Born In The Veil Novels & Stories

I give people the benefit of the doubt - too much so, apparently - but once that trust is broken, it can’t be rebuilt. Enzo Baresi seems to be taking his wife’s betrayal in his stride, and for reasons I don’t fully understand, I want to show him that I refuse to let it break me either. I’m stronger than that, and I want him to know it. Two hours later, I’m ready. I’ve been manicured and primped to perfection, my skin radiant and my makeup flawless. The black dress I wear sends a message that I am a woman who knows just what she has to offer the world, and my heels say that nothing can slow me down. In a small act of rebellion that’s just for me, I’m wearing the black lace corset and garter b

Whenever I felt insecure or self-conscious, he would comfort me and reassure me that everything would be okay. Although I was new to a life of luxury, I was adjusting well. I had a personal ladymaid by the name of Nana. She is a bat harpy. I have learned quite a lot about the Underworld. Somethings I didn't want to go into the specifics about since I wish I didn't learn them myself. Unfortunately, Hades is absent today, leaving me without company. I felt lonely without him. I tossed and turned in bed for a while longer until I couldn't take it anymore. Just as I decided to go look for him, I heard the sound of a whirlwind.

break. I cry out. I don’t care how it sounds. I need help. “Back up!” Ezra yells, and I catch movement in my periphery; Kaia’s brothers pulling people away. Then, the sky groans. Above me, the clouds ripple, then split open like parchment being torn in two. The Veil is breaking. ~~~

Lady Vesper collapsed to her knees, hair wild, eyes wide. “You didn’t kill us.” Autumn stepped past her. “No.” “I showed you.” She walked through the broken glass barefoot, cuts forming with every step. The shards sang under her weight, chiming like distant bells, but her stride never faltered. Light caught in the bloodless wounds, casting fleeting sigils on the floor. But she didn’t bleed. The Veil wouldn’t let her. Its protection wrapped around her like a second skin, sealing her from harm, marking her as something untouchable—neither wholly mortal nor wholly myth.

The first scream tore through the morning haze like a blade, sharp and unrelenting. Evelyn had been leaning over the town’s archives earlier, trying to make sense of centuries-old records, when it reached her through the fog outside. It wasn’t the familiar, echoing howl she had grown accustomed to—it was raw, frantic, and human in panic.

“That depends on what she does next.” The sky above them cracked. A pulse rippled across the realm, a shudder that traveled through the earth. The Veil was weakening fast. Soon, what lay beyond it on the other side, the Hollowed Realm would spill through. The Prophetess screamed again, clawing at her own throat. “We were promised rebirth! We gave you blood! We gave you children!” “You gave me *nothing*,” the Firstborn growled, lifting her with a single motion and tossing her aside like a doll.

Where the Veil was born. --- **The Truth** The graves are alive. Ancient wolves, their pelts dusted with glacial ice, pace beneath the northern lights. They speak in riddles, their voices overlapping. *"The Loom's thread frays. The Mother comes."* The Devourer's mother is no god-she's the Veil's first tear, a wound that became a womb. Her arrival will unmake every stitch the Weaver ever sewed. Eden stitches new wards into his coat. "Can you kill her?"

Thousands of them. Selene staggered as one voice hit her like a blade of her own. A memory of her scream during childbirth. Aelira’s first cry. Her lover’s whisper in the dark: “We’ll protect her. Even if the world burns.” She fell to one knee. Aelira’s voice called down from the tear. “The Veil isn’t a wall. It’s a wound. And I am the key they carved from your flesh to open it.” “No,” Selene whispered, forcing herself upright. “You are not a weapon. You are my child.”

I said. "Permanently. The Veil has always been a temporary structure. It was never meant to exist indefinitely. It is failing on its own, tearing at the edges, and what lives on the other side will not stay contained indefinitely. The scouts you encountered last night are the beginning." He looked at me steadily. "The prophecy describes a Veilborn child who enters the spirit realm from within and closes the breach from the inside. Permanently. Completely. No more tears. No more scouts. No more spirit wolves bleeding through into this world."

I was born with a strange condition. I couldn't recognize faces and could only identify people by their clothes. Vincent Lancaster, my boyfriend, never minded. He said it didn't change the way he loved me. That was, until our wedding day. He answered a phone call. His childhood friend, Grace Langley, was in labor, life hanging by a thread, and she demanded he come immediately. My voice shook with despair. "Vincent! If you drive away now, we'll never be husband and wife!"