Page 45 of The Veil of Hollow Gods

I don’t see Tyr for the rest of the day.

Or that night.

And that’s fine. I have other things to keep me occupied.

Like the stories the shadows tell me.

I’ve heard the stories of several women so far and I plan to hear all of them before this is through.

Every last one.

As I’m eating—a simpler meal of braised meat and root vegetables—a tendril of shadow returns to my chamber.

“Hello, little wraith,” I murmur.

It shudders, then circles me, pressing into my flesh.

Instead of ringing my wrist or arm like usual, it spins and twists itself around my head.

I watch it in the aetherglass wardrobe as it wreaths my brow like a circlet of lovely darkness.

The circle grows tighter, spins faster. My hair is lifted in its current.

Thin thread-like arms of shadow spin out from the circle and stroke my face, my hair.

It’s strange. Nice, gentle strokes but still unsettling .

The thin shadow veins press harder, then focus on one spot.

I flinch, trying to move away from the pain, but it just circles tighter, pressing deeper.

Into my temple.

And then I see it.

Lorien and the other kings—all but Tyr—sitting at a table, veiled in darkness.

“You saw what happened when she rose from the pit.” Lorien leans forward.

The shadows don’t show me his real face. Just the mask.

Interesting.

“Why don’t you spell it out for those of us who see things differently?” Kaelar the Void asks.

The Shrouded King nods in his direction, the shroud over his eyes billowing with the movement.

I stay still, despite the ache in my temple, for fear a single movement, a single sound, might break the spell.

Or worse. Alert the kings.

“The ground rotted under her feet. Every step she took up Veilspire’s stairs, more bloomrot. More decay. It is clear that Amara DiTiri is the cause of the rot in the land, and it is our duty to make sure she doesn’t continue to be a blight on the continent.”

Of course. Blame the brand new Maiden for the in the world, not your own inane Trials.

“I see,” the Withered King says flatly.

Lorien turns his gaze to him, mock offense perfectly painted on his perfectly proportioned face. “You don’t believe me? You saw it yourself, Morvain.”

“Aye. I saw rot sprout in her wake. But I also saw shadows under each step. Isn’t it more reasonable to conclude the shadows are more than we’ve thought to consider?” The king’s tone is even, measured.

But Lorien doesn’t take it that way.

He leans back, folds his arms over his chest. “It might be more reasonable, but it’s not the point, old friend.” His words are taut. Laced with venom and tension that threatens to snap at any moment.

The Shrouded King sighs. “Oh? Then, by all means, what is your point, Lorien?”

“The girl is an unknown. We cannot allow her to gain support.”

Varek, strangely silent to this point, finally speaks. “The whore got her hooks in Tyr early, and we can’t allow her to have that much influence on the continent.”

The shadows spin away from me, untangling from my mind.

Well, at least I know for certain the Withered King was being truthful.

As the shadow returns to the darkness, I catch movement out my window.

Not the little green bird I’m accustomed to, but in the distance, past the strange trees and courtyard below.

Two women, wearing similar clothes to mine—dark colors, silent boots—running away from the castle.

Hand in hand.

One turns back. Just for a moment.

It’s Selke. She doesn’t see me. But she gives Shadowfell one final look before Ashera tugs her forward.

Sometime later, a knock at my door draws my attention.

Not a pounding. Not a boot trying to cave the stone in. A quiet, respectful knock.

“Enter,” I say from the settee.

The door opens and?—

Sinea stands at the threshold, a silver platter held out in both hands.

But something is wrong.

Very wrong.

Before I stand, the shadows rise from the floor and walls, funneling in into the room and shutting the door behind her.

Her eyes are too round, glazed, as though she’s not fully here.

Or replaying something in her mind she wishes she hadn’t seen.

“What’s wrong?”

Everything else about her is the same. Her skirt and glass bodice are the unmarred. She has no visible marks.

But something is very, very wrong.

“Sinea?” I rise, going to her.

She says nothing, staring vacantly as she juts her arms outward, offering me the platter.

I look down at it.

A single paper rests atop the gleaming silver.

“Sinea?” I grasp her forearm.

She’s cold as death. Sinea doesn’t acknowledge the contact, only offers the platter again, more insistent this time.

I take it, and the second I do, she turns around and walks through the fog of shadows to the door.

“Wait!”

But she doesn’t.

I don’t think she can, and that stokes something wild, furious, vengeful in me.

I hadn’t thought to warn Sinea, and now, whatever torture she’s endured…

It’s on my hands .

And that burns with all the fire of a thousand dying suns.

Whatever happened to her, whoever broke my fae attendant, will pay.

With trembling hands, I unfold the paper. It has four words.

Gloaming Room

Noon

Tomorrow

Night falls and sleep doesn’t. My mind twirls and folds over the events of the day endlessly, though my body craves rest.

Bone-weary and mind buzzing, I consider finding Tyr. Or at least the respite of his touch.

I roll over, pulling the linens close. I will not go to him. I won’t show him that much of me.

Several hours later, when sleep still hasn’t come, my hands find their way between my thighs, and I touch myself to thoughts of his touch instead.

Release comes quickly, and my eyes finally close.

A brush smooths down my hair, soft, luxuriant. “Look how beautiful,” Mother’s voice is soft, sweeter than I remember. “It catches the sunlight like spun gold.”

I turn and smile, but it’s not my mother smiling behind me. I don’t know this woman.

