Page 2 of Crowned by the Shadow (Bound by the Veil #5)

I sat, suddenly feeling weak as despair tugged at the edges of my mind.

How could some woven grass really help us find my best friend?

Thorn sat with me as though it was the most natural thing in the world and Volker followed suit, though I didn’t miss the flicker of confusion that crossed his face.

The three of us formed a triangle on the ground and I felt a little bad that Van wasn’t included, but if he had no connection to Wyn, then I didn’t want him to muddy the waters either.

Thorn placed the Veilshard on the ground in the center, and I laid Wyn’s charm beside it.

The two objects seemed to recognize each other, the pendant’s glow intensifying as it neared the charm.

“Join hands,” Volker instructed. “And focus on Wyn. Not your fear for her, but her essence. Who she is to each of us.”

I closed my eyes as my fingers intertwined with Thorn’s calloused ones on my right and Volker’s smooth ones on my left. The Moon Mark on my skin warmed, responding to the magic building between us.

In my mind, I pictured Wyn, not as I’d last seen her, wide-eyed with fear as the portal pulled her away, but as she truly was.

Brilliant, curious Wyn with her endless questions and fearless experiments.

The way her eyes lit up when she discovered something new about magic.

Her laughter when she’d accidentally turned her hair into rainbows during a failed transformation spell.

“I see her,” I whispered, the image growing stronger in my mind.

“So do I,” Thorn’s voice rumbled beside me.

The pendant rose from the ground, hovering inches above the grass. Wyn’s charm spun beneath it. Both objects caught in an invisible current. The pendant’s light shifted from white to silver—the color of Wyn’s magic.

The Veilshard Pendant rotated faster, its light intensifying until it hurt to look at directly. I felt the tug of magic, not just my own Moon Mark responding, but something deeper, like the pendant was reaching through realms to find Wyn’s essence.

“It’s working,” Volker whispered, his voice tight with concentration.

Suddenly, the pendant shot upward, then froze mid-air. A beam of silver light projected outward, stretching across our sanctuary toward the eastern boundary.

“Shadow Dragon lands,” Van murmured.

My heart sank.

“No,” I breathed, my grip tightening on Thorn and Volker’s hands.

The pendant’s light flickered, then stabilized, forming a translucent map in the air above us.

I recognized the twisted landscape of the fae lands as the corruption had consumed and warped everything.

At the center of the projection, in an area free of corruption, there was a pulsing silver dot which I hoped marked Wyn’s location.

“The Obsidian Keep,” Van identified, his voice hardening. “Their stronghold.” I hadn’t even noticed him come over. I’d been so focused on the map forming in the air.

As quickly as it had formed, the projection collapsed; the pendant dropping back to the ground with a soft thud. The three of us sat in stunned silence, hands still joined, processing what we’d seen, while Van seemed to loom over us, the barer of bad news.

I was the first to break away, my mind already racing with plans and possibilities. “We need to move now while we know where she is.”

“Senara,” Van’s voice carried a warning. “The Obsidian Keep is impenetrable. It’s surrounded by shifting shadows that disorient and consume anyone who enters without invitation. Not to mention that it’s full of dragons if they haven’t died out, as they’ve led everyone to believe.”

“I don’t care. Wyn is there, and every moment we delay could be her last,” I finished, slinging my pack over my shoulder. The Moon Mark on my skin pulsed with my agitation, sending ripples of silver light across my arms.

Thorn stepped into my path, his expression grave. “Senara, I want to save her as much as you do, but storming the Obsidian Keep without a plan is suicide.”

“Then we make a plan on the way.” I tried to step around him, but he matched my movement. “Every second we waste?—”

“Is necessary if we want to succeed,” Volker interjected, gathering his own belongings with methodical precision. “The Shadow Dragon Clan doesn’t take prisoners without purpose. If they wanted Wyn dead, the pendant would have shown us nothing because she would already be gone from this world.”

I hated the logic in his words. Hated that they were right. Hated that Wyn was suffering while we debated strategy.

“The Veilshard showed us where,” I said, lowering my voice. “But we need to know why Eldric took her there specifically.”

Van cleared his throat. “The Shadow Dragons were always rumored to be connected to the Void Dragon Empress. If they’re resurfacing now...”

A chill ran down my spine. The Void Dragon Empress, the embodiment of corruption spreading through the fae lands. The reason the courts were fracturing, why ancient alliances were breaking.

“You think Eldric is working for her?” Thorn asked, his Sun Kissed eye flaring brighter.

“Or against her,” I murmured, pieces clicking into place. “Wyn’s research into purification magic…what if that’s why they took her?”

Volker’s eyes widened. “The counter-corruption spells she was developing with me. They could force her to reverse-engineer them.”

I closed my eyes, remembering Wyn’s excitement when she’d made her first breakthrough. “We taught her to hide her talents in the human world. She never stopped hiding them here. But Eldric didn’t know about her magic until he saw it during the fight.”

I picked up the Veilshard Pendant from the ground, clutching it tightly as if it might somehow bring Wyn closer. The crystal felt unnaturally warm against my palm, pulsing with a rhythm that reminded me of a heartbeat.

“We leave at dawn,” Thorn said, his voice leaving no room for argument. “We’ll need every advantage we can get.”

I nodded reluctantly, knowing he was right despite every instinct screaming at me to run to Wyn now. As I moved to slip the pendant back over my head, something strange happened. The silver light that had pointed toward the Obsidian Keep flickered, then split into two distinct beams.

“What the—” I gasped, holding the pendant at arm’s length.

The second beam shot in an entirely different direction, pulsing with a blue-white glow that seemed somehow colder than the silver light marking Wyn’s location.

“That’s impossible,” Volker whispered, moving closer to examine the phenomenon. “The Veilshard shouldn’t be able to track two signatures simultaneously.”

Thorn’s brow furrowed as he studied the new beam. “Where is it pointing?”

Van stepped forward, his expression grave as he traced the trajectory with his finger. “The Fae Capital.”

My blood ran cold. “I don’t understand,” I said, my voice barely audible. The only connection I had in the fae realms outside of Wyn was Thorn, and he was next to me. “What connection could I possibly have there?”

The pendant grew heavier in my hand, the dual beams intensifying until they cast eerie shadows across our faces. I felt a pull along the second connection, not the desperate tug I associated with Wyn, but something older, something that seemed to call to the very essence of my being.

“Senara,” Volker said slowly, his silver eyes wide with realization. “I think someone else is looking for you.”

As if responding to his words, the pendant jerked violently in my grip, the blue-white beam flaring with sudden intensity. Through it, I caught a fleeting impression—a mask shaped like a beast, eyes that burned with ancient knowledge, and a voice that seemed to whisper directly into my mind.

“I’ve found you at last, daughter.”