His Howl, Her Silence

Chapter Four: The Veil Between

Aria had fled Mooncrest that day, dying. Poisons from a rogue, heart failing, eyes blurring and she had crawled through the forest, broken and forsaken, until they had found her.

“The Forsaken.” Whispers at night. Shadow hands. They strength gave her Fury, gave her back from death's brink, they pulled her.

Their magic had come at a tether though. A price.

And now they wanted payment "No" she spat "You can't have her"

"We don't need her" growled the creature.

"I did not simply make a deal with the Forsaken."

She looked at him, the reality bursting like glass in her throat.

"I gave birth to a child with their consent."

Aidan staggered. "You're saying what?"

A wind coalesced behind them was thick and heavy, heavy with whispers in no language Aidan had ever known. Trees bent in obeisance. The clearing darkened and then cracked.

A jagged rift opened the ground before them, a glowing red wound bleeding from the world itself.

Aidan gripped Aria's arm. "You have to tell me everything now. What is this? What's coming through that rift?"

Her eyes glowed with fear, something Aidan had never seen in her before.

"I was supposed to die that day" she whispered "But i begged for life and they gave it to me. Only later, i realized it wasn't just mine they saved"

The earth shook again.

From the depths of the glowing rift, something began to rise.

Shadows peeled back like curtains.

Clawed hands gripped the edges.

And then,

A child’s voice echoed from inside “Mama? Aria choked.

It was Lyra but her voice didn’t sound like Lyra anymore.

It sounded twinned as if another voice, deeper and far more ancient was speaking through her.

“Don’t come in here” she whispered “I don’t think i’m alone”

….……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

(ARIA POV)

The tear was a throbbing heartbeat.

Aidan pulled Aria back as the earth trembled but she did not budge. Her Fists curled and her nails scraping into skin.

"Mama…?" Lyra's voice summoned for the second time within the tear but it was not just her voice.

It was doubled and a disquieting ghosting of something far older, colder and more malevolent.

"She's alive" Aria whispered.

Aidan stepped forward "But she's not alone. What in the world is this place?"

"The Veil," Aria breathed. "A prison, A kingdom between life and death, governed by the Forsaken. It's where they feed. Where they warehouse what they can't destroy"

"You sent our daughter there?"

"I did not send her. I was trying to protect her!" Aria spat, her voice shattering "I did not want any of this but I bargained to live and she, she was the cost."

Aidan's eyes flared. "Then assist me in righting the situation"

The ground split wider and the energy radiating from it are raw and electric. The scent of sulfur burned the back of his throat and inside the glowing chasm, the shadows twisted like screaming souls.

And still Lyra’s voice called out faintly.

Aria reached out “Lyra baby, I’m coming. Hold on”

“No” Lyra answered “Don’t. It’s watching me”

And then there was total silence.

(LYRA POV)

The world on the other side of the Veil wasn’t like the one she knew.

She cowered in a circle of light that was burning with the same heartbeat as candle. All outside of it was shadow. Not darkness shadow. Breathing, stretching and crying out.

The Forsaken pulled her from Cas's back in claws that were like decay and gale. And now she lay in a corridor made of bone and silence and something enormous was passing just beyond her ken.

"Where is my mama?" No answer. But a murmur enfolded the air.

“You are not like the others,” it said, low and silky. “You are the seed of a broken vow. The daughter of death and defiance.”

Lyra’s small fingers balled into fists “I’m not scared of you”

A face appeared just inches from her pale eyes in the dark, wide and inhuman “You should be”

Then it was gone again.

Lyra looked down and gasped.

The light around her was shrinking. The circle closing and inscribed on her feet, barely legible was a symbol smoldering faintly red.

A mark she'd ever seen only once before… on her mother's back.

Her head started to throb. Her eyes burnt.

Then she remembered.

The voices.

The whispers that'd dwelled inside her since birth. The ones Mama instructed her to ignore.

But now they roared.

Open, open, open…"No!" she howled.

And something broke deep inside her chest.

Aria backed away from the tear, clutching her heart.

"What is it?"

Aidan caught her.

"She's fighting it. She's waking something up inside."

"You told me they want what's inside of her," Aidan said. "So what is it? Magic? A monster?"