Page 41 of The Veil of Hollow Gods

I lose count of how many times the sun streaks across the sky. How many voices wail inside my mind. I lose track of my body, of hunger, of the sound of silence.

The shadows writhe around me like armor.

Until I simply stand.

I rise from the chaise, shedding the cold skin of stillness, of separation. The darkness no longer eddies about my body but waits quietly along the edges of the room. I strip out of the lace—my potential uniform—ball it up and offer it to the shadows.

I don’t know what I expect it to do with it, but the moment the darkness envelops it, the garb bursts into flames in my palm.

It burns clean, scorching until all that’s left is a pile of ash in my hand. I brush it off and take a bath.

I don’t have to ask the aetherglass of the wardrobe to open for me. I don’t have to tap it or interact with it at all.

It knows what I want, and it delivers.

As my toes hit the water, the temperature spikes, roiling with bubbles and foam and jets .

It should be too hot.

It’s not.

I soak, the voices in my mind quieting, letting the potions wash, the jets pulse away the tension in a body that sat still for far too long.

And when I emerge, I don’t ask the aetherglass for something different to wear. It’s already waiting for me, laid on the bed.

The fabric is a deep gray-black, rustling under its own weight—iridescent in places, shifting to indigo, violet, green where the light bends just right.

The fabric is substantial enough to hold shape but also moves like something much lighter.

It’s not a fabric that should exist.

Shadowsilk .

The word hums in my mind, offered by something, some one else.

The shadows dress me, folding the fabric over my head, pulling it down onto my hips. It’s tight across my middle, sleeveless, like battle armor fashioned from fabric.

The garment touches the floor, but to allow for movement, it’s cut high up both sides, past my mid-thigh.

I face the aetherglass mirror as the shadows put the last piece around my shoulders. A floor length cape, fastened across my chest with a tarnished silver pin.

The cape billows out behind me, grazing the floor, blue and green and purple trapped in the weave, just like the dress. But that’s not what has my attention.

The pin holding it in place looks like…

The tarnished silver is a carved into nyrelith fruit, split open, bleeding seeds.

It’s beautiful .

But I don’t know if I appreciate wearing a demon ritual fruit on my new ashen clothes.

The fruit Tyr fed me on the day of the banquet, in front of everyone, and then proclaimed that I belonged to him.

The shadows retreat from flouncing my cape, gathering at the edges of the room like I’ve seen them do so many times before.

But now…

Now I can feel them.

Now they breathe with me.

Waiting.

Only a few moments after they’ve receded from barricading the door, someone’s pounding on it like they want to break it down.

No, they aren’t pounding it. They’re kicking it.

With a heavy leather boot.

Boots I know well—heavy, certain, hunting.

Before the thought is fully formed, the shadows fling the door open wide, and I face the startled demon warden fully.

His mouth opens slightly, eyes bulging as he sees me.

“What?” I whisper.

“The Maiden Council wishes to see you.”

I stare at him, and he shifts back on his heels before adding, “Ma’am.”

I almost laugh at that.

When I finally move, the demon’s face turns a blotchy shade of pink. “Ma’am, this isn’t a request. They demand your presence.” He falters, voice cracking on the word demand .

I glance down at my bare toes. The shadows or aetherglass or Shadowfell herself hadn’t given me shoes.

“Fine. Lead the way, Mister…”

The demon dips his head. “Commander Utrect. ”

I gesture forward. “Then by all means, Commander Utrect.”

He nods, turns on a heel, and marches in the direction I’m meant to follow.

When Sev and I explored Shadowfell, and even after when I was collecting information, I’d kept to the lower floors. The ones with little traffic, no prying eyes or whispered rumors.

But the commander takes me upward, through the winding staircase to the upper floors, full of attendants, and guests staying in Shadowfell for the Trial.

I watch as people and demons alike notice the commander in his pristine uniform with polished buttons…

And then notice me.

They track the demon, giving him marginally more berth.

But when their gazes land on me…

Some still entirely, caught up staring. Some avert their eyes, making themselves seem as small as possible.

And others trip over themselves trying to get out of my way, like small, stupid game animals.

Rabbits.

Yes.

Like rabbits tumbling over themselves or each other, just trying to stay safe.

But it’s not only the people. Not only their reactions. The halls feel smaller. Not as wide or tall, like I’m taking up more space within them.

And every bare footstep against the cool obsidian feels like a grounding. Like I’m planting myself deeper, sprouting roots and claiming this rock, this keep and its land as mine.

“Dama’s hand,” a woman whispers as I pass in front of her .

