Page 4 of Crowned by the Shadow (Bound by the Veil #5)

Chapter

Three

Senara

The journey back to the fae capital passed in tense silence. Thorn and I kept to the shadows, avoiding the main roads and feral fae with an ease that surprised me. Perhaps the goddess truly was watching over us. Whatever the reason, we reached the outer area of the fae courts without incident.

“This is it,” I whispered, pointing to a weathered stone archway partially hidden by climbing vines. It matched Volker’s description perfectly, a servant's entrance rarely used since the last royal celebration.

Thorn squeezed my shoulder. “Ready?”

I nodded, though my heart hammered against my ribs. The stolen servant uniforms we’d acquired from a clothesline in a nearby village hung loosely on our frames, but they’d serve their purpose. We’d been lucky to find one that fit Thorn at all.

The only problem we were still worried about were our marks. Thorn had made a makeshift eye patch to help hide his, but mine was too big. We had done some artful arranging of my hair to hide as much of it as we could, but it was still a problem if anyone looked at me for more than a split second.

We slipped through the entrance, keeping our heads down as we joined the steady stream of staff preparing for the evening meal. No one spared us a second glance, just two more bodies among the dozens hurrying through the labyrinthine corridors of the palace.

“Left here,” I murmured, recognizing the ornate molding that marked the transition from the common areas to the healers’ wing.

My skin crawled as familiar scents filled my nostrils—herbs, tinctures, and that peculiar sterile smell that always clung to Fenvalur’s chambers.

It had never failed to sicken me that Fenvalur’s experiments were conducted so close to fae who claimed to want nothing more than to help people.

We paused at an intersection, waiting for a group of chattering apprentice healers to pass before continuing down the corridor. Each step brought back memories of endless tests, the experiments, Fenvalur’s clinical gaze as he studied my responses.

“That’s it,” I said, nodding toward an unassuming door at the end of the hallway. “Fenvalur’s private chambers.”

The door was unlocked, a sign of his arrogance or perhaps his certainty that no one would dare enter without permission.

We slipped inside, and I fought the wave of nausea that threatened to overwhelm me as I took in the familiar surroundings.

The meticulous shelves lined with labeled specimens.

The desk covered in neat stacks of notes.

The examination table where I’d spent countless hours as he probed the limits of my abilities.

“The Mirror wouldn’t be here,” Thorn whispered, his eyes scanning the room. “This is just his workspace.”

“No,” I agreed, moving toward a tapestry on the far wall. “But the entrance to his private study is.”

We took a step forward and Fenvalur seemed to appear in front of us like magic. I had sensed no surge in power, but then again, this was his private wing and there was more than one way for a mage to get around.

“What exactly do you think you’re doing?” The cold, precise voice sliced through the air like a scalpel. My blood froze as stared at him wide-eyed.

Fenvalur took a step toward us, tall and imposing in his pristine robes, which combined the colors of the healers with those of the mages.

His silver hair was pulled back in its usual severe style, not a strand out of place.

Those pale eyes, the color of the winter sky, fixed on me with clinical interest. An interest I’d seen too many times before and one I associated with pain.

“Senara. How unexpected.” His gaze flicked to Thorn. “And with a Sun Court warrior, no less. Fascinating.”

My throat closed. Every instinct screamed to run, but my legs wouldn’t move.

Memories flooded back, being strapped to tables, needles drawing my blood, magic forced from my body until I collapsed from exhaustion.

It was all there at the forefront of my mind once more.

Memories of everything he’d put me through came flooding back.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Fenvalur continued, taking a step toward us. “Though I must admit, I’ve been eager to continue our work. Your mark has grown, hasn’t it? The power manifesting in ways I predicted.”

Thorn moved protectively in front of me, his hand going to the concealed knife at his waist.

“Stay back,” he growled.

Fenvalur’s mouth curved into a thin smile. “Protective, isn’t he? I wonder what would happen if I?—”

He raised his hand, and I flinched, expecting pain.

Instead, Thorn lunged forward, throwing a vicious punch, but his hand passed straight through Fenvalur’s face.

The fae’s form wavered, rippling like water disturbed by a stone, then solidified again. The smile remained fixed, unnatural.

“An illusion,” I breathed, relief washing through me. “It’s not real.”

As if hearing my words, the false Fenvalur flickered again, its features becoming more rigid, movements jerky like a puppet with tangled strings.

“What are you doing here?” it demanded again, voice distorted. “What are you doing here?”

“Quick, this probably alerted him to an intruder or something,” I said to Thorn. “His private study is at the back of the room.” With a deep breath, I stepped through the illusion of Fenvalur and continued on into the main room.

I froze as my eyes were involuntarily drawn upward against to the glass containers suspended from the ceiling.

Prison cells for his “special subjects.” Transparent chambers hung like grotesque chandeliers, each one just large enough to hold a single person or creature.

Some of them were completely clear, some had a solid base, some had runes and other magical symbols I didn’t understand orbiting them.

The memory hit me with physical force: the suffocating confinement, the walls closing in, the helplessness as he observed me for days at a time.

“Senara?” Thorn’s voice seemed distant through the roaring in my ears.

My lungs constricted. I could almost feel the cold glass against my palms, the burning in my chest as the air thinned. Three days he’d left me hanging there once, studying how my mark responded to oxygen deprivation.

