Page 59 of Stormvein (The Veinbound Trilogy #2)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

SACHA

They teach control as virtue, because fear cannot rule alone.

Authority Codes

Shadows embrace me, surround me, and guide me forward. I can sense a presence within them, something outside of my own being, and the darkness I’ve commanded since childhood responds instantly, threading through my thoughts with a steady, familiar pull.

It feels different now, since my rebirth at Ellie’s hands, more vibrant and alive, tinged with an energy I’ve never felt before. One that tastes of silver and storm.

They lead me deeper, into something that feels like a memory I never lived. A history written in my blood, but erased from my mind.

A tower rises ahead, but it’s not the one I remember.

This one is older. Its foundations vanish into depths I can’t see.

The walls aren’t as smooth as they were in my prison, but textured with countless symbols that crawl across the stone like living things.

They pulse with a rhythm I’ve never seen before yet somehow understand.

Light and shadow dance along the walls, patterns forming and fading like truths half-remembered. The shadows respond to my presence, reaching toward me, while the light stretches alongside it, silver threads weaving through black.

And then she appears without a sound.

The woman with silver-threaded hair, her face lined with wisdom, her eyes bright with purpose.

She doesn’t move so much as shift between states of being, her form never fully fixed in any single moment.

One second substantial enough to cast a shadow, the next translucent, as if reality hasn’t decided what she is yet.

Or perhaps she exists beyond reality’s definitions.

I’ve seen her before. In other dreams where I hovered between life and death after Sereven’s torture. Before Ellie’s silver storm rebuilt my body. Always watching. Always waiting. Always knowing more than she reveals.

“The division was never meant to be permanent.” Her voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere. “What was separated seeks reunion. Blood calls to blood. Shadow yearns for storm. Power divided weakens. United, it transforms.”

I try to speak, to demand clarification of these riddles, but my voice doesn’t exist here in this space between realms. My thoughts form questions that dissolve before they can become sound.

Still, she seems to hear the confusion and impatience in my silence, reading me as easily as I read the shadows.

She moves to one wall where symbols glow brighter than the rest. Her fingers hover over markings that almost look like Meridian script, yet not quite. Like this is the original language from which all others descended.

“The crystal holds memory.” She traces a pattern with her finger. Light trails after her touch, hovering in the air. “Not weapon, but window. Not destroyer, but revealer. Not ending, but beginning.”

The chamber fades. A cavern forms around us, lit by blue crystals embedded in the rock. Their glow spills across ancient carvings that cover every surface. Words in languages I almost recognize. They stir something buried, just out of reach.

I recognize odd words. High Meridian interwoven with script from before recorded history.

“What they took from you is not lost, only scattered.”

Her words sink deeper than they should, hitting somewhere memory doesn’t quite touch.

“What Sereven fears is not your shadow, but what it might reveal when joined with storm.” Her voice grows more intense.

Images flash—sharp, quick, half-formed.

A child standing in the rain, silver light flickering beneath skin as lightning strikes nearby.

A metal band circles a small wrist, patterns etched so fine they could be mistaken for veins.

A woman watching from darkness as Authority soldiers march through a burning village, clutching something wrapped in blue fabric while tears track silently down her face.

“Elowen,” the woman says.

The name vibrates through the cavern, not loud but final . The crystals pulse in response.

“Stormbringer. Veil-walker.”

I try to form the question, even if the words don’t make a sound.

Who is Elowen?

She doesn’t answer. Instead, she turns toward the largest crystal in the cavern. Its surface ripples with shifting images I can’t place. Places I’ve never been. Faces I don’t know.

“Elowen walks between. Named for power. Hidden from knowledge. Returned when needed most.”

The crystal pulses, its glow sharpening to a piercing blue. Inside it, I see Sereven, alone in a chamber that mirrors this one. He holds the crystal weapon from River Crossing. His expression as he studies it is not hatred, or righteousness. It’s fear.

“He knows what might be revealed. The crystal responds to intent, to blood, to the power it was designed to channel. It can tear apart … or it can bind together. What he would use to destroy might instead illuminate.”

The scene fractures, shards of color and sound spinning through darkness.

Blood on stone. A crown broken in two.

