Chapter #8 - The Weight of the Veil

Elara’s POV

The Rift never stopped humming.

Even as we left the Hollow behind, even as the air grew colder and the silver roots gave way to soil and pine, I could feel it, a low, constant vibration beneath my ribs, like the echo of a heartbeat that wasn’t mine. The others couldn’t hear it. But I could.

We moved before dawn, shadows against the half-light. Cael led the way, Auren just behind, and a small pack of wolves flanked us on both sides, guardians or ghosts, I couldn’t tell anymore. Every few minutes one would vanish into the mist, reappearing silently further ahead, their eyes catching glints of the red moon as it faded behind the trees.

No one spoke at first. The forest didn’t feel safe for words.

When the silence finally broke, it was Auren who shattered it.

“So,” he said lightly, though his voice was stretched thin, “how’s it feel being the Veil’s favorite?”

I looked over my shoulder. “Like being pulled apart and sewn back together wrong.”

He smirked. “Sounds about right.”

Cael shot him a look over his shoulder, a silent warning, but Auren only grinned wider. I almost smiled, almost. Because underneath his teasing, I heard something else. Fear.

We stopped near a stream that wound like liquid glass through the forest. Cael crouched to refill a flask. His reflection rippled, his eyes catching gold in the water’s surface.

“How far to the Sanctum?” I asked.

He didn’t look up. “A day if we move fast. Two if the Rift spreads.”

I hesitated. “You said the Elders would know what’s happening to me.”

“They’ll have answers,” he said carefully. “But not all of them will be ones you want.”

I crouched beside him, watching the water swirl around the stones. My hand brushed the surface, and light shimmered beneath my skin. The water rippled in response, pulsing faintly with silver.

I pulled my hand back fast. “It’s still there.”

“The Moonfire won’t leave you now,” he said. “You’re linked.”

“To the Heart?”

His jaw tightened. “To everything it touches.”

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We kept moving.

The forest grew stranger the deeper we went, the trees older than memory, their bark carved with runes that shifted when I looked too long. The air thickened with magic, heavy and sweet, like the moment before a storm. Once, I thought I saw shapes moving within the trunks themselves, watching us through the wood.

At midday, the light dimmed again. Clouds crawled across the sky, red bleeding through the gray.

That was when I heard it.

The whisper.

It wasn’t sound, not really. It was inside my head, brushing the edges of my thoughts like fingers against glass.

You woke it.

I stumbled. Cael was at my side instantly, his hand steady on my arm. “What is it?”

“I—I heard something.”

He scanned the trees. “Voices?”

“Not—” I hesitated. “Not outside.”

Auren’s gaze sharpened. “The Veil?”

I nodded.

Cael’s grip tightened. “Ignore it.”

“I can’t.”

“You have to. It’ll try to twist what you see, what you feel.”

I met his eyes. “What if it’s not lying?”

His expression darkened. “The Veil doesn’t lie. It shows. That’s worse.”

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We made camp that night beneath an arch of black stone carved with ancient sigils. The wolves circled the perimeter, restless, their hackles raised.

Auren handled the fire. He did it without a word, tossing a silver shard into the flames that made them burn cold blue instead of gold. “So nothing tries to sniff us out,” he said when I asked.

Cael stayed on the edge of the clearing, watching the dark.

The whisper hadn’t stopped. It came in waves now—soft, insistent. Not words, exactly, but pieces of memory. A lake, a moon split in two. A face half-reflected in silver water.

I watched the fire, feeling the ache of that voice behind my eyes. Finally, I spoke. “Before the Hollow… before all this… I dreamed of the Rift.”

Cael turned slightly. “What kind of dream?”

“The same sky. The same moons. A voice telling me to run.”

He was quiet for a moment, then said, “It wasn’t a dream.”

Auren looked up sharply. “Cael—”

“She needs to know,” Cael cut in.

“Know what?” I demanded.

He faced me fully then, gold eyes burning steady. “The Rift didn’t find you by chance, Elara. It called to you because you’ve crossed it before.”

My stomach turned. “That’s not possible.”

“It is,” he said. “You’re not the first to carry the Moonfire. But you might be the last.”

The words hung between us, heavy and cold.

“Then what happened to the others?” I asked.

Cael’s silence was answer enough.

Auren stared into the fire, his usual grin gone. “Burned themselves out trying to save both worlds,” he said quietly. “The Veil doesn’t like bridges, it uses them.”

My throat went dry. “And now it’s using me.”

Cael’s voice softened, barely above a whisper. “Not yet. That’s why we’re going to the Sanctum.”

I met his eyes. “And if the Elders decide I’m too dangerous?”

His expression didn’t change, but something behind it hardened. “Then they’ll have to go through me.”

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Sleep didn’t come easy.

When I finally drifted off, the forest melted away. I was standing on the surface of Mirror Lake, the same place that haunted my dreams for months before the Hollow. The water was still, reflecting both moons overhead, but this time, their colors bled into each other, red and silver swirling together like veins of light.

A figure waited across the water.

At first, I thought it was me. Same shape, same hair stirring in the cold wind. But when she raised her head, her eyes weren’t mine, they were dark as obsidian, rimmed in faint silver fire.

You woke what was sleeping, she said, her voice echoing like water rippling against stone.

“Who are you?”

The part of you that remembers.

I took a step closer. “The Rift… the Veil… what do they want?”

Balance, she said. But balance demands blood. You bound the Heart, Elara. Now it will bind you.

The reflection of the moons warped around her, bending into a single eclipse. The water beneath my feet began to crack, thin spiderwebs of light spreading outward.

“Tell me how to stop it,” I begged.

She smiled. It wasn’t kind. You can’t stop what you are.

The world split open beneath me.

I fell—

—and woke gasping, the night air sharp in my lungs.

Cael was kneeling beside me, hand hovering over my shoulder. “You cried out.”

I pressed a shaking hand to my chest. The mark there was burning, faint lines of light visible even through my skin. “She was there again.”

Auren sat up from where he’d been pretending to sleep. “Who?”

“Myself,” I whispered. “But not me. She said… the Heart bound me.”

Cael’s face went still. “Then it’s begun.”

“What has?”

“The merging.”

He stood, running a hand through his hair. “The longer you’re connected to the Heart, the thinner the line between your soul and the Veil becomes. Eventually…”

“Eventually what?”

His silence said enough.

Auren cursed under his breath. “We need to move. Now.”

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We broke camp before dawn. The forest was eerily quiet. Even the wolves had gone.

As the first hint of light touched the horizon, we crested a rise and there it was.

The Sanctum.

It sprawled across a cliffside, carved from living stone and silver root, its spires gleaming faintly in the half-light. Magic pulsed from it, slow and rhythmic, like the breath of something ancient and awake.

Auren let out a low whistle. “Home sweet judgment.”

Cael didn’t smile. “Stay close to me, Elara. They’ll sense the bond the moment we enter.”

My chest ached as the mark began to hum again. The closer we got, the heavier it felt, like something beneath the surface of the world was tugging at me, calling me forward.

The gates opened without anyone touching them.

Beyond them, figures waited in a circle of light, cloaked, silent, and watching.

And as I stepped into the Sanctum, every rune on its walls flared bright, reacting to me.

A voice, ancient and layered, echoed through the chamber.

So the Heart has chosen again.

Cael tensed beside me. “She’s not your weapon.”

The voice chuckled softly, like wind through bones. We shall see.

I lifted my chin, though my heart hammered in my chest. “Then let’s begin.”