Veil of Thorns

by Gwen Mitchell

  As she tried to get her bearings, one of the giant crystal stalactites tore from the ceiling and pummeled the earth right where she’d been standing.

  Lucas continued to cut himself free of vines with deft, precise movements, making slow progress toward Vika, dodging a series of the crystal-spiked boulders as they rained down.

  Ryder whirled away and left Bri standing next to a wisp of black smoke.

  She began reciting an incantation, building a stunning spell between her palms.

  Ryder reappeared behind Vika and locked both his arms around her. Vines reached for him, but Lucas sliced them away before they could do much damage. The two of them worked in tandem, anticipating each other, drawing Vika’s attacks back and forth between them.

  Vika screeched, a ragged sound that was equal parts fury and terror and heartbreak.

  Bri finished her spell and took one step toward the melee.

  A line of fire coursed across her back, followed by a gush of warmth. She spun around and crashed to the ground like a ragdoll, the impact knocking the wind out of her.

  Emil stood over her in bear form.

  Bri skittered back as he swiped at her again with one massive paw. Her spell had dissipated. The pain and the sight of him—those yellowed fangs and blade sharp claws—left her momentarily stunned.

  Emil, no!

  One of those giant claws hooked her side and rolled her. Bri cried out at the sharp slice of pain and reflexively curled into a fetal position, protecting her vital organs.

  Please!

  Fangs sank into her shoulder and hefted her up, and Bri had one brief, crystalline moment to seek out Lucas.

  He was still fighting his way free of the vines, but a black tide of them was filling the cavern, cresting behind him in a dark wave.

  This is it, she thought. She’d failed everyone. Kean, Astrid, Lucas, Ryder. Everyone.

  The bear pulled her behind a curtain of vines and across a shimmering purple ward, and then dropped her to the ground.

  She knelt there, her wounds slowly closing but still trickling blood. Bri lowered her head to her chest, waiting for the final blow to come. Her heart thudded, and her breath sobbed in and out, and her blood seeped… and nothing happened.

  She wiped the tears from her eyes, wincing as she lifted her arm and turned around.

  Emil sat behind her, still in bear form, his head also bowed. As if they’d been praying together.

  Emil?

  He regarded her with those sad, black eyes.

  It is time, Bri.

  Time for what?

  You know.

  The image of her arms soaked in blood—a still-beating heart in her hand—assaulted her.

  “No,” she breathed, knuckling more tears away.

  No. I can’t.

  I’m sorry, dear girl. I tried to prepare you.

  Bri wrapped her arms around her stomach, sick with pain and remorse, dizzy with denial. “You sent me that vision?”

  The bear nodded.

  There must be another way.

  You know there is not.

  Bri shook her head, even though she did know. He was right.

  But what about kindness? You shouldn’t have to die for her.

  It was so unfair.

  The bear laid on his side before her. It is not for her, Bri. It is for you.

  Tears tracked down her cheeks in earnest as she scooted closer to him, buried her hand in the fur at his neck, stroked his shoulder.

  You will understand someday. Mercy is not always a kindness, and sometimes death is a gift.

  Emil transformed to human and rolled onto his back, staring up at her with his husky-blue eyes. You must hurry, before she realizes I have brought you here.

  Bri wiped her tears away with her blood-soaked sleeve and conjured Lucas’s blade.

  She rose to her knees and held it out, her hand shaking.

  Emil tapped his chest where she should cut.

  Bri lowered the blade. It sliced through flesh and bone like a key opening a lock, and soon she was staring through a mangled hole of flesh at Emil’s—no, Maxxim’s—impossibly large heart.

  He was still watching her, his expression placid.

  “Set them free,” Emil said aloud, his voice thick and raspy with disuse. “Promise you will release them all.”

  Who? She asked.

  The other seers. The spirits of the wood.

  The garden, Bri thought. All of Vika’s captives, who had become a part of the forest, some sliver of their souls still lingering. She squeezed his hand, stroked his brow. “I will. Every last one of them. I promise.”