I meet her eyes, but she quickly looks at the ground instead.

I smirk.

It’s the exact reaction Mother drilled into Vella and me.

We look away from demons.

Shattered fucking realms. Did that bloodied pit turn me into a demon?

I better not be a fucking demon.

We turn a corner, startling more people. The voices in my head scream that much louder, and I snap.

“Are we almost there, Commander?”

He flinches at my voice.

“Yes, ma’am. Nearly there.”

“Could we not have simply used the sigilweave and avoided the gawking?”

The demon bows his head slightly before answering. “We might have, but the Maiden Council wanted you marched right and proper to their office. They wanted all to see you.”

Another turn and more people.

And I realize I don’t care if they see me.

I don’t care if they stare.

Their eyes no longer have weight on my skin. No longer mean anything.

They are all simply…

Beneath me.

I startle at that, a sickening twist stirring in my gut. It stops me in my tracks, and before I ask the question, before I’ve fully thought it, the shadows envelope me.

There’s a moment of weightlessness.

Of terror.

I didn’t intend it.

I didn’t command them .

The shadows moved because?—

I’m suddenly in a ruined courtyard—or the bones of one. Cracked mirror tiles reflect the broken sky. Water pools in the divots where tiles used to be, catching and bending the light strangely.

Half buried statues, some broken, some intact, lurk at the edges.

But more than my odd surroundings, more than the strange, fractured way the mirrors reflect the sky, is that I’m standing in front of Tyr.

He looks down at me, startled, eyes wide but for only a half a heartbeat.

“You’re meant to be meeting with the council, aren’t you?”

I step closer, and Tyr…

Steps back.

I frown and step forward again. “What am I?”

Something flashes in his gaze. “What do you mean?” His words are hushed, whispered like a hopeful prayer.

“I mean, did the shadows take me to the center of this god-awful world and turn me into a fucking demon?”

Tyr stills, blinks. And then smiles. “No, Amara. You’re not a demon. Not now. Not ever.”

I nod, letting his words settle in me the way they always do. “Then why am I so different?”

He crosses his arms over himself. “That I cannot say.”

My jaw sets, and I step toward him.

Again, he steps away.

It’s a small movement—hardly a step—but it still hums in the space between us, rattling like the bones of forgotten gods. The sound doesn’t fade, only coils tighter the longer we pretend not to hear it .

“Stop moving away from me. What aren’t you telling me?”

Pain flashes in his gaze, but he diverts it the way he always does. “Who is Veydra, Amara?”

I huff out a sigh. “The demon goddess. Now, answer me. Why do I feel so different? I’m looking at humans like they’re beneath me. Like they’re game animals.”

Tyr shifts his weight backward.

“That is not how demons see humans.”

“Isn’t it?”

“Not in my experience, no.”

“Well then, what in the Dama’s forsaken name is happening?”

Tyr shakes his head, white hair tumbling over his shoulder. “Amara, if I knew, I would tell you. No one expected this. Least of all me.”

I nod, and not in agreement. “Right. No answers. Nothing useful from you. Ever. Why would I expect that from the demon who stole me from my home—a home that he sullied—and forced me?—”

He grabs my chin, staring at me hard. “I didn’t force you, Amara. You offered yourself in place of another.”

My stomach falls to the ground, further, all the way to the pit I emerged from. “What did you say?” I whisper.

He stares into my eyes, that mirrored gaze peering deeper than ever.

“You heard me.”

I pull out of his grasp, and the shadows swirl around me, ringing my arms, my torso.

Tyr puts more distance between us, and that day in Tiriana plays in my mind…

Following Vella into the pine forest deeper than I’d ever been. Finding her strange, beautiful garden. Tyr, catching us, asking whose it was.

“You—you knew?”

“Of course I knew.”

“You knew, but you took me instead?”

Tyr lets out a long breath. “Yes.”

“Why?”

He pauses, as though weighing the different answers he might give me.

“The truth,” I say. It comes out as a command.

His black gaze settles on my face. “Because, like you, I knew she wasn’t the Maiden.”

“But—the garden, her way with?—”

Tyr waves a hand. “I’ve made mistakes as the king of the continent. Sequestering your homeland in ice and snow to keep my enemies at bay wasn’t one of them, but it had the unfortunate consequence of cutting your people off from the rest of the land.”

“Wasn’t that the exact consequence you were aiming for?”

“Yes, but only physically. I didn’t consider the cultural effect. I didn’t think after hardly a generation, the people in Tiriana would spin such fascinating but ultimately false stories about the Maiden, why we came, and what it meant.”