Ava
The world on the other side of the Veil was not what I had expected. The air shimmered faintly, thick with silver mist and the scent of rain and ash. It clung to my skin as we walked, coating my tongue with the taste of metal and memory. Every breath felt borrowed.
The land stretched in endless twilight. The sky glowed dimly, as if the sun had been trapped behind glass and left to fade. Trees rose along the path, black, tall, and veined with faint light that pulsed in time with the earth beneath our feet. Even the shadows moved differently here, slower and heavier, as though the air itself carried the weight of time.
Oliver walked beside me, small hand tucked into mine. His eyes were wide, reflecting the strange half-light. He did not seem afraid. If anything, he looked curious, as though he could hear something the rest of us could not. The faint shimmer beneath his skin had not faded since we crossed the Veil. I could still see it when his fingers brushed mine, a soft silver pulse like a heartbeat that was not his own.
Casimir led the way now, his stride steady, his expression unreadable. The gold in his eyes burned brighter here, matching the subtle fire that laced through the cracks of the world. Nicholas walked just behind him, every motion deliberate, his senses sharp. I could feel the tension humming between them, their quiet readiness for a danger that might come from the land itself.
The road curved through a valley of ruin. Broken walls rose from the earth like bones. Houses built of black stone had collapsed in on themselves, their roofs gone, their windows hollow. Yet the air hummed with faint whispers, voices that slipped between the cracks of the silence. I stopped, listening. They were not words, not exactly, but I understood them all the same. Regret, longing, memory. The voices of those who had not crossed fully into death.
Nicholas slowed his pace, his voice low. "They do not rest here. The Veil forgot them."
Casimir did not look back. "No one forgets in this realm. They simply fade until they turn into shadow."
I shivered and tightened my hold on Oliver's hand. He looked up at me. "They're watching," he whispered. "But they're not angry."
The boy's calm terrified me more than the dead.
As we climbed higher, the road opened into a ridge, and I saw the capital for the first time. Eldryn lay ahead, vast and darkly beautiful. Towers of obsidian reached toward the fading sky, their peaks glowing with runes that burned like dying stars. Bridges of stone and silver spanned rivers that shimmered faintly, carrying light instead of water. The city glowed from within, but its light was wrong, too cold, too still.
Casimir stopped at the ridge. His jaw tightened, his voice a low murmur. "The Kingdom of Dying Light."
Nicholas bowed his head slightly, his tone grim. "It was not always this way."
We descended into the city. The streets were lined with beings that made my pulse falter, fae with eyes of smoke, and pointed ears, wolves that walked like men, creatures made of mist and bone. They all turned to watch as we passed. Their whispers followed us, a sound like wind through broken glass. The mortal witch. The Alpha returns. The Veil's child walks among them.
I felt their eyes on Oliver most of all. Casimir noticed too. He slowed, placing himself between us and the crowd, his shoulders broad enough to block the weight of their stares. When his gaze swept over them, the air shifted. The whispers stopped. Even here, the prince's authority carried teeth.
The palace crowned the highest point of the city, carved into the mountainside. Its walls shimmered faintly, veins of silver light crawling through black stone. The gates opened soundlessly as we approached.
Inside, the air grew colder, thinner, alive with restrained magic. The ceiling stretched high above, carved with constellations that flickered like fading memories.
We entered the throne hall, and I felt the shift immediately. The power here was older than Casimir, older than the realm. Portraits lined the walls, kings and queens rendered in shadow, their eyes glowing faintly as we passed. Between the torches, the air rippled like water. The courtiers of the Shadow Realm gathered in silence, fae lords in silver armor, wolves draped in robes of midnight, creatures that shimmered in and out of form.
Casimir went down on one knee before the empty throne. The sound of his voice filled the hall. "Your son has returned."
No answer came, only the whisper of breath through the curtains behind the throne. Then a voice, faint and trembling, drifted through the room. "Is it you, my son?"
The King's voice was like wind through dying embers. Every syllable carried power and exhaustion. "The Veil trembles," he said. "And now it carries her scent. The healer of Havenscove has crossed into my realm."
Casimir's shoulders stiffened, but he did not speak. I stepped forward before I could stop myself. "If you know me, then you know I came to help, not to harm."
Laughter, soft and hollow, echoed through the chamber. "No one ever means to destroy, child. Yet the ruin always comes."
I felt the weight of a thousand unseen eyes on me. The courtiers shifted, their whispers rising like a tide. The King's voice faded, and the curtains stilled. The audience was over.
A servant led us to chambers in the upper halls. The corridors were long and cold, lined with windows that looked out onto the city. From here, Eldryn shimmered like a mirage, alive but fading.
Oliver was asleep before I could even undress him. He curled against the blankets, his small hand glowing faintly in the dark. The light pulsed in rhythm with the heartbeat I could feel beneath my own skin.
Casimir stood at the window, watching the horizon. The glow of the dying sun cast him in gold and gray. I joined him, unable to keep the question from my lips. "Do you still love this place?"
His jaw tightened. "I love what it was meant to be."
"And what is that?"
He looked at me, his gaze unreadable. "A kingdom where light and shadow lived in balance. Where love did not curse the ones who felt it."
For a moment, neither of us spoke. Then his voice softened. "This place remembers everyone who touches it, Ava. And now, it will never forget you."
He turned away, his reflection disappearing into the glass. I stood there long after he was gone, staring at the city that glowed like a dying star. Its beauty was unbearable, its silence unending. And somewhere within those walls, I felt the Veil breathing, slow and patient, but waiting.
----
Casimir
Night fell over Eldryn, though the light never truly left. The towers shimmered faintly under the false moon, and the air tasted of iron and smoke. I watched from the balcony as Ava moved through the chamber, checking the boy's breathing, brushing her hand over his hair. Her glow filled the room.
She looked like she belonged to this realm, and yet not at all. The Veil had taken note of her, and that terrified me more than anything.
This was my kingdom, my curse, my inheritance. But as I looked at her, I knew the truth. The light that remained in this realm no longer came from its sun or its stones. It came from her.
I whispered to the night, to the ghosts that still lingered in the walls. "The light is dying, but maybe it was never ours to keep."
Far below, the city breathed, and the Veil pulsed once, like a heartbeat answering mine.