The scene shudders, and another shimmers in front of me. A throne, full of rot and weeds, blotting out a blackened sun. No one sits on it. The vines and ash cover it, pulling it slowly beneath the ground.

Another place, a woman in chains, sinking into a pit. The pit fills itself with dirt and bones, becoming a field of strange white blooms .

I wake with a start sometime in the early dawn hours, and I do not close my eyes again.

Cold sweat clings to my skin as thoroughly as the cold stone sinks into my feet. In the bathing chamber, I raise the temperature as high as it will go, hoping to burn off the lingering unsettled film of fractured dreams.

The water burbles, rolling with heat and bubbles, and I step in.

Today I meet the Council for the last time.

As I move through the halls of Shadowfell, I see no one. Not one attendant or demon guard.

It’s not the hour.

And it’s not the floor. I’m staying on the upper, more populated sections of the keep.

But it’s as though everyone is still in their chambers. Or ushered off somewhere else. Some place that’s not here.

In preparation for what?

I make my way to the Gloaming Room—the waiting chamber all the potential Maidens stood in before the Trial.

The room where I first met Ashera. First heard Shoreena and wrongly assumed her to be another attendant.

It’s the same room. Same stone and sigilweave. Same strangeness.

But I see it for what it is now.

It’s the threshold. The point in the path from which there is no returning.

Before the Gloaming Room, and all that came after, I was simply a woman from a frozen village.

Now…

The sigilweave flares to life, glowing silver.

And like the first time I was here, I must choose to step into the magic .

I look down at my feet. Soft leather boots under a wide, heavy skirt, hiding the skin-hugging armor Shadowfell made for me after the bath.

It hums against my skin, whisper-soft and certain—woven to shield what matters most.

If the Council wants to see me now, then they’ll have their wish.

I step onto the sigilweave and then appear on a stage.

In the ballroom.

There’s no music this time. No heavy scents of seared meats and incense.

A crowd of nobles and wardens alike, hold their breath as I turn to see I share the stage. To my left, the kings sit on thrones atop a raised dais. To my right, a row of benches, also raised, for the council women.

The only face I don’t see?

Shoreena.

A woman in a darker blue robe stands. “Gentlefolk.”

The silent crowd stills. All eyes on her.

“I am the newly appointed Maiden Councilwoman.”

People exchange glances, and I sense Tyr’s gaze on me. I don’t turn. Don’t meet it.

Despite wanting to.

“As the new lead councilwoman, I’d like to apologize for any confusion about winnings and wagers made on Ms. DeTiri. For as you can see with your own eyes, she is very much still alive.”

I scan the crowd, looking for Sinea. She’s not among the countless faces. Faces which don’t respond to her. Not really. Not the way they should.

They’re too still. Too silent.

“Now,” she says, clapping her hands sharply. “What we’ve all been waiting for. ”

The woman steps forward, and something appears in her hand.

A wreath of braided flowers.

I already know what she means to do with it, and I mean not to let her.

I cast a quick glance at Tyr. He doesn’t move. Not even a feathering muscle in his jaw. He stares at the new Councilwoman and doesn’t break away.

She comes closer, and I stop her with a single question, projected loud enough for the ballroom to hear. “Where is Shoreena?”

The woman stares at me, ire in her eyes, but she keeps a check on her tone. “Shoreena was removed from her place on the Council. Now, if we might continue.”

She takes another step.

“Why was she removed?” I ask with a false note of innocence. As if it were merely an idle curiosity.

The woman stops again, taking a breath. “Now is hardly the time,” she says sweetly. “The people have come to see their Maiden crowned.”

The audience, still too quiet, watches the power play between the two women before them .

“They have,” I say smoothly. “But don’t you think they deserve to know what happened to the woman tasked with making sure their markers were properly accounted? Some of these people staked their season’s earnings on the Trials. Don’t they deserve transparency?”

The crowd shifts, a few murmurs. A hushed whisper.

The woman smiles at me, a flash of teeth in the sunlight.

“We will have time to discuss all this after your coronation, Maiden.” Her lip twitches, like she’s coiled too tight and ready to pop.

So I add just the smallest touch more pressure. “You’ve not even properly introduced yourself to our distinguished guests. How are they to trust you—a stranger—to crown me if they don’t even know your name?”

Her throat bobs.

“You don’t want to fight me on this,” she says under her breath.

My lips curl upward.

It is not a smile.

Lorien calls from his place with the other kings. “Our new Maiden isn’t stalling, my esteemed guests.” He raises his hands to the crowd, appeasing them. “She’s simply nervous about her new role as your Maiden.”

I track his gaze to the crowd—he hasn’t fully convinced them—and follow it back to his rotten, maggot-infested face.

“You remember our first encounter, King Lorien?” I ask.

He smiles, and I’m certain, for those who still see his mask, it’s lovely. “Of course I do. You were just a fawn, shaking behind your attendant at all the sights before you.”

I nod, though in no way accepting his sanitized, stylized version of events. “Actually, Your Majesty, I’d vomited in the corner just before meeting you because I am—or rather—I was afraid of crowds.”

His smile grows wider. More disgusting. “Yes, yes. I do recall that now.”

I tilt my head, staring right into his awful face. “But what you don’t know is the hand I offered to you—the one you kissed?”

I let the moment breathe. One beat.

Two.

And just when I think Lorien is about to ask me to continue?—

“That’s the hand I wiped my vomit-stained mouth with.”