  Emil smiled at her, that rare, radiant smile. And then his eyes rolled back in his head.

  With a sob, Bri wrenched the still-beating heart out of his chest and saw her vision come to pass. The blade, the dark, wet meat throbbing in her palm, her hands and arms stained crimson. The taste of salt and bile bathed the back of her tongue.

  Shuddering, she dropped the heart to the ground and impaled it with the blade. She conjured it aflame and skittered back until she hit a wall. She sat there rocking herself as she watched it burn away to nothing.

  Was this worth it?

  She’d become immortal and committed murder. She was, officially, no better than the monsters. She’d let Lucas into her heart, left herself open to his betrayal. Would Kean even want her now? Could she blame him if he didn’t?

  A rustle behind her made Bri turn. The rustle was the dead vines hanging over the doorway to the cavern. They broke apart like empty husks, crumbling to dust as Lucas shouldered through them.

  He froze inside the doorway and surveyed the scene. Emil’s body, his open chest cavity still steaming into the chilly air. The knife in a circle of charred blood. The scent of charcoal and roses.

  Before she could compose herself enough to protest, he was on his knees beside her, taking her hands in his, heedless of the blood staining them.

  Bri’s mouth was dry, her throat tight. She felt hollow, like the vines. Like if he touched her, she would just crumble.

  “It’s over,” he said softly, concern wrinkling his brow.

  She stared up at him for a long moment while that computed through her sluggish brain. “She’s… gone?”

  Lucas hesitated, and Bri gripped his hands in fear.

  “Not yet,” he said, “she’s asking for you.”

  Bri blinked at him, unable to muster a reaction to this, and suddenly realized she must be in shock. That was the source of the nausea and the tightness in her chest. This numbness. She felt remote. Like her spirit couldn’t handle the horror of the last hour and had left her body, dragging away like a kite in the wind.

  Wordless, she let Lucas help her to her feet and followed him into the main cavern of the palace. The ground had been fractured, deep crevasses in some places, in others as if the earth had simply been tilled. Giant piles of broken crystal and chopped vines littered the courtyard. The vines were crumbling, leaving nothing but black char marks where they’d once slithered with life. And it was cold again, so cold. Frost was already feathering across the marble columns. The water in the fountain had frozen solid.

  The dream tree was dimmed, the branches sagging like those of a willow, nearly touching the fountain. The bubbles of light were winking in and out.

  Had all the warmth and life of this place come from Vika’s power?

  There would be no more roses. No more butterflies. No more harp music.

  The crows watched from their bare branch perches, but they were silent as a grave, and where once there had been vibrance there was only the cold stillness of death.

  Tears overfilled Bri’s eyes as she realized she had not only killed Emil—sad, gentle Emil—but had also destroyed something beautiful beyond compare. The work of an artist, with magic as her brush and nature as her paints. An artist the likes of which the world would never see again.

  A true Skydancer.

  Murdered by one of her own.

  H
er knees wanted to give out, and she was thankful for Lucas’s arm around her.

  Vika reclined in Ryder’s embrace, as if he’d held her through the entire battle until she had given up and both slumped to the ground. She was no longer in a gown of liquid gold or a shimmering crown. Her dress was a simple black velvet and hung loose on her frail frame. Her collar bones were poking through dull, ashen skin, and her unremarkable shade of brown hair was silvering at the temples. The fire in her sable eyes had dimmed to a mere spark, but her grey, cracked lips still curled into a feline grin at the sight of the blood on Bri’s hands as Bri knelt beside her.

  “You bested me after all, sister.”

  Bri didn’t smile back.

  “The sight always wins out.”

  She shook her head. She hadn’t beat Vika because of her sight. She’d won because, when it came to life and death, she’d had allies. Vika had only enemies or slaves—who are only restrained enemies. But she didn’t say any of that. Let Vika believe it was the sight and not her own shortcomings that brought them to this end. Let her have her delusions for a few more minutes. What did it matter now?

