Page 33 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)
Ellie is among the last to wake, reluctantly pulled from sleep by the commotion around her.
When her eyes find me—standing tall where I should be broken, whole where I should be dying—she scrambles backward, tripping over the stretcher, landing hard, legs sprawled out in front of her and one hand covering her mouth. Her eyes grow impossibly wide.
“ Sacha ?” My name on her lips sounds like a question, a prayer, and an accusation all at once. She rises slowly, her entire body vibrating with tension. “ How?”
I walk to the center of our small camp, letting them all witness what has happened to me, but keep my gaze on Ellie. In her eyes, I see the woman who defied a tower’s magic, who answered my summons, who refused to accept my death. I owe her more than I can ever repay.
She moves toward me with halting steps, disbelief in every line of her body. Her tongue slicks over her lips, and she takes in a deep breath.
“You were dying,” she whispers. “I watched you …”
“Your storm met my shadow,” I tell her, lifting a hand and extending it toward her in invitation. A recognition of equals.
Silence greets my words, thick with awe and terror in equal measure. Then Varam lurches to his feet, pulling off his outer tunic with hands that shake.
“My Vareth’el.” His voice breaks, and he offers the garment with ceremonial solemnity.
I accept it with a nod, pulling it over my head. Another fighter silently approaches with pants, eyes downcast as though looking directly at me might blind him. The reverence unsettles me. I am no god.
“The prophecy speaks true,” someone whispers. “Where shadow leads, storm will follow.”
“Awakening that which lies dormant in the void,” another completes, eyes darting between Ellie and me.
“We need to leave here. Gather your things.”
At my words, the camp erupts into activity.
Supplies gathered, weapons checked, preparations made with new purpose.
This is no longer a retreat driven by necessity, but a mobilization shaped by belief.
No longer a dying man carried through the dark.
This is the beginning of something whispered for years.
Ellie approaches hesitantly, her face showing that she’s struggling to process what happened. The light has dimmed, but it still pulses in rhythm with the shadows flowing beneath my own. I frown down at my arm, and will them to fade. They recede slowly, almost stubbornly.
“I don’t understand,” she whispers. One hand reaches out to touch me, then drops midway as doubt overtakes courage. Her eyes travel over my face, down to my chest where the Authority brand once marred my skin. “What happened?”
Her bewilderment is genuine, her shock at my appearance unbalancing her understanding of how life works. This isn’t about prophecies or wars for her. It’s about the laws of reality being rewritten.
“You did what was needed.”
“But I didn’t do anything.” She shakes her head. “I was asleep. I didn’t … I couldn’t have.” She lifts her hands, examining them as if they belong to a stranger, turning them over, flexing fingers that look ordinary but have performed something extraordinary.
Around us, the fighters continue their preparations, stealing glances at us when they think I won’t notice. Their whispers overlap like rustling leaves—“ prophecy, ” “ Stormvein ,” “ Vareth’el reborn. ” Ellie seems oblivious to them, locked in her private struggle with what she’s seeing.
I reach out and take one hand in mine, then press a finger beneath her chin to tip her head up, forcing her to meet my gaze.
“But Ellie,” I say, my voice soft, meant for her alone despite our audience. “Mel’shira. You did everything . And what you have given me cannot ever be repaid.”
For a moment, we stand connected—her hand in mine, my finger beneath her chin, our gazes locked—while the camp bustles around us.
Her eyes hold questions, fear, and concern, but we don’t have time to address any of it right now.
I let my hand drop and turn away, moving between the fighters as they hurry to clear up the camp.
I can feel the weight of their expectations. Their hope, their fear. They no longer see me as just their leader, their Vareth’el rescued from death. They see me as living proof that their beliefs were justified, that their continued fight has purpose, that their sacrifice has meaning.
With me fully healed and no longer needing to be carried by stretcher, we should be able to reach Southernrock before nightfall, moving at a pace that would have been impossible yesterday. Once there, the real work will begin, and decisions will need to be made.
My body may no longer bear the scars of what he did to me, but my mind holds every single moment of suffering in perfect detail.
The physical wounds may be erased, but the covenant I made with hatred remains unbroken.
It has become something refined now, tempered like steel, no longer the raw molten rage of torture but cooler, sharper, and far more dangerous.
I remember every face that watched the torture sessions. Guards, torturers, and officials come to witness the breaking of the Shadowvein Lord. I’ve memorized the way they moved, the sound of their breathing, how each one averted their eyes when the pain became too much to witness.
I remember each voice that counted the lashes that tore my back apart—clinical, detached, as though they were counting inventory rather than destroying flesh. Each has its own sound, as unique as a fingerprint. Each is now preserved in perfect detail in my memory.
I remember each pair of hands that held me down while they pressed the Authority symbol into my flesh. How they shook with fear just from touching me. Fear that will pale compared to what they’ll feel when I return.
And above all, I remember Sereven’s eyes as he watched it all. The emptiness there. The detachment. The cruelty of a man who once fought for the same cause, but now serves only his own advancement.
I will find them all. I will dismantle the entire corrupt system they serve. I will expose the Authority’s hypocrisy. Their secret use of magic. Their lies built on blood and suffering.
I will reclaim what was stolen. Not only from me, but from every Veinblood they’ve hunted and destroyed.
They wanted to break me.
Instead, they’ve created their destruction. This new body, unmarked by their cruelty but infused with its memory, will become the instrument of their downfall. The silver-shadow power that courses through me now carries a purpose they could never have anticipated.
They will learn what it means to awaken something they have no control over.
Not in grand battles or spectacular confrontations, but in the darkness.
In empty hallways. In locked bedchambers.
In moments when they believe themselves most secure.
One death at a time, until the Authority’s foundations collapse beneath the weight of their fear.
And when I stand over Sereven’s body, when his eyes finally register the full magnitude of his betrayal, I’ll whisper the words he said to me when he drove that blade into my back at Thornreave Pass.
“Your power dies with you.”
Because shadow never forgives, and memory never dies.