Chapter Thirty Three - Through the Veil (Aria's POV )

The forest was still damp when dawn broke, a thin veil of mist clinging stubbornly to the trees. The storm had passed, but the air hadn’t lost its weight. Every breath felt thick with what had happened the night before, the echo of Ronan’s power, the shadow’s hollow laughter still vibrating somewhere deep in my bones.

Kael was already up before the light touched the riverbank, moving with the restless precision of someone who hadn’t slept. He’d checked the perimeter twice, cleaned his blade, and given quiet orders to the others. The pack didn’t question him. None of us had the luxury of doubt anymore.

Lyra crouched near the dying embers of the fire, murmuring incantations under her breath as she traced runes in the mud. Her face was pale, hair damp with sweat. Whatever she’d burned through last night to fight the shadow had left her drained, but she didn’t complain.

I sat wrapped in Kael’s cloak, fingers resting lightly against my stomach. The child was quiet. Too quiet. That stillness frightened me more than the fight had. It wasn’t just my heartbeat anymore, it was ours.

Kael’s voice broke through the silence. “We leave in ten.”

Lyra glanced up, her expression grim. “The Shadow Keep isn’t a place you walk into unprepared. It’s in the Hollow, a dead zone. No moonlight reaches it. No magic answers inside. If the Veilstone is still there, Ronan’s already guarding it.”

Kael’s jaw tightened. “Then we’ll take it from him.”

Her mouth curved into a bitter smile. “You make it sound simple.”

“It is simple,” he said flatly. “We don’t have a choice.”

Their words hung between us, sharp and heavy. I forced myself to stand, ignoring the tremor in my legs. “How far?”

Lyra exhaled slowly. “If we move without stopping, two days. But the path through the Hollow isn’t like anything you’ve walked before. The magic dies there. What protects you now, wards, the bond’s shield, the pack’s senses, it will all fade the closer we get.”

Kael turned to me, something like apology flickering behind the steel in his eyes. “I won’t let him touch you.”

I nodded, even though we both knew the truth, if Ronan wanted to, he wouldn’t need to touch me at all.

We moved as soon as the sun crested the trees. The river gave way to dense forest, then to broken hills where the fog thickened again. Lyra led us north, following a path that wasn’t on any map. Every step was deliberate. Every sound, a bird’s cry, a branch snapping underfoot, felt louder than it should.

The pack spread out, wolves on the perimeter. Their movements were silent, practiced. Kael walked beside me, his hand hovering near his blade, the tension in his body constant.

We stopped briefly at midday, but no one spoke much. When I asked Lyra how she’d found the path, she only said, “The old magic remembers where it’s buried.”

By nightfall, the trees had begun to change.

Their trunks twisted inward, bending as if the forest itself recoiled from the place we were headed. The air grew colder, sharp enough to sting the lungs. And the silence, it wasn’t the soft kind of silence the forest usually held. This was the absence of everything. No wind. No insects. No heartbeat but our own.

“This is it,” Lyra whispered. “The Hollow’s edge.”

Kael signaled for the pack to tighten formation. “Stay close. No one falls behind.”

As we crossed an invisible line in the earth, the world dimmed. It wasn’t just the lack of light, the bond inside me dimmed too. The silver thread that had burned bright since the temple felt faint now, like a candle flickering against the dark.

“Lyra…” I breathed. “Something’s wrong.”

Her face was tight with concentration. “It’s the Hollow. It strips everything away. Power, sight, strength. It feeds on what it can’t control.”

Kael moved closer, one hand finding mine. His warmth anchored me, steady and solid against the growing emptiness around us.

We walked for hours through that dead silence, guided only by Lyra’s faint rune, glow. When she stumbled, Kael caught her, but she waved him off. “I’m fine,” she lied.

Eventually, the land opened into a barren clearing.

The Shadow Keep rose before us like a wound in the world.

Once, it must have been a fortress, tall, proud, carved from black stone that drank the light. Now it leaned in on itself, broken towers jagged against the night sky. Veins of shadow pulsed faintly across its walls like something alive beneath the stone.

Kael let out a slow breath. “We go in quiet. If he knows we’re here... ”

“He already does,” Lyra interrupted. “He’s been waiting since the bond was sealed.”

She wasn’t wrong. As we stepped closer, the air thickened. The shadow that had followed us last night had been a fragment. This, this was the heart of it.

Kael signaled the wolves to fan out. They melted into the dark, silent hunters ready to die before letting him reach me.

The gate yawned open like the mouth of some ancient beast.

Inside, the Keep was colder. Empty halls stretched out before us, walls slick with some kind of black moss. Shadows moved along the edges, whispering in voices too faint to catch.

