CHAPTER 2

It was at this moment that the absolute necessity of the veil hit me, we simply could not coexist in the same world.

For centuries, whispers had trickled down through the common folk, rumors that if a mere mortal dared to cross the threshold into the realm of the immortals, the sheer atmospheric magic would rewrite their bloodline. They called those rare souls the ‘Unbound’, beings granted terrifying, raw power upon entry. Yet, it remained a legendary myth, no Unbound had been recorded of lately. Still, I couldn't help but wonder, If the myth was hollow, how on earth had any human ever survived stepping foot onto the other side? Or were there no humans left over there at all?

The night wore on, thick and oppressive, but the feast showed no signs of dying down. As the revelry turned increasingly hedonistic, loyal wives quietly ushered the children back to the guest quarters assigned by the King. Soon, the hall was left to the debauchery of men, lords, foreign delegates, and courtiers encircled by concubines, courtesans offered as political playthings, and my father’s most prized possessions, his slaves.

Even the immortal delegates were eager to taste human flesh, indulging in the women presented to them like delicacies. A dark, unbidden curiosity spiked in my mind, wondering what such a transactional, dangerous encounter would feel like. At least something in this wretched hall had managed to pique my interest, and I made a silent vow to question one of the courtesans about her experience when the opportunity arose.

Without realizing it, my eyes drifted and locked onto a random werewolf . He was handling a young human slave callously, casually tossing her around like a brainless toy. A sickening mixture of feelings surged in my throat, utter disgust at his cruelty, mingled with a strange, terrifying prickle of instinctual desire.

What is wrong with me? I screamed inwardly, panic rising in my chest.

Before I could tear my gaze away, his golden eyes snapped to mine. Our looks collided across the crowded hall, and a slow, lethal smirk crept onto his face. He knew I’d been watching. Shame flared hot beneath my skin. Mortified, sickened by my own unexplainable curiosity, I grabbed my mother, who had spent the last hour quietly trembling and begging to leave and bolted out into the shadows.

The walk back to our assigned quarters was suffocatingly quiet. The bitter irony cut deep, I was walking the halls of my own biological father’s palace, yet forced to sleep in the guest wing like a stray begging for shelter, assuming my restless mind would even allow me to sleep.

The moment we crossed the threshold of the room, the mask my mother had worn all evening completely shattered. The emotional weight of the court's humiliation crushed her, and the second her head touched the pillow, she passed out from absolute exhaustion. I knelt by the bed, gently unlacing her slippers and rubbing her weary, aching feet to soothe the tension binding her muscles before pulling the heavy velvet blanket over her shoulders. She always smiled. She always played the forgiving saint. But tonight had fundamentally broken her spirit. I could feel her silent grief echoing off the walls, heavy enough to choke me.

I couldn't stay in that suffocating room a second longer. My lungs burned for cool, clean air, my mind needed to untangle the storm of shame, rage, and confusion threatening to tear me apart.

Stepping away from her bedside, I quietly slipped through the arched balcony door and into the moonlit silence of the royal gardens. If only I had known what was lurking in those shadows, waiting for me.

Strolling through the gardens, a suffocating sense of wrongness settled in my chest. The flora was blooming with an unnatural, forced violence, and the air carried a metallic, cloying stench that felt entirely out of place. I had been away from the palace for years, but I hadn't forgotten how magical this sanctuary used to be. Old legends whispered that tiny fairies danced among the hedges, and that the forgotten stone archway behind the garden led to a passage through the woods, a bridge to the immortal realm. That had to be where the foreign guests had crossed into Pompeli today.

Curiosity tugged at my core, demanding I investigate. But immediately I made it past the back gate, facing the rushing roar of the waterfall and the shadowed forest beyond, a sharp mocking voice shattered the silence.

"Well, brother, guess who we have here?"

Cassia stepped out from behind a carved marble pillar, a cruel, triumphant smirk stretched across her face.

