Page 3 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

Chapter Two

ELLIE

A heart once opened cannot close without consequence.

The Healer’s Codex, ancient Tidevein manuscript

The forest fades in and out around me, trees passing in disjointed flashes as we move deeper into it.

My body runs on instinct alone, muscle memory carrying me forward while everything inside me screams to stop.

My mouth drags in air, but it never seems to reach my lungs. My heart slams against my ribs.

The current inside me builds, recedes, then builds again. Each surge feels like lightning trapped inside my veins, searching for a way out. When it crests, my skin feels like it might split. When it ebbs, it leaves me empty, less than I was before.

Each cycle drains me further.

“We need to rest.” Mira’s voice sounds like it’s coming from underwater. “She can’t continue like this.”

Yes, I can. I have to.

Varam’s gaze sweeps the trees ahead. “We can’t stop yet. The Authority will have trackers following our trail. We need more distance.”

He’s right. They’re still coming.

“She’s going to collapse if we push any further.” Mira’s hand grips my elbow. Her touch is too hot, too real. “Look at her.”

I force my spine straight, and pour every bit of will I have left into staying upright.

I won’t be their burden. I won’t be the reason we get caught. I won’t be the reason they die.

But the moment I break away from Mira’s support, my legs give way. The world spins. Sky becomes earth, and earth becomes sky. I’m falling, crashing into leaves that smell of decay and rain, cold mud seeping through my clothes and into my bones.

“Ellie!” Varam’s voice warps and distorts, becoming something alien.

The power lashes out in response, a violent reflex of fear and heat.

It rips through tissue and marrow, bursting from my palms, my wrists, my throat.

I can’t contain it. I can’t stop it. It’s not just reacting anymore.

The energy is moving differently now, cutting new channels where none existed before, destroying what stood in its way.

It’s rewriting me from the inside. While the girl who walked through Chicago is disappearing, something else is taking her place.

Voices blur together above me.

“… get her somewhere safe, quickly …”

“… never seen this before …”

“... when the raven merged with her, what did it do…”

A shape materializes in my fading vision. The mist stalker. It hovers over me. I don’t think it’s the same creature from the Veil Mists. It’s something else. Something that belongs to me. Born from whatever I’m becoming.

“Can’t stop.” The words might only exist in my mind, trapped in the prison of my failing body. My lips won’t move. “Authority ... still … coming.”

They’ll catch us because of me. Because I’m broken. Because I couldn’t save him.

“We’ll have to carry her.” Varam’s voice is clearer now. “There’s a cave system a mile north. If we make it, we can rest there until nightfall.”

Hands slide beneath me, and the contact sends the power into violent rebellion, every cell in my body rejecting the touch. I bite through my tongue rather than scream, copper flooding my mouth—the taste of my own destruction.

This is what loss tastes like. This is what survival costs.

Time becomes elastic. I drift between consciousness and oblivion, aware of movement, and rain that feels like ice against my burning skin, and the creature pacing beside us.

When it stops, ears pricked toward our trail, I hear what it hears.

The faint sounds of boots on wet earth, voices calling instructions.

They’re still coming. They won’t stop. And I’m the reason we can’t run fast enough.

The next clear moment comes when we stop.

The sudden absence of movement shocks my system back into alertness.

Forcing my eyes open, I look around. We’re at the mouth of a cave, narrow and barely visible behind a curtain of vines that hang down from the rocky overhang above. Varam sets me down inside.

“Is she conscious?” Mira crouches beside me, her fingers gently brushing soaked hair from my face.

“Yes.” I force the word out.

Relief crosses her face, quickly replaced by concern. “The power … is it still hurting you?”

“Yes.” I push myself up into a sitting position, arms shaking with the effort, sweat beading my forehead despite the chill. “But it’s different now. Not as explosive.”

It seems to have shifted from an external force fighting for release into something more insidious. It’s still burning through pathways I can almost visualize, but it’s moving slower than it was.

“What’s happening to me?” The question I’ve been asking since I first arrived in this world carries a new meaning now.

Varam kneels beside me, examining me with eyes that don’t quite hide his concern.

“Without a Veinblood master to guide you, I can only tell you what I’ve witnessed.

Your body is attempting to adapt to the power that’s woken up.

