Shadow’s Veil – Part 5

The world lurched.

Vaelin felt weightless, suspended in the rift between realms. Shadows curled around him like living tendrils, whispering in a language he didn’t understand, their voices slipping beneath his skin like threads of ice. Then—light. Blinding, searing, overwhelming.

The sensation of falling returned, his stomach twisting as gravity took hold. He braced for impact, expecting the hard, alien ground of the Shadow Realm, but instead, he crashed onto something soft. The damp scent of moss and earth filled his lungs. The familiar bite of cold night air brushed his skin. He had no time to process it before he heard her.

A sharp gasp, followed by a ragged inhale.

Elira.

Vaelin pushed himself upright, his muscles aching from the strain of battle and the weight of something far worse—the Riftborn’s touch, still coiled like a sickness beneath his skin. He turned his head, searching the darkened forest. There, only a few feet away, Elira was on her knees, both hands pressed into the dirt as she struggled to catch her breath. Her auburn hair was a tangled mess, silver streaks glowing faintly from residual magic. The crystal in her staff flickered erratically, pulsing with energy like a dying ember.

“We made it,” she breathed, half a laugh, half a wheeze.

“Barely.” Vaelin pushed to his feet, but the moment he did, a strange sensation rippled through him—his body felt different. The air felt different, heavier somehow. He clenched his fists, testing the movement. A dull, unnatural hum vibrated beneath his skin. Wrong. Something was wrong.

Elira must have noticed, because her gaze shifted to him, sharp and assessing. Her lips parted slightly, as if she were about to ask, but then her eyes fell to his arm. She froze.

“Vaelin.”

He sighed. He already knew what she had seen before she even spoke.

Lifting his hand, he turned his palm upward, revealing the dark veins crawling past his wrist like blackened roots. The Riftborn’s mark had not faded. If anything, it had deepened, the inky tendrils slithering under his skin with each pulse of his heartbeat. He flexed his fingers, watching as the darkness shifted—not recoiling, not resisting, but moving with him.

“That’s… not good,” Elira murmured, stepping closer.

“No, really? Hadn’t noticed,” he muttered dryly.

Her glare was immediate. “I’m serious, Vaelin.”

“So am I.” He gave her a half-hearted smirk, but even he could hear the edge in his own voice. This wasn’t just some lingering effect of the Shadow Realm. It was something else. Something still inside him.

Elira hesitated, then lifted a hand, hovering it just above his arm, her magic pulsing faintly as she searched. Vaelin tensed. Her magic was always warm, a steady, living thing—but this time, he barely felt it against his skin. The shadow in his veins did not react as magic usually did. It did not recoil or burn away. It simply existed, as if it had always been there.

She exhaled slowly. “It’s not just corruption.”

Vaelin raised a brow. “That’s reassuring.”

She ignored the sarcasm, her expression unreadable. “I might be able to study it. If I can understand how it works, I could—”

“No.”

Her brows knitted together. “Vaelin—”

“No experiments. No dissecting my soul with magic,” he said flatly.

Her lips pressed into a thin line. “I wouldn’t—”

“Don’t lie to me, Elira.” His voice was quieter now, but firm. “You’d risk anything for knowledge.”

She opened her mouth to argue, then stopped. Because he was right.

A silence stretched between them, thick with unspoken thoughts. Vaelin knew Elira well enough to recognize the war in her mind—the need to understand against the need to respect his wishes. Finally, she sighed and turned away, rubbing a hand over her face.

“We should get moving,” she muttered. “The village isn’t far.”

Vaelin didn’t argue. He adjusted the grip on his daggers and fell into step beside her, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something unseen had left the Shadow Realm with them.

One Hour Later – The Village of Hollow’s Rest

The village was silent.

Not in the eerie, suffocating way it had been before—but in the way a place felt after something terrible had passed through. The air was still thick with the remnants of unease, as if the very land remembered what had happened.

Vaelin and Elira moved carefully through the empty streets. Shattered doors hung from broken hinges, carts lay overturned, belongings scattered as if the people had fled in a panic. But what struck Vaelin the most was the absence.

No bodies. No blood.

Nothing.

Vaelin crouched near a set of footprints in the dirt, running his fingers through the disturbed soil. The tracks were erratic, uneven, as if whoever had made them had been pulled rather than ran. A chill crept down his spine.

“No bodies,” he murmured.

Elira’s boots crunched against the gravel as she knelt beside him. “No blood either.”

“They didn’t die here.”

“No.” Her voice was quiet, but resolute. “They were taken.”

Vaelin slowly stood, his fingers tightening around the hilts of his daggers. The Rift’s influence had faded, but something else lingered. Something older. The air smelled of damp earth and woodsmoke, but beneath it, there was something faint, something wrong—a scent Vaelin had encountered before.

Not death.

Not rot.

Magic.

Elira noticed it too. Her green eyes glowed faintly as she turned her gaze toward the horizon, past the ruins of the village, past the rolling hills and the shadowed tree line beyond.

Vaelin watched as her expression darkened. “You know what took them,” he said. It wasn’t a question.

She was silent for a long moment. Then, softly, she said, “Not what. Who.”

The weight of that answer settled between them. Vaelin exhaled slowly, shaking his head. “I knew you were going to say that.”

Her lips quirked into a ghost of a smirk. “You’re still here.”

“Against my better judgment.”

Elira took a step closer, tilting her head slightly. “But you’ll stay.”

Vaelin held her gaze. The wind stirred between them, carrying the distant rustling of leaves and the whisper of something unseen just beyond the trees. He could leave. He should leave.

But he wouldn’t.

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “I’ll stay.”

Neither of them spoke after that.

Because in the distance, past the ruined village, past the trees and the hills.

A new shadow stirred.

And this time, it wasn’t alone.

___________________________________________________

All Parts of this Series

• Shadow's Veil Part 1
• Shadow's Veil Part 2
• Shadow's Veil Part 3
• Shadow's Veil Part 4
• Shadow's Veil Part 5