Page 40 of A Voice of Silver and Blood (Crown of Echoed Dreams #1)

THE SONG OF THE VEIL

T he Veil parts like torn silk.

I don’t breathe as we pass through—because the air on the other side isn’t air at all. It’s cold, sweet, and laced with rot. A thousand voices whisper in the stillness. Dreams that decayed before they ever bloomed.

Faelan steps through first, sword drawn, jaw tight. I follow with my fingers still glowing gold, one last echo of the Freehold’s blessing clinging to me. Corvin brings up the rear—his coat flaring like shadow fire, eyes scanning the dark ahead.

This place… it’s not just corrupted.

It’s hungry.

The Hollowland we enter isn’t like the others. It isn’t broken—it’s been reshaped into a twisted cathedral of sharp stone and blood glass, spires coiling like claws into a sky that shouldn’t exist. Red light pulses from the ground beneath us.

“Where are we?” I whisper .

Corvin answers. “This was once a Freehold. One of the oldest. The Queen claimed it after the last Dreamer fell.”

“And now?” Faelan mutters, gaze sharp.

“Now it’s her cradle of war.”

We move deeper.

With every step, the Dream presses against me. Not gently. It wants out . But this place holds it tight, like a scream clenched behind teeth. I hum softly—instinctual, like holding a pressure seal closed with sound. The notes shiver around us, holding the worst of it back.

We pass statues carved in half-familiar shapes. Fae. Human. Neither. All twisted. Their faces wear expressions of awe and terror. One looks like my mother. Another—God help me—like Milo.

I stumble. Faelan catches my arm and jerking my attention to him.

“Don’t look too long,” he says.

“Why?” I ask, voice shaking.

“They look back.”

What the fuck does that even mean? No. I don’t want to know.

We keep going.

Twice, Corvin stops us. Once for a trap woven from barbed lullabies—song-threads sharp enough to slice the soul. Once because a veil-creature drifts past overhead, wings like torn pages, face a blur of flickering memory.

“This place hates us,” I murmur.

“It should,” Faelan says. “We’re here to end it. ”

A platform of cracked black stone stretches before us, and I recognize it’s the threshold. At its center is a chasm: deep, wide, singing a discordant cacophony.

And above it—suspended in the red glow of the cursed sky—is a mass of Dreamroots bound together, forming a throne of rot and beauty. The Queen is not seated on it; only her shadow. Her absence.

I stare at where she should be, anger pulsing with every beating of my heart. I clench my teeth, choking on the rage, until I look down and see it.

At the edge of the chasm, bound in threads of Dream and blood, hangs Milo. A screeching scream rips out of my throat, and I move forward, but Faelan grabs my arm, stopping me.

“He’s alive,” Corvin says, scanning. “Barely. Her magic is using him as an anchor.”

I stare at my brother. His skin is gray, eyes shut, lips parted in a silent plea. I feel the tether between us—thinning. Fraying.

“No more waiting,” I say.

I step forward. The Dream claws at my ankles. My song trembles on my lips. Faelan grips my other hand, grounding me. Corvin watches us both, and then—without a word—turns, vanishing into the shadows.

“He’s leading the Queen’s attention elsewhere,” Faelan says quietly. “Giving you space to do what you came for.”

“What if he doesn’t come back?” I ask.

Faelan meets my gaze. “Then we honor what he gave. And we finish this ourselves. ”

Above us, the sky begins to crack, and the Song of the Veil stirs in my chest. The first note burns my throat.

It’s not a melody yet. Not even a word. Just a raw, cracked breath dragged up from the pit of everything I am—a sound that belongs more to the Dream than to me.

The Veil stirs.

I stand at the edge of the abyss, arms trembling, staring into the chasm that holds Milo and everything I’ve feared. Above me, the cursed sky seethes—veins of blood-red magic pulsing like it’s alive. The Dream is screaming in every direction.

And still… I sing.