I witnessed similar reactions when my sister …

when Veinblood children came of age and their gifts manifested . .. but never this violent.”

“I’m not from this world, though.” My words slur together as another wave of power crests, leaving me dizzy. “This shouldn’t even be possible.”

No one answers. What could they possibly say? Nothing about my presence here makes sense. Nothing about what’s happening to me follows their rules.

The mist stalker moves to the cave entrance, its form blocking the narrow opening. It turns three times in a tight circle, reminding me of a cat, then settles down with its head facing me, eyes open, head tilting occasionally as though it’s hearing things I can’t.

I stare back at it, still struggling to understand how it got here.

“Did I make that?” The question is directed more at myself than anyone else.

Mira looks at the creature. “When your power erupted on the hill … when the raven merged with you … I’ve never seen anything happen like it before.”

“The prophecy—” Rasha begins, but Varam shakes his head.

“Not now.”

I’m too drained to demand answers. My body feels wrong, unfamiliar . The power continues its chaotic dance through me.

“Try to rest.” Mira arranges her pack beneath my head. Her fingers briefly touch my temple, comforting amid the chaos. “We’ll leave here when darkness provides better cover.”

I close my eyes, and try to focus on my breathing the way Sacha once showed me.

Was it only days ago he’d sat across from me, watching with those dark eyes I once found disturbing while I struggled to control the first flickers of power?

The memory tears through me, grief so acute it physically hurts. I’d barely begun to understand him, to trust him. And now ...

No. I can’t follow that path. Not when Authority patrols could find us at any moment. I can’t fall apart when we’re all still in danger.

Instead, I focus on the competing energies. Following Sacha’s last lessons, I stop fighting the power and try to recognize its patterns. The burning sensation eases slightly when I stop resisting its pull.

Two distinct currents are moving within me. One silver-bright and electric, flowing like water seeking the path of least resistance; the other midnight-dark and mercurial, coiling like smoke, unpredictable and elusive.

Hours pass while I’m in this half-meditative state. Outside the catastrophic storm I somehow conjured has settled into ordinary rain. But I can feel it still, a tether connecting me to each droplet, a resonance I’ve never experienced before.

When exhaustion finally claims me, dreams arrive immediately. Vivid, disorienting visions that feel more real than the waking world.

I’m walking through Chicago, snow crunching beneath my boots on familiar streets.

But everything wavers and distorts. Buildings ripple like reflections in disturbed water.

The sky cycles between violent storm clouds and blinding silver brilliance.

People pass me without seeing, their faces smeared like paintings left in the rain.

“You’re not really here.” The voice behind me is low, resonant.

I spin around, my heart leaping with desperate hope. It’s not Sacha standing there, though. The creature from the cave stands before me, its form more defined in this dreamscape, shadows and silver light intertwined in its fur.

“Where am I, then?” My voice echoes strangely.

“Between worlds. Between selves.” Its mouth doesn’t move, yet I hear the words clearly. “Neither fully who you were nor who you will become. A vessel in transformation.”

The scene shifts abruptly. I’m back in the tower where everything began, but it’s different.

The walls are translucent, revealing infinite darkness scattered with stars beyond.

Shadows move within the stone itself, forming patterns that almost coalesce into meaning before dissolving again, like a language I’m on the verge of understanding.

“The bindings have broken.” A female voice comes from everywhere and nowhere.

I spin around, finding only darkness gathering in the center of the chamber, twisting like living smoke.

“What binding?”

“All of them.” The darkness pulses, almost familiar in its rhythm. “The ones you knew about. The ones you didn’t. The ones that held him. The ones that held you.”

A fleeting silhouette forms within the darkness. Tall, lean, with a profile I would recognize anywhere.

Before I can reach for it, the dream shatters into scattered shadows.

Now I’m standing on a mountain path overlooking Ashenvale from above. The city gleams white and gold in sunlight, its towers reaching toward the sky. From this distance, it looks like something from a fairy tale.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” A voice speaks beside me, tinged with bitterness beneath admiration.

I turn to find a woman standing there. Older than I am, with silver streaking her dark hair and lines at the corners of her eyes. Something about her seems vaguely familiar, though I’m certain we’ve never met.