Page 31 of Crowned by the Shadow (Bound by the Veil #5)

Chapter

Nineteen

Senara

It was Van.

But not the Van I knew, not the irreverent bard with mischief glinting in his eyes.

This Van was taller, stronger, his very skin glowing with an inner fire that put even Thorn’s Sunkissed mark to shame.

Even his lute had transformed. In his hands now, he held a lyre of purest gold, its strings thrumming with power that I could sense from where I kneeled.

“That’s enough, my love,” he said calmly, his voice resonating with an authority I’d never heard before. “This ends now.”

The Empress actually faltered, her galaxy-swallowing eyes widening in shock. “You,” she whispered, disbelief and ancient rage warring in her tone. “After all this time... you dare face me now?”

Van, or whoever he truly was, met her gaze steadily. “I always have,” he replied softly. “And I always will, until balance is restored.”

With those cryptic words, his fingers danced across the lyre’s strings in a melody that shook the very foundations of reality. Notes of purest sunlight poured forth, each one a searing arrow aimed straight at the Empress’s heart.

She screamed as the music tore through her, golden light burning away the shadows that cloaked her form. For a breathtaking instant, I glimpsed what lay beneath. She was not a monster, but a being of heartbreaking beauty, her face a mirror of Van’s own.

Before any more arrows of music and light could hit her, she swirled away, her great wings acting as shields as she wrapped them around herself and disappeared deeper into her prison, using the darkness to hide herself.

Van took a deep breath as though he was suddenly exhausted. “She was my counterpart,” Van continued, his voice heavy with ancient grief. “The balance to my light. We maintained the harmony of all realms together until the void corrupted her during a cosmic alignment, much like the one right now.”

“You’re the Sun God,” Ronan whispered, disbelief coloring his words.

Van nodded, his eyes reflecting a pain too vast for mortal understanding.

“A fragment of him. When she fell, I couldn’t bear to destroy her.

Instead, I fractured my essence, scattering it across the realms to hide from her.

As those fragments have died off, the constellations in the sky have faded.

It’s how I knew Senara was my last hope of fixing this. ”

The mirror pulsed in my hands again, drawing our attention. One half of it showed the Empress’s true desire, not destruction, but reunion. Behind the corruption lay a desperate longing to be whole again, to find the other half of herself.

“She doesn’t want to destroy the realms,” I said, understanding dawning. “She wants to find you, to be reunited with her counterpart.”

“Yes,” Van admitted. “But the corruption has twisted that desire into something destructive. She believes the only way to find me is to remake all realms in her image, to force a reunion on her terms. To force us both to be what we once were, even though that’s not possible. Time and power have changed us both.”

Thorn’s hand found mine, steadying me as the weight of this revelation settled over us. “So we’re not fighting a monster,” he said. “We’re fighting a goddess who’s lost herself to darkness.”

“And who wants to reunite with her other half?” Wyn added, her twilight powers swirling in response to this new understanding.

I stared into the mirror, watching as it showed one final truth. The Sun God, whole and radiant, choosing to shatter himself rather than face the corrupted form of his beloved. Not out of cowardice, as Van had claimed, but out of love. He knew that confrontation would force him to annihilate her.

“All this time,” I whispered, “we’ve been preparing to fight an enemy we didn’t understand.”

The mirror’s surface stilled, returning to its normal, non-reflective state.

But the knowledge it had revealed changed everything.

The Empress wasn’t just an entity to be defeated.

She was a goddess to be healed, a balance to be restored.

Her form may have been slightly different thanks to taking on a physical avatar, but I knew it was the same goddess I’d spoken with, or at least fragments of her that I’d spoken with previously.

“What does this mean for us?” Ronan asked, breaking the heavy silence.

I looked up at my companions, determination replacing the shock in my heart. “It means we have a chance to heal what was broken, not just destroy it. The artifacts weren’t created as weapons. They were made to restore balance.”

Van’s eyes met mine, a flicker of hope kindling in their ancient depths. “Do you think it’s possible? After all this time?”

