Thorns Beneath The Veil Novels & Stories

We were required to take another set of exams to prove that we didn't cheat off of each other, and seeing the incredulous looks on the examiners’ faces when our results were out was really funny. Ella had stopped talking while she set her books on the table since the lab was nearly full. As the vanity crew (Ella nicknamed them this a week after we resumed) entered, the fragrance of strong cologne filled the room. I looked up just in time to see Ackleth Manor latch the door behind him; it was a regulation that the person who entered the lab last had to close it. He glanced back at the room, his lab coat thrown across one arm and his books in the other, caught my gaze and held it for a few sec

“So you abandon the Hollow? Abandon us?” “I abandon nothing,” Thorne said, calm as stone. “But I will not squander my power on foolish haste. Rhea is not prey to be culled in the dark—she is the storm that breaks the sky. And I will know what waits at its heart.” Without another word, she turned, her steps echoing against the cavernous walls of the Hollow. The firelight licked her silhouette before swallowing it whole. She was gone, leaving her sisters to their venom. --- The night beyond the Hollow was vast, breathing, alive with the whisper of old trees. Thorne moved silently through the forest, her cloak trailing like spilled ink. The air was colder here, heavier, as if each step drew her

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.

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 stepped on a twig which sent shivers down my spine and almost fell, my veil fell to the floor. "Did you hear that?" I heard someone ask. I quickly grabbed my veil and hid behind a tree. A flashlight was flashed towards my direction but they couldn't see me because of the huge tree. My heart pounded in my chest when I heard the rustling of leaves coming towards me. I couldn't afford to get caught after so much effort I put into this plan. If it fell through, I might never be able to get my child out of their clutches again.

“Where is she?” “I don’t know.” The first Man said, frustrated. “She’s fast. Check the back.” “Keep moving. Don’t stop.” Sienna whispered to herself, peeking through the slats. As the men split up, Sienna quietly slipped out of the pantry and into the hallway. Her bare feet make no sound against the cool tiles. She spotted a vase on a side table and carefully picked it up. “Gotcha!” The second Man said from behind her. Sienna spinned, smashing the vase over his head. He stumbled back, cursing, as she bolted down the hallway.

Long, crouched near the roof hatch with a scoped rifle, murmured, “There are more of them. We're close… The Vale of Thorns is just beyond that ridge.” Emma’s heart sank. The trees around them twisted unnaturally, gnarled and sharp like claws. The Vale of Thorns. A forgotten land buried in legends. A place where dark magic had once been practiced before the world decided to forget it. Now, it had returned—and so had its horrors. “Hold on!” Marcus shouted, slamming the steering wheel hard to the left. A screech tore through the air as a grotesque infected wolf, nearly three times the size of the others, rammed into the side of the armored vehicle. The world flipped.

It began in a shadow-draped alley behind the gutted cathedral of Vienna—once a center of Hollow experiments, now a ruin surrounded by silence. Bain and Vulture stood side by side, dressed in black, the sigils of the Thorned Circle engraved beneath their coats. Across from them, a woman emerged—pale, veiled, lips stitched shut. Her name was Mother Throe, a defected priestess of the Hollow cult. She held a small scroll bound in scarlet twine.

I open my eyes and take the card out of the blinding glow, and as my brain registers the card it looks blank, but I do as tradition states, spin around and hold it in the air for all to see. The gasps and the yelling starts, and I don’t understand why, so I bring the card down to my eye level and watch it. The card is black with what looks like six white silhouettes on it. There are colors beginning to swirl within each of the white silhouettes. Glancing up I see six figures walking toward me, but I can’t make out who they are. “Mistress to the Veil! The whore and her men must be sacrificed! You know the law! Kill the betrayers!”