"Wow. Hello, sister," Caius chimed in, stepping out beside her with a wide, predatory grin.

A heavy, exhausting rage spiked in my throat. I didn't have the time or the energy for their games. "I'm sorry, I need to get back to my room," I said, my voice ice cold as I tried to brush past them.

"Ahh, look at our sweet sister trying to run away," he mocked, stepping directly into my path.

"Not so fast,"cassia purred, her eyes glittering with long hoarded malice. "I’ve barely had my fun. I’ve had my eyes on you since the moment you dragged your pathetic feet into this castle, and I plan to take my revenge today. Why do you think I waited so patiently until you crossed the back gate? There are no guards here, valeria. No one can save you."

Before I could react, she shoved me violently, the force pushing me back toward the slippery edge of the waterfall.

A sickening realization dawned on me, she wanted me dead. But why here? Why now? She’d had years to arrange an accident, yet she was choosing tonight. Something felt terribly wrong.

"What do you want, Eliora?" I demanded, forcing my hands to remain steady at my sides. "I haven't done a single thing to you. What is this really about?"

Hearing my own words, I felt a wave of self-loathing. I sounded just like my mother, choosing peace over violence, acting like a meek, submissive martyr. Deep down, I hated that part of myself. But I knew the only reason I wasn't tearing the hair out of her scalp was because my mother was sleeping inside those palace walls, trapped in enemy territory. I had to play it cool. For Mum's sake.

"Oh, darling, haven't you heard?" Caius laughed, a harsh, grating sound that echoed off the stone walls. "Did you honestly think you were invited here for a tea party?"

"Heard what?" I snapped, ignoring their childish taunts. All I cared about was unearthing the truth they were dangling over my head.

"Dad is bringing back The Hunt this year," he gloated, puffing his chest out. "Along with Grandpa."

My stomach plummeted into a cold abyss. "Hell no. And you all agreed to this?"

"Of course we did!", "It’s brilliant to watch the chaos, the bloodlust! I’m actually contemplating entering the trials myself, but Mother won't agree. She thinks I might get hurt, though we all know I’m the finest fighter in this kingdom."

"You can't bring back the tournament!" My voice cracked with raw, furious desperation. "What was the point of creating Pompeli? What was my mother's sacrifice for if you just throw everything away?"

"In case you haven't realized," he sneered, stepping closer, "we don't care about your mother or her pathetic sacrifices."

"Lives will be lost!" I shouted, the horror suffocating me. "We could all die!"

"Oh, sweet sister, don't worry about the royal bloodline," he sneered, leaning in with a sickening grin. "That's where your side of the family comes in. Technically not you, though your mother, actually."

My heart stopped. "What do you mean, my mother? Is she, is she going to be a sacrifice?"

"Well, yes," cassia beamed, delivering the blow with absolute relish. "She's being handed over to the werewolf alpha as leverage. Though I severely doubt she’ll survive the crossing back to his realm."

"She can't make the cross!" I screamed, terror bleeding into my rage. "A human can't survive crossing the veil like that!"

"Oh, she will," sha chuckled darky. "She’ll cross it willingly, if she wants to see her darling daughter again. Or what’s left of your corpse."

"Don't you dare speak of my mother like she's some disposable piece of meat!"

"Targeted truth hurts, doesn't it?" Caius mocked. "Any minute now, the guards will wake her up and drag her to the grand hall. The official announcement for The Hunt will be made, and the ministers will sign off on it because they love money, power, and blood. She’ll accept the terms without a fight because she loves her darling little bastard"

Before the word ‘bastard’ fully left his mouth, my mind snapped.

All my practiced restraint, all my mother's soft lessons on kindness vanished into pure, violent instinct. My fist cracked directly into Caius’s jaw. The impact reverberated up my arm as he stumbled back, dazed. I tackled him to the stone ground, mounting his chest and raining a frenzy of heavy, brutal blows onto his face, feeling his nose shatter beneath my knuckles.