“I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “But I know we have to try. For all our sakes. Based on what we’ve seen so far, I’m not sure we stand a chance in a head-to-head fight.”

As the mirror cooled in my hands, I felt the weight of this new purpose settle over me. We weren’t just fighting to save the realms; we were fighting to restore a goddess, to heal a cosmic wound that had festered for an unimaginable amount of time.

And somehow, that made our impossible task feel even more daunting. The key was the artifacts. I knew that down to my very bones. “Do you remember how to use the artifacts to restore the balance?” I asked Van.

He shook his head sadly. “I’m only a fragment of the Sun God. I don’t have all his memories or knowledge.”

I took a deep breath, my mind racing. The revelations spun like the threads of fate weaving through our lives, each one pulling me closer to an understanding I had barely begun to grasp. I looked at Van, whose radiant presence felt both comforting and overwhelming.

“We have to gather our strength,” I said, my voice steadying as determination settled over me. “If the artifacts can help heal the Empress, I mean, the Goddess, then we need to figure out how they work together.”

Ronan stepped forward, his expression focused. “We know the Crown banishes darkness, the Pendant allows for safe passage between realms, and the Mirror reveals truths. But how do we combine them?”

Thorn clenched his fists, a fire igniting in his eyes. “We don’t have much time before the convergence happens. Or before she attacks again. If we can reach her while she’s vulnerable…”

Van’s gaze softened as he looked at each of us. “If I can face her without fear, you all can, too. We must remind her of who she was, of the light that we believe still lives within.”

“Use the Moon Blades,” Volker said, speaking up for the first time in a while.

“Explain?” I asked, hating the idea of parting with my weapons.

“The pendant can, theoretically, open up a portal directly into her prison. The crown can push the darkness back, and the mirror can show her the truth. Infuse all of that with the power of the Moon Blades and show her who she really was, who she still is.” Volker’s voice grew more confident as he spoke.

I glanced down at the pendant resting on my chest and the weak light it emitted. “I’d need to get closer, and I’d need to borrow power from all of you. A lot of power.”

They all nodded in agreement and without saying another word, we all slowly edged forward, watching for any sign of the Empress and her darkness.

As we approached the heart of the prison, the artifacts in my hands pulsed in unison, their energies blending into something new.

The Veilshard Pendant floated upward from my chest, spinning slowly in the air before me.

The Starforged Mirror and Eclipsed Crown followed, rising to orbit around the pendant like planets around a sun.

“What’s happening?” Ronan whispered, his hand instinctively reaching for his weapon.

“They’re combining,” Wyn breathed, her twilight eyes wide with wonder. “The artifacts are becoming what they were always meant to be.”

The three relics spun faster, their individual forms blurring until they melded into a single object, a crown unlike anything I’d ever seen. Half silver like moonlight, half gold like the sun, with a central gem that shifted between darkness and light with each pulse.

It hovered before me, waiting.

“Take it,” Van urged, his voice carrying the weight of ages. “The Twilight Crown was made for you, Eclipse Child.”

I reached out with trembling hands, but as my fingers brushed against the crown’s surface, a shimmering barrier appeared, pushing me back.

“What’s wrong?” Thorn asked, stepping closer.

“It requires proof,” Van said quietly, his brows drawn together as though he was fighting to remember this for us. “A sacrifice from each of you to show your worthiness.”

“What kind of sacrifice?” I asked, dread pooling in my stomach.

“Not blood,” Van assured me. “Something more precious. Something that defines who you are.”

The crown pulsed, and suddenly I understood. It wasn’t asking for our lives, but for pieces of ourselves, the parts we clung to most desperately.

“I’ll go first,” I said, stepping forward. The crown’s light intensified, bathing me in its glow. In my mind, I saw flashes of my past: the orphaned girl in the human realm, the soldier hiding her true nature, the outsider in the fae courts.

“The crown wants your connection to your old life,” Wyn said softly, reading the energies. “Your identity before you became the Eclipse Child.”

I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of that request. My past had shaped me, defined me for so long. To surrender it felt like losing a part of myself. But I thought of all we’d been through, all that was at stake, and knew what I had to do.