  Bri jerked when a hand cold as ice touched hers. She looked down to see red fingers laced with grey and shivered.

  “Now I must tell you a secret.” Vika closed her eyes and paused long enough that Bri wondered if those were going to be her last words. It would be just like her. But she spoke again, her voice paper thin. “There are no covens of Skydancers. There never were.”

  Bri frowned down at her, watching as her face grew gaunter by the second, her skin chalky. “But you said—”

  “I lied.” A satisfied smirk. “I was going to use you to find the mirror, then kill you.”

  She said it so matter-of-factly, Bri felt as if she’d been slapped. She wanted to pull her hand back, but Vika’s bony fingers were like frozen manacles around her wrist. “We work alone. That is the price of power. It is a bloody game.” She laughed. “As you said, you’re a quick study.”

  Bri’s stomach heaved, but she forced the gorge and her tears back down, her cheeks burning with shame.

  “I’m glad it’s you. The book is yours now. Keep it safe.” Vika gasped for air, and everyone tensed, even Ryder, who had been sitting behind her like a statue. Jagged nails dug into Bri’s skin hard enough to bruise. “Do not let the Synod discover it. You must destroy them before they destroy… the last… of us. Or magic will have its revenge.”

  Not knowing what else to do, Bri nodded.

  Vika let go, turning her dilated eyes on Ryder. She tried to reach for his cheek but didn’t have the strength.

  He turned her in his arms and lifted her fingers to his lips. Eyes hooded, he gazed down at her, pain and love warring on his face. He looked almost human again, perfect enough to be frozen in one of Vika’s heart-wrenching tableaus.

  “I am ready,” she whispered, and she sounded tired. “Take me home to the darkness, my love.”

  Ryder lowered his mouth and kissed her.

  The last remaining vines clinging to the cavern walls shivered in a faint breeze and disintegrated. The light in the cavern dimmed. Vika decayed to a pile of black ash in Ryder’s hands, trails of it curling away on the wind.

  Still kneeling, Ryder sifted through the pile of soot and drew out a silver chain. Dangling from the end was the diamond Vika always wore. In the dim light of the cavern, she could make out a thin wisp of shadow dancing in the stone’s center, and Bri finally recognized it for what it was—a traveler’s stone. One torn from Irhina’s chest with Vika’s bare hand. Another magic lost forever with all the rest.

  Ryder slipped the chain around his neck and, without looking at either of them, whirled into shadow.

  Vika’s ashes swirled into a dust devil where he’d been standing, as if longing to follow.

  Chapter Thirty

  Lucas waited a moment in silence, watching Bri to see if she would need his help getting up. But she didn’t get up. She knelt on the ground, staring blankly at the pile of ash that used to be Hedvika.

  He squatted and grasped Bri’s arm. She climbed to her feet with his help but wouldn’t look at him. A hollow pit opened in his gut. Though Bri’s expression was placid—no, remote—inside she had to be devastated. Not just from Emil, or Vika, but because of the spell.

  She’d had the means to save her lover right there, within reach, and she’d given it up.

  To save him.

  He should be glad, but all he felt was the sinking weight of guilt and the gnawing fear that he would never be able to convince her she’d made the right choice.

  Bri turned woodenly and walked to the edge of the fountain. He felt as if she was standing on an ice flow, drifting farther and farther from shore, soon to be beyond his reach. But what could he possibly say?

  Nothing. Nothing could make up for what she had lost.

  Her innocence. Her lover. Her humanity.

  She’d done everything to save Kean, and in the end, Lucas was the only one who’d gotten what he wanted.

  She may very well come to hate you for it.

  He would have to spend eternity making it up to her. She was safe now. She was his. And gods, was she powerful. Gazing at her through his Second Sight, he understood what Ryder had meant. Magic dripped off of her like she’d stepped out of a pool of stardust. Everywhere she walked, it trailed in her wake, slowly seeping into the barren earth.