Kael kept me close to his side, blade in hand. Lyra walked slightly ahead, runes etched in pale fire drifting from her fingertips. “This place shouldn’t still exist,” she murmured. “The gods tried to bury it. He rebuilt it on the bones of their failure.”

“Then let’s finish what they started,” Kael said.

The Keep’s inner chamber was exactly where I didn’t want it to be, deep beneath the ground, down a spiral staircase carved from obsidian that seemed to drink our footsteps. The deeper we went, the fainter Lyra’s runes became.

Finally, the tunnel opened into a cavern.

And there it was.

The Veilstone wasn’t a stone at all. It was a heart. A massive crystal sphere suspended above the ground, its surface fractured and glowing with a soft, mournful light. Each pulse made the air tremble.

Lyra’s breath caught. “It’s still alive.”

Kael’s grip on his blade tightened. “Then let’s take it and get out.”

Before anyone could move, the air shifted.

Darkness spilled from the edges of the chamber, pooling like ink. The sound of a slow, deliberate clap echoed through the cavern.

Ronan stepped from the shadows as if he’d always been there, waiting.

“Little seer,” he said softly. “You came to me after all.”

His armor gleamed faintly, black steel threaded with silver veins. His eyes burned like cold fire.

Kael moved in front of me, blade drawn. “You’ll die here.”

Ronan’s smile was thin. “Do you truly believe that, wolf? In my home?”

His power filled the room like a flood, smothering what little magic Lyra still held. She staggered back, choking on the weight of it.

The child inside me stirred violently, reacting to him. The bond pulsed in panic.

“You feel it, don’t you?” Ronan’s voice slid like smoke through the air. “The blood that ties us. You can run across mountains, hide in ruins, whisper to gods who no longer listen. But you can’t change what you are.”

“I’m nothing of yours,” I said.

He tilted his head. “You carry my legacy.”

Kael lunged before Ronan could finish the thought. Steel met shadow. The impact exploded across the cavern, shaking stone loose from the ceiling. The Veilstone pulsed harder, feeding on their clash.

Lyra screamed something in the old tongue, forcing a crack of light through the dark, but Ronan swatted it aside like smoke.

Kael was fast, faster than any wolf I’d ever seen, but Ronan wasn’t human. His movements were effortless, each strike precise and cruel. Kael’s blade finally found flesh, cutting across Ronan’s shoulder. Instead of blood, black smoke hissed from the wound.

Ronan’s smile didn’t falter. “Good,” he said softly. “Make me bleed.”

Kael roared, driving him back. Lyra moved toward the Veilstone, runes flickering weakly as she tried to unlock its heart.

I couldn’t move at first. The weight of Ronan’s presence pressed on me like a hand around my throat. But then the bond shifted, not in fear, but in defiance.

I stepped forward.

Ronan’s head snapped toward me instantly. “Ah,” he purred. “There she is.”

He reached out with a hand, and the bond answered. A violent surge of power yanked at my chest, trying to drag me toward him.

“Aria!” Kael shouted.

Lyra’s voice cut through the chaos. “Touch the Veilstone! Now!”

I ran. The pull of Ronan’s power fought me every step, dragging at my limbs like a tide. Kael moved to intercept Ronan, slamming him into the wall with a growl that shook the ground.

I reached the Veilstone and pressed my palms to its surface.

The world shattered.

Light and darkness tore through me in equal measure. I saw Ronan, not as he stood, but as he was centuries ago. I saw the first Seer, the blood spilled on the night the Veilstone was born. I saw the bond that should never have existed.

And then I felt the choice burn through me like fire.

The Veilstone could cut him out of me. It could sever the bond entirely. But it would cost me something too.

The child stirred, heartbeat racing against mine.

Ronan’s voice was suddenly in my head, cold and sharp. If you sever me, you sever what keeps it alive.

I screamed, pressing harder into the light.

Kael shouted my name. Ronan roared. Lyra chanted.

The Veilstone pulsed one last time, and everything went white.

When the light faded, the cavern was silent.

Ronan lay crumpled on the stone floor, his armor cracked, smoke spilling from the fissures in his chest. His silver eyes burned holes into me.

“This isn’t over,” he whispered. And then he dissolved, scattered like ash on the wind.

Kael stumbled toward me, blood on his face, eyes wild. “Aria..”

I collapsed against him. My hands shook. My heartbeat felt different. Lighter. But when I reached inward for the bond, I found only half of it.

The child still lived. But the thread connecting us to Ronan was gone.

Lyra leaned against the wall, panting. “You did it,” she whispered. “You cut him out.”

Kael pulled me into his arms, his grip fierce. For the first time in weeks, there was no shadow in the bond. No whisper. No cold.

But as we turned to leave, I glanced once more at the Veilstone. Its light was fading.

And for just a heartbeat, I swore I saw a flicker of silver in the cracks.

A whisper that wasn’t gone.

Just waiting.