Page 15 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

More salt water, thrown directly across my back in a steady stream.

The torturer empties the bucket, ensuring no wound is missed.

The pain is so intense that reality itself seems to splinter.

I’m drowning and burning at the same time, my back a map of fire that extends through every nerve in my body.

My muscles spasm, creating a feedback loop as each movement tears wounds wider.

The taste of copper and salt fills my mouth.

I’m biting through my tongue again, unable to control the convulsions that rack my frame.

The chamber tilts. Darkness creeps in from the edges of my vision. Sweet unconsciousness beckons?—

“Don’t lose him,” Sereven warns when my head lolls forward.

The salt water hits like liquid fire, finding its way into every cut on my face, behind my swollen eyelids, into the torn corners of my mouth. The pain is so intense my stomach tries to vomit, but there’s nothing left to bring up except bile that burns my throat raw.

My body spasms, chains rattling above me like bones. I’m drowning in sensation, overwhelmed by input my mind can’t process.

There’s a technique to this torture. A careful balance Sereven has clearly studied, perhaps even perfected, over years of practice. Maximum suffering, minimal risk of death. Keep the subject conscious. Keep them aware. Keep them breaking, piece by piece.

“You know why you’re still alive, don’t you?” He grips my hair and wrenches my head up again. “Why I didn’t simply execute you when they found you?”

I can’t answer. I can barely focus on his face through my one functioning eye. Blood fills my mouth, making speech impossible even if I had the strength for it.

“A quick death would be too merciful.” His voice drops, becoming almost instructional.

“After Thornreave, when they dragged you off the battlefield wounded and chained, I wanted you executed immediately. A public display of Authority power, your head on a pike outside Ashenvale for all to see. Clean, simple, final.”

He releases my hair, letting my head fall forward. The movement sends fresh waves of pain through my neck, my shoulders, along pathways already blazing with torment. I taste blood, salt, the foulness of infection spreading through my body.

“But the former High Commander proposed something else. ‘Let them think he’s dead ,’ he said.

‘They’ll mourn, disperse, lose hope. Meanwhile, we keep him contained where he can never escape or inspire anyone again .

’ He was right. Your public execution was a masterpiece of theater, staged and witnessed, mourned by your followers.

They scattered, believing their leader was gone forever. ”

He pauses, waiting for my reaction. I don’t give him one.

“And the tower? It wasn’t only your prison, Sacha. It was a harvester. Every moment you spent there, every shadow you tried to reach ... it all fed our work. You can die knowing that your powers helped purge the remaining ones of your kind.”

Sereven’s smile turns cold, but there’s something almost reverent in how he delivers the next words. “The irony is perfect. The Shadowvein Lord’s own power, used to hunt down the last Veinbloods.”

The words penetrate the fog of pain, and understanding blooms like blood from a fresh wound.

They used me. While preaching against the very magic they harvested, they drained me like a resource.

Every moment I spent believing I was simply imprisoned, I was actually feeding their genocide.

My own shadows, perverted into tools of extermination.

How many Veinbloods died because of power they stole from me? How many children never manifested abilities because my harvested essence was used to hunt their parents?

The irony would be laughable if anything about this situation allowed for humor. But it’s not funny. It’s monstrous. Beautiful in its perversity, like watching a poem written in blood.

Sereven’s eyes gleam as he watches understanding dawn. He’s been waiting for this moment. Not just to break my body, but to show me the truth of my captivity.

I think of the tower. Of the constant drain I never fully understood. The way my connection to shadow seemed always just beyond reach. Now it makes sense. The binding wasn’t restraining my power. It was redirecting it. Channeling it elsewhere.

“The Authority.” The words come out as a broken whisper, harsh against my ruined throat. “Hypocrites.”

For a moment, a heartbeat, something flickers across Sereven’s face. Not the righteous fury I expect, but something more complex. Guilt? No, that’s too simple. It’s the expression of a man who knows exactly what he’s become and has made peace with it.

His hand cracks across my face with enough force to snap my head sideways. Fresh blood fills my mouth from a split lip and loosened teeth. My vision darkens, then returns in a kaleidoscope of pain and disorientation.

“Order,” he corrects, leaning close enough that I can feel his breath on my face, warm against my cold skin. “Power under our control serves order. Power left unchecked, like yours, brings chaos.”

His eyes burn with the light of true conviction. A believer confronting the heretic. This isn’t about duty. This is a mission, a crusade, a war he’s been fighting since before I knew we were enemies.

“You and your kind represent chaos.” His voice drops to a whisper. “And order is the only true way to live.”

He steps back, composing himself with a gesture I remember well—smoothing the front of his robes, adjusting his stance. Control reasserting itself. The brief crack in his facade sealed over.

“But now that order has been compromised. Your escape proved the tower insufficient. The methods we used to harvest your power, flawed. And so …”

“Blackvault.” The word comes out slurred, almost unrecognizable.

“Yes.” Satisfaction gleams in his eyes. “The purging chamber waits for you. We added some special … additions for when you arrive.”

The purging chamber.

In the early days of the war, I saw what remained of a woman they’d put through it.

A young Earthvein wielder. She wasn’t dead, she’d been emptied.

Something fundamental stripped away, leaving only an empty husk behind.

Her eyes were vacant, her movements mechanical.

No recognition. No awareness left. Just a breathing body where a person had once been.

“I see you remember what happened to those who go through the purge.” His smile drips with superiority.

“But you don’t need to worry about that, Sacha, because the purge waiting for you won’t only strip you of your power, it will erase you completely.

