“And just who are you?” Sinevia tilted her head, her unwavering gaze locked onto Caramyn. “Tell me like I don’t already know.”
Caramyn lifted her chin, but Asterious could see the way she subtly ran her fingers around her bowstring, the way she always fidgeted when she was nervous. “I am the Witch of these Woods. And you are a lost woman parading as Queen. The Veil’s power will not truly give you what you seek.”
“And how is it you know what I seek?” Sinevia laughed out the question, merely toying with her at this point.
“Because I once wanted it, too…” Caramyn’s brow hardened, and she clenched her fists at her side. “You want vengeance. You want the world to mourn with you for what you’ve lost. And you want the power to make it happen.”
Sinevia clapped her hands slowly, a low cackle escaping her red lips. “Beautifully put.” She moved her hands, summoning Shadows from the most obscure corners of the forest, and sent them spiraling toward Caramyn, who made no effort to move, but instead stood her ground and watched the darkness come for her.
Asterious held his breath, gripping the edge of a root so hard it snapped. He could jump out now and let himself transform, driven by animalistic need to protect Caramyn and destroy these traitors, and kill every single one of them in less than ten heartbeats. But then he’d be trapped forever. Fully darkened by his curse until all that was left of him was a bloodthirsty, raging beast. One more kill was all it would take to imprison him forever.
He had to trust she knew what she was doing.
The Shadows collided into Caramyn, before breaking apart with a deathly whistle and falling away as if burned, slithering back to the depths from which Sinevia had called them. Relief flowed from Asterious in the form of an exhale. At least he knew even Sinevia couldn’t turn the Shadows against Caramyn.
“Try again,Queen,” Caramyn taunted her with a sideways smirk just before dodging an arrow fired from Wyran.
“Don’t shoot her, you fool!” Sinevia reached across her horse and shot a burst of Shadow at Wyran, knocking his crossbow from his hands. By the time it hit the ground, Caramyn had once again disappeared, and Sinevia’s fury roared at Wyran and the Shadow Soldiers ahead. “Find that little bitch. If we have her, we have Asterious.”
57
Heart of the Veil
Asterious
The prince watched as his sister rode away, the footsteps of her undead guard still a haunting off-beat drumming in the distance. He seethed, wishing he’d ripped out Wyran’s throat when he had the chance. But he had to focus. He thought of Caramyn as he felt the familiar knock of rage at his heart’s door. Where once she was the very thing that sent him spiraling, now she was the only thing keeping him grounded. The icy snow on his hands as he climbed out of the hole shocked his system, snapping him out of his blinding fury.
He surveyed the treetops for the bird. A screeching caw rang out in the distance, and he followed it as fast as his feet wouldcarry him across the mix of snapping leaves and crunching snow. The sound of his breathing became the only steady sound around him, each gasp a white puff of frosty morning air that sped up the longer he ran.
Left. Straight. Right. Over a log and through a thorn thicket. Right again.
His boots nearly slid on the frozen ground throughout the tight turns in this labyrinth of trees. Shadows danced around him, calling with their song carried on the branches, luring him, but he stayed fixated on the bird above.
With each footfall, he became increasingly disoriented. He knew not which way was right or left anymore. The Shadows’ haze thickened, a deep dark smog slowly choking out his vision. He ran. He sprinted. He silently begged the damn bird to slow down. But he kept running.
The black and white forest blurred as he forced himself on, following only glimpses of black feathers flashing through the sunlight between branches. He could no longer hear the chirping birds or crackling leaves. His thoughts were void of words. Only visions. Visions of her. And of what he’d do to them if they hurt her. He could only stare, eyes locked onto black wings of hope darting through the trees.
The cold white ground disappeared beneath mist and shadow, a bleak thickness through which he waded, unharmed but not unaffected. The raven’s call faded with each step, drowned out to the Shadow’s aria. The clamoring echoes of the darkness grew maddening, an undeniable warning that he must be closer to the Veil than he’d ever imagined. Like shrill violins, like shrieking widows, like the sound of war and blood, their wails split his ears.
A weight burdened his shoulders, tearing and tugging at the healing wounds on his back like an unwelcome passenger—but an expected one—as he raced to the Veil. He gasped, thedarkness so heavy it bound his very breath. He ran beneath the crushing weight, each step heavier than the last. His bones cried out in agony as they struggled beneath the weight his muscles failed to hold back. It was too much. Too much even for him. But not for a monster.
He could become it. There was no one around. No one’s blood he could possibly shed. If he didn’t, he would not survive the weight of this darkness. He would not reach the Shadowblood’s Blade. He would not have the chance to break free of the curses that imprisoned him. And he would not see her again. His mate.
He thought of her eyes. Those bewitching, haunting violet pools of peace, where surely whole dimensions ended and others began. Those eyes that had stared down on him from above, as her touch coaxed his body and mind.
And then he found the strength to summon the demon he always fought so hard to hold back.
The dark fog clouding his vision gave way to the keen eyes of a predator, sharp and focused, so that he could once again see the black wings guiding him above. His fingers, curled into white-knuckled fists morphed into swooping razors rimmed with fur. And his veins glowed silver as his Light magic tamed the Shadow coursing wildly within him. Just enough. No further. The weight of the darkness tearing open his wounds became bearable. It was enough. And for the first time, he walked the line between man and beast, and did something he thought to be impossible—he commanded the curse within.
He prowled the earth with savage speed, somewhere between animal and human, every sense and strength heightened to withstand the weight of the Shadows’ power. The wolf chasing the raven—to either his ruin or his salvation.
The smell of blood hit his senses, and he followed the scent to a dip in the forest floor where the Veil’s darkness lingered like a wall of Shadow in the distance, blotting out what few shardsof sunlight broke through the claw-like canopy above. Then he burst through a clearing, and the black bird swept up and soared out, lost somewhere in the black abyss. Asterious dug in his heels, scraping into the earth as he skidded to a stop to find himself standing amongst trickling streams of blood that pooled into crimson puddles on the white snowy ground.
He followed the blood paths, like red ivy veins claiming the forest floor. And there, even without his sharpened sight, he would’ve been able to see it clearly, but his wolf’s sight enhanced it all the more. Lodged within a colossal ancient tree’s twisting trunk—no doubt the very tree against which his father had slaughtered the last Shadowblood, still dripping with blood as fresh as the day he was killed—was a sword with a glinting black blade and a golden hilt etched with symbols. The Shadowblood’s Blade, forged by Shadow magic and sealed in Lightborn blood.
The great tree stood taller than any other tree in the Woods, its thick roots mingled with the blood streams on the ground, and its branches formed an archway that stretched over and across the Veil as far as the eye could see, as if the single, sacred source of its power. As though this tree was the very doorway to Veil itself.
No—not a doorway. A heart.
