Chapter 14 — The Fractured Veil
1619 Words
The scream still echoed through the corridors long after the sound itself had died.
Eirena and Kael moved toward it, their steps fast but quiet, every sense stretched thin. The air grew colder with each hallway they passed. The stone walls had begun to change too, no longer just cracked, but warping, bending subtly inward as though the palace itself was being pulled toward something.
Or someone.
The Queen.
Eirena pressed a hand to her sternum as the ember inside her pulsed erratically, reacting to the ripples in the air. It felt as if the world itself was shivering under her skin.
Kael noticed immediately. “Is it the Queen again?”
“No… not just her,” Eirena whispered. “The veil. It’s weakening.”
Another pulse rippled through the palace, stronger this time. The floor trembled beneath their feet, dust raining from the ceiling.
Kael pulled Eirena closer. “Stay behind me.”
But she shook her head. “I need to be the one in front.”
He shot her a look sharp with worry. “How is that even remotely smart?”
“Kael…” She swallowed, choosing her words carefully. “She’s tearing the world to reach me, not you. If anyone’s going to sense where the breach is, it’s...”
She didn’t finish.
She didn’t need to.
Kael’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t argue.
They turned another corner.
And stopped dead.
The corridor ahead had been split in half literally. The stone floor had cracked down the centre, a jagged wound glowing with violet light. The air above it shimmered like a heat mirage, bending the world around it in rippling distortions.
Kael swore. “That… is that...?”
Eirena stepped closer despite his warning hand. “The veil. It’s thinning.”
As she approached, whispers curled through the air—soft as breath, cold as distant stars. Not words. Not yet. Just echoes of something old calling through the ruptured reality.
Kael grabbed her wrist. “Eirena, wait.”
She trembled beneath his touch. Not from fear.
From recognition.
“She’s right there,” Eirena whispered. “On the other side.”
Kael moved in front of her instinctively. “Then we stay away from it.”
“We can’t. If she breaks through completely, the entire palace will collapse. Maybe the continent.”
“Then we run.”
“And leave everyone else? Leave the world?”
Kael’s throat tightened. He didn’t answer.
He didn’t need to.
She already knew he wouldn’t abandon anyone—even if he wanted to.
The shimmering fracture widened suddenly, sending a gust of frigid air across the corridor. The light intensified, swirling in patterns that looked almost like hands pressing at the barrier.
Eirena felt one of them brush her mind.
She gasped.
Kael caught her shoulders. “What did she do?”
“She’s… talking,” Eirena choked out. “Trying to.”
Kael’s expression hardened. “Try not to listen.”
“I’m not trying.”
Despite her resistance, the whisper seeped in like cold water through cracked stone.
Little star…
Eirena flinched violently. “Stop,” she muttered through clenched teeth. “Stay out.”
Kael stepped directly between her and the rift, gripping her face with both hands. “Look at me. Not at her. Look at me.”
Her breathing steadied only slightly.
She clung to his wrists, grounding herself.
But the Queen’s voice slid deeper.
You do not belong to him.
You never did.
Eirena’s eyes snapped wide.
Kael saw the change instantly. “What is she saying?”
“Nothing true,” Eirena said, voice trembling. “Nothing that matters.”
But the ember inside her pulsed sharply reactive, angry, possessive in a way she didn’t understand.
She pushed past Kael before he could stop her. The rift stretched wider at her approach, violet light licking up her legs, her arms, her face.
Kael grabbed her arm.
“Eirena!”
She didn’t pull away, but she didn’t move back, either.
“I can feel what she wants.”
“What is it?” Kael asked.
Eirena swallowed. “Me.”
The corridor trembled violently, as though the palace itself was afraid. Cracks spread along the walls, the ceiling, the floor. The violet light brightened until it hurt her eyes.
Something on the other side was pushing.
Hard.
A thin, spidery hand made of starlit shadow slipped through the rift.
Kael lunged forward, sword swinging.
“Kael, no!”
His blade sliced through the emerging hand, but instead of scattering like shadow, it split into dozens of thin tendrils that whipped through the air, latching onto the walls, the ceiling and then toward Eirena.
Kael shoved her behind him, taking the brunt of the attack. The tendrils lashed his arms, slicing open skin with cold, burning cuts.
“Kael!”
He gritted his teeth. “I’m fine. Stay back, stay behind me!”
She didn’t listen.
The ember pulsed hot, furious.