‘I have minutes to save Mum’, the panicked thought screamed in my head.

I abandoned Elijah groaning in his own blood and scrambled up, sprinting toward the garden gate to reach the castle.

Reality, however, is a cruel master.

I hadn't taken three strides before an unnatural, crushing force slammed into my back. The weight blew the air entirely out of my lungs as I was driven hard into the dirt. A thick, clawed arm locked around my throat, pinning me down with a raw, terrifying strength that no human possessed.

It was a werewolf .

A sick sense of irony twisted in my gut. Just an hour ago in the grand hall, I had been stupidly curious about what it would feel like to be touched by his kind. Now, he was kneeling on my spine, crushing the life out of me.

"Took you long enough to find me," I choked out through gritted teeth, trying to mask the absolute terror clawing at my throat.

"Oh, darling, I’ve been on your tail since you left your room," he countered, his hot, metallic breath fanning against my ear.

"Kill her!" Cassia barked, rushing over while helping a bleeding Caius to his feet. "Kill her right now!"

"We aren't allowed to kill her yet, Princess," the werewolf rumbled, his grip tightening just enough to make black spots dance across my vision. "Your mother explicitly said to wait until after the trueborn queen crosses the threshold. I have to be gentle."

"Fine," sha spat, her face contorted in disgust as she wiped blood off her twin’s chin. "Break every bone in her body and bring her to the hall at the brink of death."

She turned to walk away, tugging her brother along.

"You really think so highly of a mere werewolf, Cassia?" I wheezed out, forcing a bloody grin as I called after her retreating back. "Don't be surprised if I'm in your bedchambers before he even gets the chance to warm your sheets."

My words struck a nerve, she froze dead in her tracks. She looked ahead, Caius had already stumbled through the archway, then slowly she turned around, her eyes burning with a psychotic rage.

She walked back to the werewolf, her voice dropping to a dangerous whisper. "You know what we discussed earlier, she does not leave this garden alive, don't worry about my parents, I'll tell them it was an unfortunate accident, or a suicide."

Giving me one final, victorious glance, she turned on her heel and glided out of the garden.

"You heard the princess," the werewolf growled, hoisting me up by my collar and shoving me backward toward the edge of the cliff. "Your story ends here."

I looked at the empty archway where Cassia had disappeared, then stared up at the beast towering over me. I was trapped. A lethal killer in front of me, an endless, screaming waterfall behind me. Anyone who had ever fallen into those churning, violent depths had vanished without a trace, their bodies never recovered.

Yet, as I stood on the brink of death, a strange, eerie calm washed over me. The dormant shadow inside my soul stirred, whispering that I could fight him, I could tear this monster apart if I unleashed the wild, dark energy pulsing beneath my skin. But if I revealed my true strength now, a hundred more of his pack would hunt me down before I could ever reach my mother. I couldn't let them guage my strength, so I had to play the weak, helpless human just a little longer.

I took a slow, deliberate step backward, my heels hanging over the wet, slippery edge of the abyss.

The werewolf’s golden eyes widened slightly as he realized what I was about to do. "You think falling down there is going to be an easy death?"

"I'll remember your face," I whispered, my voice dripping with an absolute, terrifying promise.

"And what good will that do you?" he sneered.

"I'll be back."

I leaned backward, letting go of the earth.

The world tilted upside down as gravity snatched me into the void. The roar of the wind whipped through my hair, suffocating my lungs as I plummeted toward the jagged rocks below. Fear, rage, and a profound, bone-deep sadness collided inside my chest. ‘How did we end up here? How did my life become a tragic parade of sacrifices?’

Then, the ice-cold, violent water swallowed me whole.

The roaring river dragged me under, slamming me into the freezing dark, choking the air from my chest. As the black current carried my battered body away into the unknown, my heart turned to solid ice and a single promise burned through the darkness of my mind, ‘they wanted a sacrifice, I’ll give them a slaughter’.