The images whirl in chaotic patterns that make my head throb with half-remembered pain. Then they reassemble, coalescing into a jagged mountain ridge beneath storm-thick skies where lightning splits the clouds without reaching earth, illuminating shadowed figures locked in confrontation.

I recognize myself among them. Across from me, Sereven holds the crystal weapon, its blue light pulsing against the storm above.

“Blackstone Ridge. Where paths long divided will converge once more. Where truth can no longer be buried beneath deception.”

The vision fades as the woman turns her attention fully to me. “You must prepare. The crystal is both weapon and key. It aligns with whoever wields it, and their purpose.”

Her form begins to unravel, dissolving into the shadows that birthed her. But her voice lingers, softer now, but still clear.

“Find Elowen.”

The light from the crystal flares one final time, then vanishes.

“The crystal reveals what was hidden. Elowen remembers what was forgotten.”

“Elowen.” It’s leaving my lips by the time I open my eyes, carried from dream to waking.

Ellie shifts beside me, her breath catching. Her body goes rigid.

“What did you say?” Her voice comes out shocked.

I turn my head to look at her. The dream’s fading, but the name is still stuck in my mind.

“Elowen.”

Her lips part slightly, the color draining from her face. Her chest rises with a sharp intake of breath that she doesn’t release straight away.

“That’s …” She trails off, tongue sweeping over her lips. “That’s my name. My full name. No one here knows that.” Her fingers twist into the blanket. “No one anywhere knows it anymore. I haven’t heard anyone say it since I was—” She swallows. “How could you possibly know that?”

I push up onto one elbow and twist to face her.

“I had a dream.” I talk slowly, rebuilding it in my head. “There was a tower. Covered in symbols I didn’t recognize. A woman with silver hair. She said that the crystal wasn’t a weapon, it was a window.”

Ellie stays quiet.

“She said the name Elowen , and told me to find her.”

She stares at me. “I … I don’t understand how that’s possible.”

“She showed me a child standing in the rain. A silver bracelet around her wrist.”

Her lips part again, eyes widening. “I had a silver bracelet when they found me.”

“ Found you?”

She looks away, drawing her legs up so she can wrap her arms around them, her voice flattening as if distance can dull the memory.

“They said I was left in a church confessional.” Her voice takes on the practiced tone of someone who’s told a story so many times it’s become a recitation rather than a memory. “Wrapped in a blue woolen blanket, with a handwritten note and a silver bracelet on my wrist.”

She draws in a slow breath, gaze fixed on a point beyond the room.

“No name, except Elowen. No last name, no birthdate, nothing that hinted to who I might be. Just the bracelet.” Her fingers trace the shape of it over her wrist. “The priest who found me took me to a group home, and that’s where I grew up.

The quiet girl. The strange one.” Her lips quirk up into a stiff smile.

“People don’t line up to adopt the girl who barely speaks. ”

I don’t ask what a group home is. I don’t ask her to explain, she doesn’t need interruptions. I can guess what she means without needing her to describe it further.

“I lost the bracelet when I was six. There was a storm. Lightning hit a tree outside the house. One of the carers found me on the porch just as lightning struck again … right at my feet. They said the bracelet was acting like a conductor. It was dangerous, so they took it away.”

“What happened to it?”

She frowns, then shakes her head. “I don’t remember.”

The name. The dream. The bracelet. They’re threads of a pattern I still can’t see, but it’s there, lurking beneath the surface.

“You said you dreamed of a woman.”

I nod. “It’s not the first time. I’ve seen her before, when I was close to death.”

“I’ve dreamed of her, too.” The words are soft, so low I almost miss them.

“A woman with silver in her hair?” I sit up fully now.

“Yes.” She draws her knees closer to her chest. “She’s been in my dreams since I arrived here. Always watching. I thought they were just dreams. My brain trying to process being in a different world, creating a guide or something.”

“They’re not.” I’m certain of that now, pieces of a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving clicking into place. “What did she say to you?”

“Nothing that ever made sense, but I always wake up with this feeling that they’re important.”

“And your name is really Elowen?” I keep my voice gentle, watching how the sound of it affects her. This name she’s buried for so long.