Low at first. Tentative.

Then clearer. Stronger. I close my eyes, and the song builds—notes threading through every layer of me. I pour everything into it. My grief. My rage. My love for Milo. My fear. My hope. My name.

The Veil ignites.

Not with fire, but with memory . The Dream remembers what it was. Not this cage of shadows, not this rot—but something beautiful. Wild. Sacred.

And because I remember, too—it answers me.

A wind howls from the pit. The chasm pulses gold. Dream light cracks the throne above, shattering the Queen’s false crown. Her magic recoils, and Milo gasps—a ragged, living breath.

“Skye…” Faelan’s voice is a whisper behind me. “You’re opening it.”

“No,” I say. “I’m restoring it. ”

I reach deeper.

Beyond the Hollowland. Beyond the broken cities and the ruined Freeholds, I reach for the memory of the world before . Before it forgot how to dream.

And then I sing .

No lyrics. No borrowed song. This is mine. A melody born of who I’ve become, of every broken moment that led me here. The sound isn’t pretty—it’s primal. Sacred. Untamed.

The ground splits open.

A ring of gold flames spirals outward from my feet, searing into the stone. It spreads like light across water—sweeping through the Hollowland, out across Kansas City. I feel the Freehold rise. Not just a place—but a truth .

A chorus answers me—faint at first, then stronger.

People across the city stir. In hospital beds. In subways. In slums and mansions and alleyways. Some cry out. Some lift their faces to the red eclipse. A boy in a window begins to hum. A woman on a street corner laughs through her tears.

The Hollowlands recede.

Dream light pours upward from the earth like golden steam. The sky cracks—and for one breathless heartbeat, the Veil pulls back . The eclipse dims. The stars pulse brighter.

The Queen feels it.

She’s not here, yet her voice cuts through the air like a blade dipped in poison.

“You foolish child. ”

I stagger. Faelan steps to my side, sword drawn, but I raise my hand to stop him.

A final verse surges through me—bright and blistering. I sing it into the chasm, into Milo’s prison, into the very bones of the ruined world.

And the Freehold awakens .

Vines of Dreamroot explode from the stones. Trees shimmer into being—growing up through concrete. The air is cleaner, sharper, real, right.

And then—silence.

I don’t just fall; I collapse, my knees buckling, the world spinning into a dizzying blur.

It feels like my very essence is unraveling, a profound, aching emptiness where my power had just surged.

My body feels like it’s carved from marble, heavy with spent magic, each limb a dead weight.

My voice is gone—not just silent, but a raw, torn feeling in my throat, a complete inability to form sound, a phantom echo of the song still vibrating painfully within me.

I come back to myself in pieces.

The air is thick with Dreamlight—soft and golden, curling like mist across the stones. The Freehold hums beneath me, alive and ancient. I feel it everywhere: in my breath, my skin, my bones.

But I can’t move.

I blink, and Faelan is there, kneeling beside me, one hand cradling my face like I’m something sacred. His other hand grips mine so tightly it aches .

“I thought I lost you,” he whispers, his voice raw, trembling with a desperation I rarely hear.

He pulls me gently against him, his hands shaking slightly as he cradles my head, his relief a palpable wave washing over me. I feel the true extent of what I risked, not just for the Dream but for him, and the weight of his care settles deep in my aching soul.

“You didn’t,” I rasp.

“Don’t do that again,” he says, fierce and low. “Don’t burn yourself out for the world.”

“I didn’t,” I say, barely audible. “I did it for Milo.”

He exhales shakily. “He’s safe. The Queen’s spell broke when the Freehold rose. He’s breathing. Sleeping, but whole.”

Relief breaks through me like sunlight. Tears slip from my eyes, but I’m too tired to wipe them away. The sky above is still red—but fainter, like a storm passing.

Then I feel her.

The Queen.

