“What does that mean?” Derren asked.
We all shrugged.
The room grew colder as I continued reading. “Someone breached the veil once again and allowed them safe passage. Now they are massing an army. As a traveler?—”
“What’s that?”Lexie asked.
“Someone who can pass through the veil to other realms,” Kerralyn said. “It takes a special sort of magic.”
“One Velacross Blyte may have had,” I said, continuing to read. “I saw it with my own eyes. Thousands and thousands of Skathes, swarming through their realm. Hungry. Unless they’re stopped, they will overrun us all. The key to stopping them is not with force, though they die like any other creature when you remove their heads.”
“This is simple enough for those without will,” I read. “But an army being controlled by a person craving power is something else entirely. Some would say that to truly defeat them, we must destroy the one who controls them.”
Outside, a distant rumble of thunder made us freeze.
“That may very well be true,” I said, my finger skimming along the words on the page. “But I’ve always believed that the veil will respond to contact with its own origin. To mend a wound, one must offer the thread that matches.”
“They’re going to overrun us,” Kerralyn squeaked.
“The wasteland spreads with them,” I read. “Though I do believe this land could be reclaimed if we could find a way to send the Skathes back through the veil or kill each and every one of them. It thrives when they do but dissipates when they are destroyed.”
“Who controls them?” Derren asked. “We need to stop them before it’s too late. They’re coming for Syllavar, but I doubt they’ll stop there. Velmire will fall next, then Ebonridge to our west.”
“They’ll keep consuming us until they reach the northern sea, and then what?” Lexie asked bleakly.
Derren pulled her closer, kissing her temple in a gesture so tender it made my lungs ache. Watching them made me understand why people went to war for love.
“We’ll stop them,” he said against her hair, and the absolute certainty in his voice made me almost believe him.
“We need to tell the other courts,” Lexie said. “Instead of battling each other, we need to unify to battle the Skathes.”
His mouth twisted. “Assuming none of them are allied with whoever’s controlling the Skathes.”
“Why would they bring creatures like that here when they could destroy us all?” Kerralyn asked.
Derren grunted. “I assume for power.”
Wasn’t that always the way? No one was ever satisfied with what they had. They always wanted more.
“They may have thought they could control them,” Lexie said. “They’re a lethal threat. What better way to make everyone behave? Do as I say, or I’ll send my Skathes into your kingdom.”
Derren shuddered. “I’d capitulate myself. ‘Better to live and fight another day than burn in a pyre,’ my father always said.”
Lexie shifted, her face pale. “So who’s controlling them?”
I flipped to another page, this one covered in writing that must’ve been scrawled fast, because I could only make out parts of it. “Pattern confirmed… Attacks too coordinated for random beasts. Someone directs them, but who and from where?”
My hands trembled as I turned the pages, finding increasingly disturbing theories. One passage described rituals for binding Skathes to a master’s will, though this could be mere supposition. Velacross couldn’t actually know.
Could they?
Another section detailed the strategic advantages of an army that required no rest, one with no moral considerations.
I reached the end, where I found nothing but more drawings and a line I couldn’t quite make out.
Velacross had experimented with the ashes left after the Skathe died, but he hadn’t drawn any conclusions.
And on the final page, a sketch of a young girl.
