through its heart. Ella leaned forward and peered into the tear, revealing depths so dark they seemed to swallow the torchlight whole.
A howl rose from the darkness. Not a sound but a violation, a shriek she had heard once before and prayed never to hear again. It split the air like a blade. Every person standing stumbled back from the seam, instincts driven by terror older than reason.
A creature slid through.
Towering. Twisted. Human only in the cruel suggestion of its outline. Black sinew clung to ridged bone, a vertical seam glowing like an unhealed wound where a face should have been. It moved with a predator’s grace broken by the spasms of a marionette.
“Veil Leach,” Ella whispered—the word slipping out before the court could blink.
“Raise the flame shields!” her father roared, his voice cutting through the wind from across the throne room.
The guards obeyed, fire lifting in a unified wave, yet the blaze faltered even as it formed, their shields paling before the darkness that surged against them from the tear in the Veil.
The Leach moved sideways in a blur, faster than eyes could follow, and struck. One guard collapsed with a wet, gurgling sound as the creature latched and drank, pulling not only blood but heat and color and the very spark of life, until nothing remained but a heap of fine ash crumbling over scorched marble.
Panic fractured the room. Screams filled the air as the remaining courtiers stumbled over toppled benches and fleeing guards. She spotted her father pushing through the chaos,crossing the hall instead of fleeing, driving the remaining Orchid guards into a tight defensive line at the foot of the dais.
“Ella.” Jakobav’s voice was steady, an anchor in the chaos.
“I don’t understand,” she said, breath catching. “The red sun is still days away—we should’ve had more time.”
“Time’s gone,” Jakobav snapped. “Stay behind me.”
She stepped down from the dais. Her crown didn’t shift, as if it knew this was the hour it had been set for. Fire leapt to her hands from where it always waited. She cast it in a clean, blinding line, and the flame struck the Leach, burning white. The creature swelled, then came again with a renewed hunger.
Fuck. Did it just get bigger?
