Ava
Sleep did not come easily. The silence that had settled over Havenscove pressed against the windows like a living thing. I lay beneath the thin blanket, shivering, though the air was warm. Each time I closed my eyes, I saw the harbor, the bodies, the silver light moving under the water. Each time I breathed, the hum of the Veil answered inside me.
When I finally drifted into a half-dream, it was not mine. Shadows coiled through my thoughts, turning the air to glass. I heard the same voice that had haunted the sea.
Elijah.
His words were soft, the tone almost tender.
"You carry what was taken from me. You wake what should sleep."
I tried to pull away, but the darkness wrapped around me, warm and cold all at once.
"Do not fight it, You were made for this. Made for me ."
I woke with a cry, the sound breaking through the stillness. Sweat clung to my skin. The candle had burned low, its wax dripping down in thin silver lines. My chest ached where the mark lay hidden. When I pulled the blanket away, light shimmered faintly beneath the thin fabric of my gown.
The pattern glowed through the cloth, veins of silver spreading from my heart toward my throat. The lines pulsed with my heartbeat, slow and steady, alive. I pressed my fingers to the mark and gasped. It was warm, as if it recognized my touch.
Then, faintly, I felt something that was not mine. A heartbeat. Slower, stronger, echoing my own.
"Casimir," I whispered.
The air shifted. A knock sounded at the door, followed by his voice, low and rough. "Ava. Open the door."
I could not move at first. My legs trembled as I stood. When I unlocked the door, he was already inside, his eyes wild. The veins along his arm glowed with the same silver light that burned in my skin.
For a moment, we only stared at each other. The air between us tightened, as if something unseen drew breath.
"What happened?" he asked. "I felt you."
"I do not know." My voice shook. "It burns."
He crossed the room in two steps, his hand hovering above my chest. "May I?"
I nodded. When his fingers touched my skin, the light flared brighter. The mark pulsed beneath his hand, and pain shot through me, sharp but strangely sweet.
His breath caught, and I saw his arm glow in answer. The same veins, the same rhythm.
"It is the same," I whispered. "You are marked too."
He shook his head, as if denying what was already written across both our bodies.
"This cannot be undone."
"I never asked for this," I said, though part of me knew that was a lie. Some quiet part of me had been waiting for this, for him. The Veil had not given us a choice, but it had given us each other.
He took a step back, his jaw tight. "You are bound to it now. To me."
The words should have frightened me, but they didn't. The fear came from something else. The way the world seemed to tilt when he looked at me, the way my pulse stuttered when he spoke my name.
"I can feel you," I said softly. "Your heartbeat, your pain. Even now."
His eyes softened, just slightly. "Then you feel what I have felt for years."
Before I could ask what he meant, a wave of heat rolled through me. The mark flared again, light spreading through the room. I stumbled, and Cas caught me. The glow wrapped around us both, silver and shadow blending like breath. The air filled with a low hum, deep and ancient.
His arms tightened around me. "What is it doing?"
I could barely speak. "Listening."
The hum rose, vibrating through the walls. I felt the Veil stir, vast and awake. The world dimmed, the light from the candles flickering until only our glow remained. For a heartbeat, everything was weightless. I heard it then.
A whisper not from the sea, but from the space between our breaths.
"Two halves of one gate. The heart and the shadow. Together, they wake me."
The voice was not Elijah's. It was older, softer, and full of sorrow.
Cas's grip tightened. "The Veil is speaking."
I tried to answer, but my voice caught. The light reached its peak, then vanished, plunging us into darkness. I gasped for air. The room smelled of rain and ash.
When I looked down, the mark had changed. The pattern was no longer just veins. It had taken shape…
A circle around my heart, a single line splitting it in two. It looked like a seal, a sigil.
Cas's skin glowed faintly where his sleeve had torn. The same symbol burned across his arm. Our marks mirrored each other exactly.
We both sank to the floor, the air too thick to breathe. My body trembled, not from fear but from the weight of what I had felt. The Veil's presence had been inside me, and for a moment, I had been inside it. Every heartbeat, every breath, belonged to more than me now.
When I opened my eyes again, the light had dimmed, leaving only the faint glow of the candles. Cas sat beside me, his back against the wall. He looked exhausted, his face pale but calm.
"It is done," he said. "Whatever it wanted, it has taken."
Tata Sofia's voice came from the doorway. "Not taken," she said. "Given. The Veil has chosen its keepers."
She stepped inside, her eyes sharp as ever, but beneath that, there was something close to grief. "The mark will not fade. You are its anchor now, both of you. When the Veil moves, it will move through your hearts."
Cas looked at her. "How do we stop it?"
"You do not," she said simply. "You endure it."
Her words hung in the air long after she left. The room felt smaller now, the shadows closer. I turned to Casimir. "What does this mean for us?"
He met my eyes, and for the first time, I saw something unguarded there. "It means neither of us will ever be free."
His words should have felt wrong, but they didn't. I was already bound, to the Veil, to him, to whatever fate had tied us together. The thought should have terrified me. Instead, it filled me with something dangerously close to peace.
I looked down at the mark, the faint silver still pulsing beneath my skin. When I reached for it, his hand covered mine. Our fingers intertwined without thought, the heat between us alive, steady.
The mark pulsed once beneath my skin and his heartbeat answered….