Chapter 10 – Rot Beneath Silk

Nyra – First Person

They moved me from the cell at dawn.

No chains.

No ceremony.

Just silence.

The guards avoided my eyes as they escorted me through the eastern corridor of the High Hall. The shadows did not follow me now—not visibly—but I felt them, coiled beneath my skin like a second pulse.

Rhaegon had not returned after that night.

After he pressed his forehead to mine.

After he asked me what I was becoming.

The question still lingered in my bones.

What are you becoming?

I didn’t know.

But someone else did.

The scent hit me before we reached the infirmary wing.

Burnt herbs.

Iron.

And something wrong.

Sour and metallic, like spoiled blood beneath perfume.

Lysentha.

My steps slowed.

The guards hesitated when I did, as if unsure whether they could urge me forward. I didn’t wait for permission.

I pushed the double doors open myself.

The room was draped in silk screens, pale and delicate—embroidered with crescent moons and ivy leaves. It looked soft.

It smelled like rot.

Lysentha lay upon a raised healer’s cot, her golden hair damp and tangled against white pillows. Her skin, once flawless and luminous, had taken on a translucent sheen from fever. Sweat beaded along her temples.

For a heartbeat, I almost pitied her.

Then I saw her shoulder.

The false mating mark—the one that had flared so triumphantly in the Hall—no longer resembled a sacred crescent.

Black veins spidered outward from its center.

Not surface bruising.

Not ink.

They pulsed faintly beneath her skin.

Like something alive.

My wolf recoiled.

The Veil stirred.

A healer stood beside the bed, hands wrapped in linen soaked in some pungent concoction. Her face was pale.

“She woke an hour ago,” the healer said quietly, not looking at me.

Lysentha’s eyes fluttered open at the sound of my voice.

They found me instantly.

Even through fever, they were sharp.

Accusing.

“You,” she rasped.

I stepped closer.

“I didn’t put that on you,” I said evenly.

Her lips curled faintly.

“You existed,” she whispered.

The words slid under my skin like a blade.

The healer shot Lysentha a warning glance. “You must not agitate yourself.”

Lysentha ignored her.

Her gaze drifted to my collarbone.

Or rather—to where the mark had once burned.

“You look untouched,” she murmured bitterly.

“I was,” I replied.

Her eyes darkened.

The black veins pulsed harder.

She winced.

The healer quickly pressed the soaked linen against her shoulder. A faint hiss filled the air.

The scent worsened.

“What is it?” I asked, unable to look away.

The healer hesitated.

“Speak,” Lysentha ordered weakly.

The woman swallowed.

“It is not a mating mark,” she said quietly. “It is a Veil Sigil.”

The word coiled in my stomach.

“Explain,” Lysentha demanded.

The healer’s hands trembled slightly.

“The sigil was invoked incorrectly. It is binding to your life force to sustain itself.”

“And if we remove it?” Lysentha asked.

The silence stretched too long.

“If we sever it,” the healer said at last, “your heart will stop.”

The room seemed to tilt.

Lysentha stared at her.

“You’re certain?”

“Yes.”

The black veins crept another fraction outward, disappearing beneath the silk sleeve of her gown.

“Then contain it,” Lysentha said.

“We are trying,” the healer whispered. “But the sigil is feeding.”

“On what?” I asked.

The healer’s gaze flicked to me.

“On proximity.”

My blood ran cold.

“Proximity to what?” Lysentha demanded sharply.

The healer looked at me again.

“To the Veil.”

Silence crashed down.

Lysentha’s eyes snapped fully to mine now—no fever haze left in them.

“You,” she breathed.

The word was no longer accusation.

It was realization.

I took a step back instinctively.

The Veil beneath my skin pulsed—not aggressively.

Aware.

“It reacts when you are near,” the healer continued, voice tight. “The closer you come, the more it spreads.”

“And if she stays away?” Lysentha asked.

“It may slow.”

May.

Not will.