Not in sight—behind the Veil. A presence made of rot and elegance, of beauty twisted into ruin. Her rage presses against the edge of the world like storm clouds ready to shatter.

“She didn’t come herself,” I murmur.

“No,” Faelan says, voice tight. “She’s afraid. You’ve unbalanced her. She won’t strike directly—not yet.”

From the mist behind us, footsteps. Corvin emerges from the edge of the Freehold. His coat is torn. He’s bleeding from a deep cut along his collarbone—but he’s alive .

He looks at me—at the Freehold I’ve awakened—and there’s something in his eyes that wasn’t there before: a raw wonder, mixed with a profound, almost desperate fear.

He sees the fulfillment of a prophecy he both dreaded and yearned for, the immense power I now wield, and the terrible cost it will demand.

“You did it,” he says, as if he can’t believe it. “You really did it.”

I try to speak, but can’t. He kneels beside Faelan and me. For a moment, the three of us are still. The Dream swirls around us—brighter than it’s been in generations.

“She’s changed everything,” Faelan says, not looking at Corvin.

“And it’ll come at a cost,” Corvin replies, quiet, his gaze flicking to my mark, then to Faelan’s face. “She’s marked now. Not just by the Dream, but by the Queen. By the Court. By all of them.”

Faelan’s jaw tightens, a subtle flinch acknowledging the new, complex dangers that now cling to me like a second skin.

I lift my eyes to his. “I know.”

He doesn’t flinch. “The Queen will come. So will others. You’ve torn open something they thought was dead. And now they’ll try to own it. Or destroy it.”

“I’m ready,” I say.

A beat of silence. Then Faelan rises, lifting me gently into his arms. He nods once to Corvin, who hesitates, then steps back—watching us with that unreadable gaze.

As Faelan carries me toward the heart of the new Freehold, I catch a brief, unspoken exchange between the two men—a shared glance of grim understanding, a silent acknowledgment of the impossible path we’ve chosen, cementing their new, fragile alliance around me.

And I see people moving in the distance. Ordinary people—drawn here by the song. Their faces are weary, stunned. But some of them… are smiling.

The Dream has returned. Hope has bloomed. A seedling pushing through long dormant soil. It will need tending. Care. But it’s a start.

Behind us, the air ripples. I glance over Faelan’s shoulder one last time—and see the Veil darkens.

A figure stands beyond it.

Not just draped in black, but her form seems to absorb the light around her, a void in the newly awakened Freehold.

A crown of thorns and ash subtly shifts on her head, each barb hinting at the pain and destruction she embodies.

Her eyes—red as ruin—meet mine across the barrier of worlds, and it's a direct, palpable challenge—a silent, telepathic snarl that feels like cold, predatory hunger reaching across the Veil.

The Vampire Queen does not speak. She smiles, and it’s less a promise of war and more a chilling, absolute certainty of impending doom—a silent declaration that this is merely the beginning of my true suffering.

I close my eyes as Faelan sets me down in the center of the Freehold. The grass glows with its own internal light. The trees bend low. A new sanctuary, born from song and sacrifice.

“I think I broke something,” I whisper.

Faelan sits beside me, his fingers threading with mine. “You broke the silence.”

“I’m not the same. ”

“No,” he says. “You’re not.”

Corvin joins us—standing just at the edge, like he doesn’t belong here but doesn’t want to leave either.

“You’ve become the Bridge in full,” he says. “That means the Dream moves through you. But it also means you walk a path no one else ever has.”

I meet his eyes. “Then I’ll make the path. Step by step.”

Faelan’s hand tightens around mine. “And I’ll walk it with you. Until the end.”

The Veil shudders again. Far off—sirens. Distant thunder. The real world waits. But here, in this glowing cradle of memory and song, we have one breath of peace.

I lift my head and look out over the broken city—where the Hollowlands fade and the light spreads.

And I smile.

Because we’re not done yet.

Let the Queen come. Let the world try to stop me. I’ve only just begun to sing.