I rose.
Not with rage. Not with desperation.
With something simpler. Cleaner.
Clarity. Determination.
The Veil had always been there, not as power to be seized or a weapon to wield, but as fabric. As the fundamental truth beneath everything that existed.
My mother had understood this. Lyralei had tried to teach it. I had been too afraid, too angry, too broken to see it.
Until now.
I exhaled. Let go of pain. Let go of fear. Let go of the girl who had spent months in chains, convinced she was nothing but a monster.
The Veil didn’t just respond, it aligned.
Not because I commanded it, but because I finally understood what it was asking.
The Veil wasn’t something to control. It was a truth of existence. I couldn’t will the Veil to change for me. I couldn’t channel the Veil through fear or anger. It was the stillness that gave rise to the variance between dimensions.
I finally understood.
I let go of the fear and anger that had once kept me alive. For the first time since I last shared a meal with my parents, I felt a quiet, empty peace.
I reached.
The Veil answered.
It moved through me like water finding its course. No force. No violence. Just perfect, absolute precision.
I saw the Devourer, not the puppet king, not Aeron’s corrupted flesh, but the entity beneath. The vast, hungry intelligence that fed on decay and despair, anchored to this world through bindings it had eroded over generations.
The Veil formed between my fingers, glowing in colors that had no names.
I wove.
The first layer wrapped the Devourer like silk, gently embracing a darkness that flinched away from the contact.
He snarled. Death magic surged from his form, trying to corrupt the bindings.
I added a second layer. Then a third. Each pulled tighter, stronger. I didn’t dictate their strength, the Veil adjusted on its own, reflecting the Devourer’s destructive force back onto itself. The harder he pushed, the stronger the compression became.
"Clever child." The Devourer’s voice carried no fear. "You’ve learned control, but let’s see how long it lasts."
The shadow-spears plunged toward Daemon.
I folded space.
The spears drove into the Devourer instead, piercing the layers I’d woven. Pitch-black blood sprayed from the king as his body convulsed.
But it healed. Flesh knit around shadow, absorbing it, growing stronger from the damage.
Behind me, Kane roared as he charged the line of spearmen facing Zephyr. His first swing shattered their formation.
With Kane gone, our backs were exposed. The remaining soldiers turned toward us.
They didn’t get the chance.