You will die, but not until you’ve felt every single part of you destroyed first.”

He turns away. “Bring the irons.”

The torturer retrieves something from the brazier—a metal rod glowing cherry red at its tip. The Authority symbol, I realize as it draws nearer. The same one burned into my chest yesterday … or was it the day before? Time has lost meaning in this place of eternal suffering.

“This one is for your face,” Sereven says. “So no one forgets who owns you during your final journey.”

I try to brace myself, but there’s no preparation for this. The brand presses against my cheek, sizzling against already torn skin. The stench of burning flesh … my flesh … fills the chamber, and a sound escapes me that doesn’t sound human.

The world fades to gray, then black …

I surface to stone against my face. On the floor again.

The chains are gone from my wrists, and someone is fitting new restraints.

These bear strange symbols carved into the metal.

When they lock into position, something tears inside me, worse than physical pain.

My shadows, already distant since the crystal’s disruption, are gone.

They haven’t been blocked, they’ve been annihilated from my awareness.

I can feel my heartbeat, hear my breathing, the pain coursing through broken flesh, but nothing beyond my skin.

The absence is more devastating than broken bones, than flayed skin, than burns and brands.

It’s the severing of something at the core of my being.

I’ve lived with shadow from my earliest memories, felt its presence, its response to my call.

Even in the tower, bound as I was, I could still sense them around me.

During the days of torture, I could feel their presence, even if I couldn’t reach them.

I reach for power that isn’t there and find only screaming absence. The effort itself causes physical pain, like trying to flex muscles that have been surgically removed. My body convulses with each failed attempt, creating a feedback loop of loss and agony.

Without my shadows, I’m not the Vareth’el.

I’m not even Sacha Torran. I’m meat and bone and failing organs, stripped of everything that made me who I was.

The restraints don’t just block my power, they’re erasing my very identity.

I try to remember what it felt like to command shadows, to call the Void, but the memory itself seems to slip away, as if the metal bands are devouring even my memories.

“Special restraints.” Sereven’s voice comes from somewhere above me. “Developed specifically for you.”

He crouches beside me, examining the runes engraved into the metal bands.

“Old Kingdom sigils. Recovered from sealed texts beneath Blackvault. Fascinating, isn’t it? These restraints were designed to block power. If you look around, you’ll see them carved into the walls. I’m told that the restraints are more … intrusive.”

I try to focus on his face, but my vision swims. Blood loss, fever, trauma, all taking their toll.

His features blur, sharpen, then blur again.

Behind him, I see the outline of other people, flashes of red marking them as Authority officials.

Officers in formal uniforms, witnessing the scene playing out in front of them.

This is a spectacle. A demonstration of Sereven’s power.

“Take him to the cage. I want him conscious for every moment of the journey to Blackvault.”

Hands haul me up, uncaring of my condition. My legs fold instantly, unable to support my weight. They don’t care. They drag me through the hallways, my feet trailing uselessly behind, leaving smears of blood to mark my path.

Each doorway we pass through sends fresh jolts of pain through my body as my feet catch on the thresholds.

They don’t lift me to go down any stairs, and my legs slam against each stone step, my broken ribs grinding together.

They take me through the main hall, where Authority soldiers stand in line to watch the procession.

Their faces show varying emotions—satisfaction, disgust, fear, and even pity quickly hidden.

The Shadowvein Lord. Reduced to this. Bloody and broken, being delivered to its final punishment.

Daylight stabs my eyes when we emerge into a courtyard. The sudden brightness sends daggers through my skull after days in dungeon darkness. I blink against the assault, details coming into painful focus. A convoy of wagons waits, the central one holding a metal cage.

The cage itself is obscene in its design.

It’s barely large enough for a small child, let alone a man of my size.

Iron bars form a crisscross pattern, too narrow to allow any comfortable position.

The entire contraption sits atop a wooden platform, high enough to be seen … to display what’s contained inside.

This isn’t just transport. It’s a mobile warning. A demonstration of Authority power. The Shadowvein Lord—contained, subjugated, undone.

A message written in blood and pain.

My blood. My pain.

I think of how the Veinwardens greeted my return with hope, how Ellie gazed at me with growing trust despite knowing my manipulations. All of that stripped away with my power, leaving only this spectacle of humiliation.

Is this what they’ll tell of me now? The broken thing in the cage, rather than the shadow that once haunted the Authority’s nightmares?

I’m thrown inside, and the impact sends fresh waves of agony through broken bones and abused flesh.

My dislocated shoulder wrenches further out of place as I hit the back wall of bars.

Spikes line the bars and floor, designed to ensure maximum discomfort.

My body contorts involuntarily, trying to find a position that doesn’t press on the worst injuries. But there is none.

They press against my broken ribs, the sword wound, the brand on my chest. They’re not meant to pierce, but to create constant, inescapable pressure. Every heartbeat sends fresh pain through my body as blood pushes against damaged tissue pressed against unyielding metal.

I try to shift position, but movement only makes everything worse. The size of the cage forces me into a position that makes it impossible to protect any of my injuries.

“No food,” Sereven instructs the guards gathered around the wagon. “Water, but only enough to keep him alive. Ensure he remains conscious. I want him to feel every single bump in the road.”

He approaches the cage, stooping to peer inside. Our eyes meet one final time.

“Four days to Blackvault, Sacha. Four days to contemplate your failed rebellion. Your failed escape. Your failed legacy.”

He straightens and turns to the convoy captain. “I leave for Blackvault tomorrow. I will be there when you arrive. Make sure he gets there alive, or your life will be forfeited.”