Veilstone City Novels & Stories

Then, she took a deep breath and put on the look of a concerned elder. "I've been nothing but nice to you, Ginny. I know you've done nothing wrong, but my grandson's been out there, living in the shadows for five years. I couldn't let this go on any longer!" My limp hand clenched into a fist, and my pupils narrowed. So, I was the last one to know about this affair. Melanie took out a file from her safe. The contract listed assets that had a combined worth of 1.5 million. "We'll compensate you for this. All you have to do is accept the boy into your life and leave everything else to us. Nathaniel has promised me he'll never talk to Helen agai—"

The realization sat in his chest like a cold block of iron. *The Veil* hadn't been built by an independent operator to provide a sanctuary for the city’s elite. It had been financed from the very beginning by a joint corporate entity designed to record, catalog, and store every single vulnerability the heirs of both empires exposed within its soundproofed walls. The blindfold Elias had worn wasn't a game. It was a lens. And every time Damien Blackwood had pinned him against the velvet upholstery of the private rooms, the house itself had been logging the alignment of their bones.

She knew. "Thank you. I just need a moment." I gathered my gear—my leather pack and the encrypted data-slate Helena had given me. My movements felt clumsy. I felt marked, even though there was no physical brand on my skin. I stepped out of the transport and into the biting chill of Valemont. Valemont. The City of Veils. The rain here didn't smell like water; it smelled like ozone and old blood. I caught a carriage—a sleek, black-lacquered vehicle pulled by silent, silver-eyed constructs—and headed toward the Shadowclaw District.

I glanced at her, catching her eye as I mouthed a thank you to her. "Will you ever leave Elizabeth alone?" He asked her, a playful smile playing on her lips. "Of course not, as she is a thorn in everyone's neck, so I will be a thorn in her neck," Elivira said to him and they both laughed. "There's a lot that we need to do. The downtown keeps suffering from the ghost hunters" Alpha Elijah said and I felt grateful that the attention had shifted from me. "The ghost hunters? I thought the downtown has been sealed?" Elvira asked but he shook his head.

“We find the city, the node, whatever’s holding the Veil together. We end this.” Lucian’s grip tightened, his eyes fierce. “Together.” “Together,” I echoed, the bond flaring—us, against her, against everything. --- The elders had warned of nodes—points where the Veil was thinnest, anchors for its power—but they hadn’t spoken of crossing it. Sylva, before we’d left the Hollows, had given us a map, not of land but of stars, etched on leather, its lines shifting under moonlight. It marked the valley’s node as a gate, and the city as its destination. “The Veil’s other side isn’t ours,” she’d said, her eyes on me. “It’s hers. Be careful what you bring back.”

“The gods tried to bury it. He rebuilt it on the bones of their failure.” “Then let’s finish what they started,” Kael said. The Keep’s inner chamber was exactly where I didn’t want it to be, deep beneath the ground, down a spiral staircase carved from obsidian that seemed to drink our footsteps. The deeper we went, the fainter Lyra’s runes became. Finally, the tunnel opened into a cavern. And there it was. The Veilstone wasn’t a stone at all. It was a heart. A massive crystal sphere suspended above the ground, its surface fractured and glowing with a soft, mournful light. Each pulse made the air tremble.

Elias led the way to an old forgotten map wall and then pressed three points in a particular order on the stone. With a low groan of grinding rock, a portion of the wall slid away, exposing a dimly lit descending staircase. The cool clean-water, old-stone and other scents filled the air that rose and the subtle electric buzz of our species. Underneath the city was a beautiful hidden world called The Covenant coven, it was carved out of the bedrock.

the girl in pigtails explained. "About three thousand people died in that town because of the sudden calamity. The military forces are trying to figure out their purpose for going that far as summoning a tidal wave, forcing the flow of nature against it's own. But we've heard...," she said and leaned towards Iktanne's ear and whispered, "... we've heard a few days ago in the library from the proctors that the Giants were collecting gold and souls from the normals. They said that there was an insignia left on the shores of the north... which might cause a great trouble because it links back here in the Academy and the Empire."

It was full of forests and wildlife, something that was wholly absent in the bustling city of Anemond. It was already noon when we finally arrived to a place Kaleb informed me was called Vlokwell. It was a large city, resembling Anemond, but with much fewer people. The streets weren’t even remotely bustling, and there were half as many tall buildings. I was taken aback by the architecture. Everything was all white and gray brick, giving it a sort of gloomy, wintery feeling.

At this moment, Caspian carefully thought about the information that he needed around the Cloud City where the transaction house was located. About two thousand miles from Cloud City, there was a town called Stone Tower Town. Because this town was not far from a big city like Cloud City, it was relatively prosperous. Compared to some small cities, it was not much of a fuss. There was a secret stronghold of the Ghost Kill Pavilion in Stone Tower Town! Various possibilities were listed in Caspian's mind. One of them was that after a fierce fight with the Ghost Kill Pavilion in Ancient Wasteland building, they found that someone had caused trouble before, so their relationship was eased.