“I offer my connection to who I was,” I said, my voice steady despite the pain in my heart. “The girl who never belonged, the soldier who hid in the shadows. I release that identity to embrace what I must become.”

A silver thread seemed to pull from my chest, carrying with it memories and emotions, the fear of discovery, the loneliness of being different, the comfort of anonymity. The crown absorbed it, glowing brighter.

Thorn stepped forward next, his face set with determination. The crown’s light played across his features, highlighting the Sun Court mark in his eye.

“It wants your warrior identity,” I told him, sensing the crown’s desire. “The general, the perfect soldier of the Sun Court, and the King’s Blade.”

Thorn’s jaw tightened. That identity had been his anchor for centuries, the core around which he’d built his entire existence. To surrender it meant stepping into unknown territory, becoming something new and undefined.

“I offer my identity as a warrior,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “The general who followed orders without question, the soldier who put duty above all else. The spy who could barely bring himself to fight for what he truly wanted. I release that self to become what I must be.”

A golden thread emerged from him, carrying the weight of battles fought, orders given, the rigid discipline that had governed his life. The crown accepted his sacrifice, growing brighter still.

Wyn approached next, her twilight-touched form shimmering in the crown’s light.

“It wants your certainty,” I said, reading the crown’s intention. “Your vision of the future you thought you’d have.”

Tears glistened in Wyn’s starlit eyes. “I offer my certainty,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper. “The comfort of knowing what might be, the security of glimpsing the paths ahead. I release that knowledge to embrace the unknown.”

A thread of shadow and light pulled from her, carrying visions and possibilities that dissolved into the crown’s growing radiance.

Volker stepped forward. “I already know what it wants from me,” he murmured. “I surrender my love, my hope for a relationship that was never meant to be. As such, I release that desire and embrace the pain of heartbreak.” A pink thread drifted lazily forward toward the crown.

Ronan was next. He stepped up without hesitation. “I offer my strength and prowess as a swordsman.”

My jaw dropped. That was everything to Ronan. He had always prided himself on being second to no one other than Thorn.

Before I could say anything, a white thread flew from him to the crown and as it did so, the crown spun ever faster and brighter until it flared with light one final time, then descended slowly toward my outstretched hands.

This time, there was no barrier. It settled into my palms, surprisingly light despite the power it contained.

“It didn’t want anything from you?” I asked, looking at Van as I still felt the ache in my chest from surrendering part of myself, though even now, as I tried to think about what I had given up, I was having trouble remembering.

“It’s already taken much from me.” His voice was low and laced with a grief that was deeper than any ocean. There was an awkward pause, but before I could open my mouth to speak, he cleared his throat. “Now, place it upon your brow, and channel the combined power of all three artifacts.”

I hesitated, suddenly afraid. “What will happen to me?”

“You won’t face it alone,” Thorn said, stepping to my side and taking my hand. “Our soul bond will help anchor you.”

“And I’ll lend my twilight magic,” Wyn added, placing her hand on my shoulder. “To help you balance the forces.”

I took a deep breath and raised the crown.

As it touched my brow, power surged through me, raw, ancient, and overwhelming.

It was like being struck by lightning and drowned in the ocean simultaneously.

My body arched backward. A silent scream caught in my throat as energies beyond mortal comprehension coursed through my veins.

Thorn’s grip on my hand tightened, his Sun Court magic flowing into me, helping to steady the torrent. Wyn’s twilight power created a bridge between light and shadow, life and death, all of it allowing me to navigate the chaotic energies without being consumed.

For one terrible moment, I thought I would shatter beneath the strain. Then, suddenly, clarity. The power settled into a rhythm, flowing through me rather than against me. I could feel the crown’s purpose now.

Not to destroy, but to heal.

Not to fight, but to restore.

I opened my eyes to find the world transformed. I could see the threads of reality itself, the connections between realms, the balance that had been disrupted by the Empress’s corruption. And I could see her too, not as a monster, but as a broken goddess, crying out for her other half.

“I understand now,” I whispered, my voice resonating with newfound power. “I know what we must do.”