Eirena raised her hand, and light burst from her palm like a miniature star. The tendrils recoiled instantly, shrivelling away from the heat.
Kael staggered backwards, panting, staring at her in disbelief.
“That power Eirena, your eyes.”
She knew.
She felt the shift.
Her vision sharpened. Colours brightened unnaturally. And her heartbeat synced with the rift’s pulsing glow.
She was connected.
Too connected.
The Queen’s whisper seeped through again, this time ice-cold and triumphant.
Yes. That is it.
Let me in.
Eirena gasped, dropping to one knee.
Kael was beside her instantly. “Eirena! Stay with me!”
She clutched his shirt, grounding herself. “She’s trying to merge with the ember. If she succeeds—she’ll step through me.”
Kael’s face drained of colour.
“No,” he growled. “She touches you, she dies.”
But the rift widened, and a full arm slid through elegant, terrifying, formed of starlight and void. A regal silhouette appeared behind it, her face obscured by the veil, but her eyes.
Violet.
Burning.
Focused entirely on Eirena.
Eirena choked. “She’s here… Kael, she is.”
The Queen’s voice echoed through both their minds, darker and clearer than ever:
He cannot protect you from destiny.
Or from me.
Kael snarled, stepping between them, sword lifted. “Watch me.”
The Queen tilted her head behind the veil an almost amused motion.
She extended one finger.
The air in front of Kael exploded outward in a wave of force, slamming him into the opposite wall with bone-crunching impact.
“KAEL!”
Eirena sprinted to him, falling to her knees. His breath was shallow, eyes squeezed shut in pain. Blood dripped from his temple.
“No, no, stay with me Kael, please!”
He managed a rough exhale. “I’m… not so easy… to kill.”
But he couldn’t stand.
He couldn’t fight.
And the Queen knew it.
She extended her hand fully through the rift, reaching toward Eirena like a mother claiming a child.
Come, my heir.
This world was never meant for you.
Eirena trembled.
Torn between fear and fury.
Between destiny and defiance.
Between the cosmic power inside her and the man bleeding in her arms.
The Queen’s fingers brushed the air just inches from her cheek.
Kael tried to rise, but his legs buckled beneath him. He reached for her weakly.
“Eirena… don’t…”
Eirena heard him.
But she also heard the Queen.
We are the same.
You feel it.
The ember calls for me.
It remembers its creator.
Eirena’s hand rose toward the Queen without her permission her body moving on instinct, drawn like gravity.
Kael’s voice cracked in raw desperation. “Eirena fight her!”
Her fingers shook inches from the Queen’s.
Her heartbeat thundered.
The ember flared.
And for a moment, Eirena saw it:
A vision.
A throne of starlight.
A crown of shadow.
Herself, sitting upon it.
The Queen smiling beside her.
The universe burning beautifully, willingly, surrendering beneath their joined hands.
Eirena gasped, staggering backward.
“No,” she whispered. “No, that’s not me.”
The Queen’s voice was silk and steel.
It is.
It always was.
“NO!”
Eirena screamed, and the cosmic ember exploded outward in a shockwave of white light.
The rift shuddered.
The Queen’s arm jerked back.
Kael shielded his face as the hall filled with blinding radiance.
When the light faded,
The rift had not closed.
But the Queen had been pushed back only slightly, only temporarily.
Violet cracks still bled across the walls.
She would return.
Soon.
Eirena collapsed beside Kael, shaking violently. Kael pulled her close despite his wounds, his hands trembling as he held her face.
“You did, you fought her,” he whispered, breathless with awe. “You pushed her back.”
Eirena sobbed once, raw and terrified. “I saw what she wants. I saw who she thinks I am.”
“And?” Kael asked gently, wiping her tears with blood-stained fingers.
“And I hated how easy it was to see myself becoming it.”
Kael gripped her tighter. “Then I’ll fight for you even when you can’t. Even when she’s inside your mind. Even when the whole universe says you’re hers.”
Eirena buried her face in his shoulder.
A pulse rumbled through the palace.
The Queen.
Recovering.
Preparing her next push.
Kael whispered into Eirena’s hair, voice ragged but steady.
“We need to run.”
Eirena nodded, wiping her face, rising shakily.
“We need to survive,” she said.
A second pulse ripped through the hall, stronger.
Eirena’s eyes darkened with determination.
“And then,” she whispered, “we need to learn how to kill a queen.”
- Writer