Lysentha’s gaze didn’t leave me.

“So I rot because of you,” she said softly.

“You invoked it,” I replied.

“You drove him to desperation.”

Rhaegon.

Always Rhaegon.

“I didn’t ask for this,” I said.

“Neither did I.”

For the first time, there was no venom in her tone.

Just exhaustion.

The healer replaced the cloth again. More steam rose from the contact.

“Is there a ritual to stabilize it?” Lysentha asked.

“There is one,” the healer admitted.

“And?”

“It requires continuation.”

My stomach tightened.

“Continuation of what?” I asked.

The healer looked between us.

“Of the claim.”

Lysentha’s lips curved faintly despite the sweat on her brow.

“Of course.”

“You cannot be serious,” I said.

“If the sigil completes the pattern,” the healer continued carefully, “it may anchor itself fully. The pain would lessen. The spread may stop.”

“And if it doesn’t?” I pressed.

The healer did not answer.

She didn’t need to.

Lysentha’s fingers twitched against the sheets.

“Prepare it,” she said.

The healer froze. “My lady—”

“You said removal kills me.”

“Yes.”

“And inaction rots me alive.”

Silence.

Lysentha’s gaze slid back to mine.

“You don’t understand,” she murmured. “I was promised him.”

The words were fragile.

Broken.

“My family secured that alliance before you ever shifted,” she continued. “Before you ever bled for this pack.”

The black veins pulsed again.

“He was meant to strengthen our bloodline.”

“And now?” I asked quietly.

Her eyes gleamed.

“Now I will not be discarded because of a mistake.”

The mistake.

Me.

“You think completing it will bind him?” I asked.

She didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, she shifted slightly, stifling a groan.

“I think,” she said at last, “that if the Veil has awakened in you, then I must meet it with something equally ancient.”

The healer’s face paled further.

“My lady, the ritual was never meant for this blood.”

“Then rewrite it,” Lysentha snapped.

The effort cost her. Her breath came faster now.

“You will die,” the healer whispered.

“Eventually,” Lysentha replied. “We all do.”

The room felt smaller.

The silk screens suddenly suffocating.

“Why?” I asked her.

The question slipped out before I could stop it.

Her gaze met mine.

And for a heartbeat—

I saw something raw.

“I refuse,” she said softly, “to be a footnote in your story.”

The words struck deeper than insult.

She was afraid.

Not of me.

Of erasure.

Of becoming irrelevant.

The Veil inside me stirred again—not in triumph.

In something unsettlingly close to sympathy.

But sympathy would not save her.

“Even if it kills you?” I asked.

Her lips curved faintly.

“Then I will make certain I am not the only one who falls.”

The healer stiffened.

“My lady—”

“Prepare the chamber,” Lysentha said.

The woman hesitated only a moment longer before bowing her head and slipping from the room.

The silence left behind felt heavy.

Lysentha and I regarded one another across the narrow space.

“You should stay away from me,” she said finally.

“I intend to.”

Her gaze flicked once more to my collarbone.

“You don’t know what you are,” she murmured.

“No,” I admitted.

“But you will.”

A faint tremor passed through her body as the sigil pulsed again.

“You think he will choose you?” she asked suddenly.

“I don’t want him forced,” I replied.

“Choice,” she echoed faintly. “You speak of choice as if it has ever belonged to women like us.”

The words lingered.

Sharp.

True.

She shifted again, reaching beneath her pillow with trembling fingers.

I noticed too late.

A small obsidian disk gleamed in her hand—etched with unfamiliar runes.

Communication stone.

Old magic.

Not sanctioned by the Council.

She met my gaze deliberately as she pressed her thumb to its surface.

The runes flared dim red.

“Lysentha,” I warned.

She smiled—a thin, fevered thing.

“If I fall,” she whispered, voice barely audible—

the stone flickered brighter.

“—she falls with me.”

The runes pulsed.

And somewhere far beyond the High Hall—

something answered.