A warm hand closed around mine. “You’re shaking.”

I jerked away, wrapping my arms around myself. “We need to find the Mirror.”

Thorn stepped closer, his brow pinched with concern. Through our bond, I felt his question, his worry washing over me like gentle waves. The connection between us pulsed with his desire to understand, to help carry whatever burden made me stare at those glass prisons with such raw fear.

“Don’t,” I whispered.

“I can feel your pain,” he whispered. “Whatever happened here?—”

“We don’t have time for this.” My voice came out harsher than intended.

I moved deeper into the room, deliberately keeping my gaze fixed on the shelves lining the walls, the ancient texts, anything but the ceiling.

“The Mirror would be somewhere protected, somewhere he could study it without interruption.”

Thorn didn’t follow immediately. I felt his frustration and hurt ripple through our bond, but I couldn’t bring myself to look back. Couldn’t bring myself to explain how Fenvalur had used me like a laboratory specimen, testing the limits of my endurance, my magic, my sanity.

Some memories were too raw to share, even with him.

“There,” I said, pointing to an ornate cabinet tucked into an alcove. “That’s where he keeps his most valuable artifacts.”

I moved toward the back of the room, but something caught my eye. On Fenvalur’s main desk there was a sketched image of me as a child.

The desk itself was a massive piece of dark wood positioned beneath a massive and intricate orrery that tracked not just planets but magical alignments.

Tiny crystalline spheres orbited around a central golden sun, each one emitting a faint glow that cast eerie shadows across the scattered papers below.

“Wait,” I said, laying a hand on Thorn’s arm as he headed for where I’d said the entrance to the private study was. “Look at this.”

The desk was uncharacteristically disorganized, covered with open books, diagrams, and hastily scrawled notes, so unlike Fenvalur’s usual methodical precision. Underneath them were sketches of me at different stages of my life.

“He’s been researching me, watching me,” I whispered, fingers hovering over the papers. My stomach turned as I scanned the notes. One phrase jumped out at me: “bloodline connection.”

Thorn picked up a journal bound in midnight-blue leather. “Not just you.”

He turned the book toward me. Inside were detailed observations of experiments conducted using the Starforged Mirror. The entries described how Fenvalur had been using the artifact to peer into his own past, searching for something he called “the divergence point.”

“Listen to this,” Thorn said, his voice tight.

“‘Subject Seven’s connection to the temporal streams proves stronger than anticipated. When Subject Five was placed before the Mirror while I channel through the moonstone focus, we achieved unprecedented clarity in the ancestral visions. The Mirror responds in ways I’d never imagined. ’”

My blood ran cold. “Subject Seven. That’s me. But who is Subject Five?”

I rifled through more papers, finding a detailed log of mirror sessions. Fenvalur had been systematically exploring not just his own past but mine as well, or trying to. According to his frustrated notes, something was blocking his attempts to see beyond a certain point in my past.

“There’s more,” I said, picking up another sheet. I traced my finger along the cramped writing. “It says Subject Five’s memories showed unexpected ‘resonance patterns’ with... with mine.”

Thorn looked up sharply. “Another prisoner?”

I nodded slowly, a chill spreading through me. “Someone connected to me. Someone whose past intersects with mine in ways even Fenvalur doesn’t understand.”

Fear filled me at the idea of someone else being experimented on just because they were connected to me somehow.

I turned and marched toward the tapestry that hid the entrance to his private study and pulled it aside.

It was locked, but the simple enchantment binding it yielded easily to my touch, as if it recognized me, which was concerning.

“That’s...strange,” I whispered, drawing my hand back as the door swung open.

“What is it?” Thorn asked, moving closer.

“The ward. It didn’t resist me.” A chill ran down my spine. “It’s almost like it was designed to let me in.”

We exchanged wary glances before stepping through the doorway into a circular chamber that took my breath away.

This wasn’t just a private study—it was a sanctum.

The walls curved upward to form a perfect dome, every inch covered in intricate runes that pulsed with soft blue light.

At the center stood Fenvalur, his back to us, hands raised as he manipulated shimmering projections that filled the air around him.

Images of a baby, what I somehow knew was me as an infant, floated in the space between us. My tiny face, scrunched and red with crying. My newborn body, the Moon Mark already visible as a faint outline across my back. My first steps, my first words.

But how?

My attention shifted to the floor near Fenvalur’s feet, where a figure knelt in chains. A male fae wearing a silver mask that covered his entire face, the same mask I’d glimpsed in my visions. The chains binding him to the floor glowed with suppression magic, dampening whatever power he possessed.

We must have made some sound, because Fenvalur turned suddenly, his eyes widening in genuine surprise.

“Impossible,” he breathed, gaze darting between me and the magical projections still hovering in the air. “How did you?—”

Before he could finish, the masked fae’s head snapped up. Though I couldn’t see his face, I felt the weight of his stare through the narrow eye slits of his mask. For a long moment, he was perfectly still, studying me.

Then he began to laugh.

It started as a low chuckle, building steadily into wild, uncontrolled laughter that echoed off the domed ceiling. The sound sent ice through my veins, not because it was menacing, but because underneath the madness, there was a note of genuine delight.

“She’s here,” the masked fae gasped between fits of laughter. “She’s finally here!”