Chapter 32 – The Third Veil

Author's POV

The passage yawned wide like the throat of something ancient and breathless—something too exhausted to scream.

And still, it suffered.

The moment Clive and the others crossed into the Third Veil, the air changed. It didn't push or resist—it invited. And it was that gentleness, that welcoming touch, that made it worse.

Because it whispered one thing, and one thing only.

"End it."

They didn't hear it at first. Not aloud.

But in their bones. In the churning pit behind their ribs. In the sweat on their brows and the ache behind their eyes. It called to them. Not as enemies.

But as friends.

This Veil—this trial of wrath—was not loud.

It was quiet. Internal. Insidious.

And it knew exactly where to cut.

Clive

Clive had been taught how to withstand torture.

He had trained in mental fortitude. He had studied illusion magic, manipulation, guilt-puppetry from wyrm priests and ash-soul mystics.

But nothing prepared him for hearing his daughter's voice say:

"You never came back."

It wasn't accusatory.

That's what shattered him.

She sounded... tired.

Resigned.

He turned, sword drawn instinctively, but there was no enemy. Only mist. And her.

Lena, standing at the edge of his vision, drenched in rain. Not fire this time. Just rain, her hands clutching a soaked toy—a wooden horse he carved for her before her third birthday.

"Mom cried for hours. Then she stopped. I thought maybe she died too."

He tried to walk forward. His boots wouldn't move.

"I kept watching the door. You promised. You promised you'd come back with candy and stories and songs. But you brought war. You brought fire."

He screamed.

The Veil didn't echo it.

It swallowed it.

Nylessa

She had always hated tears.

They made her feel like her face was breaking.

But now she wept without shame. Because she saw her clan.

All of them.

And they were smiling.

Not in joy. In forgiveness.

They stood in rows, burned and tattered, eyes white with rot but smiles wide.

And they thanked her.

"You led them here."

"You brought the humans. With your letters. Your deals."

"You did this."

She fell to her knees, her claws digging into her chest. The Veil wrapped around her like the blanket her sister used to swaddle her in—before the flames, before the betrayal.

Then she heard his voice.

Grimpel.

"We could have stopped it. But you wanted power, didn't you?"

She looked up. A thousand Grimpels stood before her. Each one grinning.

She roared, biting at the fog, tearing at it like it was flesh.

But her claws passed through it.

Like her choices.

Like her regrets.

Grimpel

He remembered the smell of black ash and spiced tea.

He used to brew it during storms.

Now he smelled it again. And that terrified him more than anything.

Because it meant he was back.

In the chamber.

Watching the ritual play out.

His real body had already died once that day. What remained was the echo of a man who believed in a lie—a lie that took everything from him.

He was floating now, no longer solid. He saw his human face again—young, hopeful, desperate.

He saw the ritual begin.

He remembered a part of him beg him not to go through with it.

"Let the curse die. Let the bloodline end. We can run."

But he didn't run.

He obeyed.

He completed the ritual, gave his soul, and lost his name.

Now the Veil gave it back.

Only to show him how empty it was.

He screamed through hollow sockets.

No one heard.

Verrin

Verrin did not kneel. Did not cry. Did not scream.

Instead, he stood perfectly still.

He watched the others break.

He let them.

Because the worst wrath wasn't loud.

It was still.

He had once held a woman in his arms while her mind tore itself apart.

His wife. His undoing.

He had watched her scream at ghosts only she could see, watched her claw her throat open because she believed there were worms in her voice.

She died believing she was a monster.

And he let her.

Because he didn't want to believe it was his fault.

Now, in the Veil, she returned.

And she didn't speak.

She just looked at him.

And he broke.

But no one saw.

Because he didn't move.

Selvara

Selvara didn't have memories like the others.

She had code.

She had commands.

She had Maedra.

But the Veil didn't care.

It dug past her constructs.

It whispered into the hollow of her spine where nerves would be. It sang lullabies in a voice that sounded like Maedra's and her own.

"You were never real."

She saw Clive cradling another woman.

She saw Grimpel dragging her like luggage.

She saw Nylessa smiling in her sleep while Selvara sat alone, back against the cold wall, blinking because she didn't understand tears.

She saw herself—not as she was.

But as Maedra made her.

A weapon.

A failsafe.

A thing.

And in that moment, Selvara understood wrath.

Not against Maedra.

Not against her makers.

But against herself, for ever believing she could be more.

She pulled the dagger from her side satchel.

It felt warm.

Not cold like it should.

She stood in the center of the group—each of them buckled, broken, weeping or still—and she smiled.

A sad, glass smile.

"I think… maybe this is the most real I've ever felt."

Clive looked up, dazed.

"Sel?"

But it was too late.

She drove the blade into her side.

And only then did the Veil scream.