A Thorn Beneath the Veil

The corridors of Ravenhold felt colder now.

Mira moved through them like a shadow—silent, swift, and carrying too many regrets to count. Torches guttered on the walls, their flames shrinking from her presence as if they too felt the weight of what had broken between them.

She tried not to think of the kiss.

Tried not to picture Seraphina's wind-tossed hair and those damnably haunted eyes as she stood on the battlements with a storm licking at her heels. Mira had seen many queens rise and fall in this keep. But none had ever carried ruin as gracefully as Seraphina did now.

And it terrified her.

The mark on Mira's chest still ached. A phantom pain that pulsed whenever Seraphina was near… or when she was thinking too hard about her. Which, lately, was always.

She reached the war room and slipped inside, careful not to draw attention. A handful of advisors muttered over maps inked with battle lines and bleeding borders. But it was the whispered name that stopped her cold.

"Valen."

The name slid from a younger soldier's lips like poison. "He's moved east. Toward the Ashen Reach. But not alone."

Mira narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean not alone?"

The soldier startled at her voice. "Lady Mira—I thought you—"

"Who's with him?" she demanded, stepping forward.

"Someone called Elarion," the man said. "A spy. He vanished years ago after the Siege of Wintermere. Everyone thought he died. But now… he's resurfaced. Traveling under Valen's banner."

Mira's stomach coiled. Elarion was no minor player—he was Ravenhold's ghost, once a trusted informant… until he betrayed them to the Shadow Court.

And now he was alive. Traveling with Valen.

The room tilted.

Mira turned and strode out before anyone could stop her, heart racing as a thousand terrible possibilities clawed through her mind. If Valen had found Elarion, and Seraphina had kissed him—trusted him—then everything could be compromised. Seraphina herself might be…

No.

She wouldn't let that happen.

But a new question pressed against her skull like a blade.

Had Seraphina told Valen everything?

And if so… had Valen told Elarion?

---

The hall narrowed as Mira descended toward the lower keep, boots pounding over worn stone. She passed a flickering sconce and slowed, her fingers brushing against the hilt of her dagger.

Something was wrong.

The guards stationed at the north stairwell were missing.

She stepped lightly now, ears straining against the silence. In the distance, she heard it—the unmistakable scrape of a door closing. Then hurried footsteps, someone moving fast, and trying not to be heard.

She followed the sound through a side passage. Rounded a corner.

And saw him.

Torian—one of Seraphina's scribes—clutching a scroll to his chest and slipping out a hidden panel behind the chapel.

Mira's voice sliced the air like a whip. "Torian."

He froze. Turned, eyes wide, breath shallow.

"Where are you taking that?" she asked.

"I—I was told to deliver this—"

"To whom?"

Silence.

Mira's blade was in her hand before she'd fully processed it. "Don't lie to me. You've been leaking information, haven't you? How long, Torian?"

He swallowed. "Since she took the crown. The Ashen Court offered gold. I didn't think it would matter—she wasn't supposed to survive the rite—"

Mira moved faster than thought.

A blow to the temple. He dropped.

She kicked the scroll from his hand and tore it open. A map of Ravenhold. Marked with Seraphina's chambers. Her path through the tower. Her routines. Her weaknesses.

Gods.

Mira stood frozen for a beat, the wind outside the corridor wailing like a thing in mourning.

Then she ran.

---

Seraphina stood barefoot in her chambers, staring into the fire.

The hearth had burned low, casting long shadows along the stone floor. Her fingers trembled where they hovered above the flame, close enough to feel the heat but not enough to burn. Not this time.

She didn't flinch when the door slammed open.

"Mira?" she said, startled.

Mira stood in the doorway, eyes wild, scroll in one hand and blood on the other. "He knows, Sera. They all know. There's been a leak."

Seraphina didn't blink. "Who?"

"Torian. One of your scribes. He was feeding routes and maps to someone in the Ashen Court." She stepped forward and thrust the scroll at her. "This had your name all over it."

Seraphina took it and scanned the inked lines, her pulse steady.

Too steady.

Mira studied her. "You're not surprised."

"No," Seraphina said. "I felt it the moment I woke up. A tremor in the Veil. Someone watching from too far to see, but close enough to bleed through the weave. I just didn't know who."

Mira's voice cracked. "And you didn't tell me?"

"You've seen what I've become," Seraphina said, eyes darkening. "You already flinch when I walk past. Would you have listened?"

Mira took another step. "You kissed him."

"I did."

"And now your shadow walks beside a traitor. What else did he show you, Seraphina?"

Silence.

And then—

"A memory," Seraphina said, her voice like glass. "Not his. Mine. From before I was born."

She turned away from the fire and crossed to her mirror—the cursed one. The one no longer shattered.

"I saw my mother standing on the obsidian steps of the Veil Temple, wrapped in blood-red silk. She was speaking to a figure cloaked in silver smoke. She said: 'If the line must burn, let it burn with fire I birthed.'"

Mira's eyes widened. "Your mother offered you."

"She made me the answer to a riddle no one was brave enough to ask." Seraphina's fingers touched the mirror's frame. "But she also gave me something else."

She reached beneath her tunic and drew out a silver disc, etched with runes older than the kingdom itself.

"A seal," she whispered. "A key. Something only I could use."

"And you're just now remembering this?" Mira asked, voice shaking.

"No," Seraphina said. "I remembered it the moment Valen kissed me."

---

Outside the chamber, a wind picked up, stronger now, rattling the shutters. The storm that had hovered on the horizon all morning finally began to breach Ravenhold's borders.

And Seraphina's veins began to glow faintly—lines of light pulsing beneath her skin like a map waking from slumber.

She closed her eyes.

And in that space—between silence and breath—she felt another presence. Not Valen. Not Mira.

Someone older. Hungrier.

A message etched into the wind itself.

Elarion sends his greetings, little Queen. He remembers the last time you bled. He remembers what you are.

Seraphina opened her eyes.

The fire behind her roared, and every candle in the room flickered violently.

"We need to move," she said to Mira. "Now."

"Where?"

"To the old sanctuary. The warded one below the temple."

Mira hesitated. "You swore never to open it."

"I swore to protect this kingdom," Seraphina snapped. "Even if I have to become the monster they fear to do it."

Mira swallowed hard. Then nodded.

"I'll get the guard."

Seraphina turned back to the mirror once more.

And this time, when she looked into it, she didn't see her own reflection.

She saw a field of fire. And a silver-eyed man standing at its edge, smiling.

Valen?

No.

Elarion.

And he was already inside the walls.

---