Thorns in the Veins
826 Words
Ezekiel Crane
The first thing you learn when you become a monster in velvet is how to smile without moving your soul.
I’ve worn that smile since the fire.
Every day since Cassandra’s death or what the world thinks was her death—I’ve stood behind pulpits and podiums, cloaked in doctrine and dollar-slicked diplomacy, pretending I don’t hear her voice in the walls.
But I heard it the night Vexen died.
Not literally. Not in sound. But in the chaos. The fracture. The unholy shift. When news broke that a senator died screaming about Raul Velasco, I felt something break open. A sealed coffin. A buried truth.
Her truth.
Cassandra is alive.
---
Blood and Optics
The church chamber was sweltering with incense and panic.
"She’s a terrorist!" Cardinal Ven Luthier spat, his crimson robes whipping like banners in a storm. "This is holy ground. She’s desecrating it."
"Then why does she keep winning?" I asked, sipping black tea with one hand, and signing execution approvals with the other.
They all looked at me like I was the villain.
I am.
Just not the one they expect.
Ven’s face twisted. “You were her brother. You should be hunting her.”
"I am," I lied. Or maybe I wasn’t lying. Because every part of me was torn between vengeance and guilt. Between regret and duty. Between what I did to her—and what she’s become.
---
The Fire Beneath the Marble
We began locking down city sectors. Curfews tightened. AI surveillance quadrupled. The Veil Network—a grid of hidden intel and informants—started sniffing shadows like bloodhounds.
Still, she moved like smoke.
The masked broadcasts continued. Another name scratched into another bullet. Another villain dragged from their velvet tower and made to bleed in public.
This time it was Hadrek. General Hadrek.
The man who signed her father’s arrest.
---
His Fall
They found Hadrek’s body displayed at the National Plaza.
Hung upside down.
Naked.
Eyes removed.
A message carved into his chest:
"He never saw the truth. Neither will the next. - C.V."
The city erupted. Mass panic. Parliament emergency meetings. Troop deployments. Fires in the slums. Cameras blinking out across Sector B.
And me?
I stood in my office, high above the chaos, staring at her old war journal.
Yes. I have it.
I stole it after she "died."
Back then, I told myself it was to protect her memory.
Now I realize I kept it to remember who she was.
And to measure how far she’s gone.
---
Confrontation in the Shadows
Midnight. A message appeared on my secure line. Not on a screen. On my desk.
Handwritten.
"You shouldn’t have watched him scream, Ezekiel. You should’ve stopped it. I’m coming for the pulpit next."
I knew the handwriting.
Still graceful. Still sharp.
Still hers.
I burned the note. Then stared into the fire too long.
She’s not just killing.
She’s performing.
Every death is a liturgy. Every corpse a parable.
And the people are listening.
---
The Secret Council
Two days later, I met with The Thorns the real power beneath Velmora. Bankers, generals, bishops, media heads. Unofficial. Untouchable. Unseen.
We gathered in a soundproof cathedral vault. Even the air was afraid.
They asked me one question:
“Can you control your sister?”
I answered:
"No. But I can predict her."
It was a partial truth. I know her patterns. Her griefs. Her triggers. Her scars. Because I made most of them.
I offered a solution:
"Give the people a villain louder than her. A rebellion leader. A scapegoat. Let her chase smoke while we hunt her in silence."
They agreed.
They always agree when blood is on the line.
---
But the Night is Changing
Something’s different now.
She’s not just avenging Raul. She’s becoming something else bigger than Velasco blood, or burned pasts. She’s becoming myth.
And myths don’t die.
They haunt.
Last night, I dreamt of the day she held my hand at our father’s funeral.
She was eleven.
She whispered, “Promise me we won’t become like them.”
And I had promised.
I just didn’t tell her which side of the promise I’d chosen.
---
The Next Move
She’s targeting the cathedral next.
I know it.
I feel it in the way the birds fled the spires this morning. In the way the bells ring too late now. In the way the priests flinch when someone lights a candle.
So I wait.
Loaded. Armored. Words rehearsed.
Because if Cassandra’s coming for the cathedral...
She’s coming for me.
And this time, she won’t stop at blood.
She’ll ask for penance.
And I’ll have to decide if my guilt weighs more than my power.
Or if she deserves to take both.
---
Let the ghosts rise, then.
Let the thorns bleed.
Let Velmora burn its illusions.
Because Cassandra was the grave we left open...
And I am the one who filled it with lies.
- Writer