  She didn’t need his protection anymore. But she would still need his strength, his wisdom, and hopefully—someday—his love. If it took the better part of an age, he would see her happy. So happy, there would be no more room for regret. Someday, she would believe, as he did, that they were fated. They deserved to be happy. They had earned it.

  Lucas came to her side. Her eyes had swirled white as she stared at the glossy black surface of the frozen water.

  Bri waved her hand and, just as before, a secret stairwell opened. There were no wards to hold him back this time, and she made no protest as he followed her into the pitch dark.

  He conjured a flame to drift at her shoulder. There was a moment of hesitation where she turned as if to thank him but changed her mind. He almost said something in turn, but the moment broke like a spider’s web when they reached the chamber at the bottom of the stairs.

  Where the book was waiting.

  Lucas wasn’t sure if he was relieved or not.

  Bri halted several feet from the crystal altar at the other side of the chamber, some internal battle taking place in her mind.

  “This is what she showed you,” Lucas said, breaking the silence.

  She took a deep, steadying breath and stepped up to the altar.

  The book was covered in runes that looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t place them within any culture in memory in either Gaia or Khaos. They pulsed with a warm, beckoning glow, and the lights played over Bri’s face like sunshine reflecting off the waves of a pool.

  “You… planned it?” Or had she foreseen it? Had she decided to kill Hedvika and take the book herself?

  Bri didn’t respond. Her head was cocked as if listening to a voice only she could hear. She answered under her breath, but with his keen wolf’s hearing, Lucas heard it all.

  “Please,” she said. “I’ve already paid a price.”

  His head began to ring with alarm.

  “No,” Bri said. A pause as her eyes fluttered closed and she winced. In pain?

  Lucas rushed to her side, tried to tear her away from the altar, but she was anchored to the spot, as immovable as solid stone, and just as rigid.

  Cold panic stole over him, and he tried again and again to reach her through their magical connection, only to be met with cold, impenetrable shields.

  “Alright,” she whispered, “I will.”

  Her muscles went slack, and Lucas caught her and held her against his chest.

  She came to and drew away from him.

  Once she was steady on her feet, he let her go.

  She turne
d back to the book.

  It flopped open, and the pages rustled, flicking through thousands and thousands of them as an impossibly bright light shone through from its spine. It suddenly stopped and lay open.

  The light came through the open page then, in the shape of letters that burned like miniature stars winking out, leaving their shadows permanently etched on the paper.

  It was a spell, and he knew by the way Bri reverently pulled the page free—like plucking a dead leaf from a tree—it was exactly the one she needed to save Kean.

  And he was glad…wasn’t he?

  Yes, glad. It may have left him locked out of Bri’s heart, but at least he wasn’t responsible for breaking it.

  She will not send you from her side, he assured himself. Their bond was too strong, irrefutable. No matter what happened, they would be together.

  This was what you wanted.

  But the cost had been so high. Could she ever love him now? Could he stand aside while she loved another?

  Last night…this morning…it had felt like his bargain with Vika was worth it. Worth everything he’d gone through to find her. He had been alone his whole, long, toilsome life. Now, he would never be alone again. He belonged.

  It was worth the possible future suffering too. This distance between them would be torture, the battle to win back her faith would be grueling. But still worth it all. And more. And he would give her more. He would give her everything.

  The book snapped closed, and the runes went dim. Bri folded the page and tucked it into her shirt, over her heart. She laid her hand over the book as if saying goodbye. Something about the gesture made him uneasy.

  “We aren’t taking it with us?” Lucas asked, though he was relieved. There was something…not right about the tome. Sinister. It made his ears twitch.

  “It will be safer here,” Bri answered, as if trying to convince herself.

  Finally, she looked at him. Her eyes were the deep green of dewy pine boughs in morning light. There was regret there, and sadness, but the seething anger she’d speared him with earlier had diluted.