The Painted Veil Novel Novels & Stories

like a jolt of electricity. I held my breath. “Is this part of the original piece?” I whispered, though I didn’t expect an answer. But before I could examine it further, footsteps echoed from the hallway. Instinctively, I slipped the paper into my notebook and closed it quickly. I looked back at the painting. And right then—again. The faint pair of eyes etched into the fog of the painting shimmered for a second. Like dew reflecting the dim light of the hall. Just a blink. But it was clear.

​The title on the cover read: "VOLUME 2: THE REVENGE OF THE AUTHOR’S WIFE." ​Nora’s heart stopped. She looked at Mia, who was standing by the door, her eyes wide with a memory she hadn't had before. ​"Nora..." Mia whispered. "The Author... he didn't write this story alone. He had a Co-Writer. And she’s coming to Claim the Royalty." ​Suddenly, the white room began to bleed a deep, passionate Violet.

Like the house didn’t hold its breath in the dark. Eggs and toast sat steaming on the tray, but my stomach clenched too tightly from hunger. The scent of butter turned sour in my throat. I stared at the note until the words blurred, then pushed the tray aside. I needed answers. The hallway was still, painted with soft morning light. The same paintings watched me—foggy lakes, faceless forests, the kind that swallowed silence whole. Every step echoed a little too loudly. I passed the study, the plant room, the piano draped in white linen. The air shifted as I neared the end of the corridor, colder, heavier, like I was walking into a place that didn’t belong to this house—or this world.

Apparently, that day had come. I removed one of the books from beneath its glass covering and carefully opened it near the middle. The pages were yellowed, brittle at the edges and covered in writing from several different hands. Some belonged to old Blackthorne scholars. Others had been copied from witch records, fae witnesses and survivors who had encountered the Veilborn long before our family did. My fingers stopped at one particular page. A faded sketch stared back at me. A woman. Long hair, sharp features and eyes painted in deep violet ink despite the rest of the image being almost colourless.

It needs him. The bond isn’t meant to stretch this far. Another pulse. Stronger. The ward runes along the walls flare brighter this time. Silver light ripples across the stone. I gasp softly. “Stop—” The warmth surges again. And for a split second— The world tilts. The room disappears. Not fully. Not like the dream. But something overlays it. Dark. Cold. Endless. The Veil. My breath catches sharply as I stumble back from the window.

"My best friend, my very best friend in the whole world, stabbed me in the back. And not just any stab, she stole my fiance. My fiance!” Elliot fingers tightened slightly around his glass, but his expression remained indifferent. She sniffled. "I was going to be a bride, you know. A beautiful one. The kind that makes people cry at the altar. And now, now I'm just a lonely, betrayed woman in a bar, talking to a living iceberg.”

Damien’s thumb slid slowly over the frantic, leaping pulse point beneath Elias's skin, his touch light, tracing the blue veins up into the cuff of his linen shirt. "You think I'm just here for the permits, Hawthorne?" Damien growled softly, his voice dropping into a register that was completely devoid of the corporate mask. He slid his hand higher, his thick fingers wrapping fully around Elias’s wrist, not to pin him down, but to draw his arm across the desk with a heavy, unhurried reverence. "I built the entire trap out of *The Veil* because I wanted to see if Victor’s pristine heir had a single piece of flesh that wasn't written into a contract. I found it. And I'm not leaving it behind fo

There was no reason to wait anymore. I threw the veil off, and the hall fell silent. My heart was beating fast, and my palms felt sweaty. Did they like it? I really hoped they did. The painting was a picture of a young hooded figure bent over in sorrow and defeat in a desolate wasteland at night. All around her were littered bodies, remnants of destruction and war. She was the only ray of life in the barren, bloody wasteland. She and the little white flower that grew in front of her, in a little puddle of blood, among the decaying and rotting corpses.

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.

I was to pretend this affair didn't exist and do nothing to stop them. Something wrapped its arm around my throat. I tore the contract into shreds. Nathaniel had kept the affair a secret for five whole years. That was something I didn't see coming. … It happened one night when I came home—three months had passed since our wedding. The first thing that greeted my eyes was a house turned upside-down. I saw torn clothes, undergarments, and questionable stains all over the ground. I walked into my bedroom. That was where I found Nathaniel in bed, naked with another woman. The scene hit me like a sledgehammer.