Born In The Veil Novels & Stories

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 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!"

“Please. Tell me all of it. I don’t care how ugly it is. I just want to stand in it with you.” Baylee felt herself cracking. She almost told him. She almost said: — Sometimes at night I feel the scar watching me. — Sometimes I feel something old flicker behind my eyes when I look too long at the dark line where Jade tore through. — Sometimes I feel like the Veil knows I’m still alive and is waiting for me to open the door again. She almost told him the worst part: — Sometimes I don’t think the humming under the ground is the Veil. Sometimes I think it’s the baby.

I knew this veil. Not from this store, not from this morning. From years of waking up reaching for something that was not there. From a sketch I had made so many times that the paper had worn thin in the same places each time, the sweep of tulle, the way it moved in a wind that only existed in dreams, the particular quality of the light coming through it. From a prophecy delivered by a woman who did not waste words, who had looked at me across a fire and told me that my bride would find me behind a veil and that she alone could break what was destroying me. The veil was exactly right.

He held the veil firmly. I also turned to the healer… what was he saying? Sacrilege? What sacrilege? “What?” Beta Ilan sounded so confused. He was the only one confused, I was too, but in my confusion I tried to fish out any reason that would be solid enough to have the Beta off my neck. “Women, maidens, girls that go veiled are dedicated to the goddess by birth or by choice. Don't you see the Blessed Circlets around her wrists?” Both of our heads turned, I and the Beta's, towards the bracelets I had around my wrists.

People always said that childbirth was a near-death experience and that a woman had to endure unbearable pain. However, I barely felt a thing. With just a couple of pushes, the babies were born. My mother, however, let out a piercing scream. It was as if she had seen something terrifying. At the same time, something felt off. Why did it feel furry? I forced myself up and looked down. In that instant, my soul nearly left my body. There were two leopard cubs. Their bodies were covered in black rosette patterns.

"Dominating the Veiled Sanctuary?" Harvey asked Alexei curiously. Alexei scoffed. "Many years ago, a prodigy was born in the Veiled Sanctuary. He was said to be just a servant born into a small family. However, his powers grew exponentially after he accidentally learned martial arts.

“And what are my duties? Breathing quietly? Staying pretty? Pretending I wasn’t dragged here?” Violet’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you make everything difficult?” I laughed. “Because I can.” Her voice sharpened slightly. “You are in a powerful man’s home. You are safe. You have food. You have clothing. You have—” “A locked gate,” I interrupted. “A missing phone. A wing you’re scared of. And a room that someone can enter without opening the door.” The last part made her blink. Just once. A crack. Then her mask returned. “You’re imagining things.”

Her gaze drifted, lost somewhere far in memory. “When I was born, I had a sickness—the Veilrot Fever. It drained a person’s mana until nothing remained. Back then, it was incurable. My parents were desperate; they searched every realm for a cure, summoned healers, begged witches—but nothing worked. I was fading fast.”