Page 128 of Kissed By the Gods
Right.
Of course.
Simple.
With a frustrated huff, I twirl my scythe in an exaggerated twist and then slam it back down. The Veil opens for me—a place of shifting madness in a realm that doesn’t obey logic, physics, time, or mercy. I blow out a breath, clench my fists, and step through, Vaeloria close to my side.
Simpleshatters.
It breaks. It falls apart. It becomes everything.
“I am pulled toward the Veil with a hunger few understand. As the first mortal to walk its shifting paths, I owe it to myself—and to everyone who might follow—to learn all I can.
What is the Veil? That depends on when you ask. And where. And who.
A place? Sometimes. A presence? Sometimes. A feeling? A shadow? A burst of light that blinds more than it reveals? Yes.
Its nature is contradiction wrapped in mist—so much so, I sometimes wonder if it has a nature at all. Maybe it's not meant to be known.
But here's the heresy that keeps me awake: I suspect even the gods are just as lost in the Veil as we are. The Veil is the riddle that undoes minds—divine and mortal alike.”
Personal journal of the First Veilstrider, unnamed and unsigned
CHAPTER FIFTY
LEINA
I stride through the darkness,my anger pushing me forward in a way my legs can’t.
“He doesn’t understand,” I complain to Vaeloria, as I spin in a false imitation of a circle, looking for the outcropping of rocks. But they’re not here.
There’s nothing here.
“No,” she agrees. “But then, do you?”
“No,”I mutter. I look toward her and marvel again at the … shape she takes here. She’s all feathers and brightness. I’ve tried to bring in mirrors so I can see myself, but they never make it through with me.
I try again to jog Vaeloria’s memory. “Do you remember anything else about it?”
She huffs, too, just as frustrated as me. “The Veil … it’s part of me. But remembering? No. I don’t think I’m meant to.”
I run a hand along her side, a quiet comfort. “It’s alright. We’ll figure this out together.”
The Veil shifts around me, pulsing like a living thing. It doesn’tlooklike anything—not exactly. It’s light and shadow folding in on each other, breathing in silence. It shouldn’t bedisorienting by now. I’ve been training here for months. Every day. Pushing farther. Reaching deeper. Failing harder. There are colors that aren’t colors. Space that stretches and contracts. Sometimes it is endless. Sometimes it’s closing in.
I swing my scythe behind me. “Although part of me thinks we would figure it out a lot faster without the Elder giving us assignments.”
Vaeloria makes a sound that might be a chortle. “He’s quite determined to send you places, isn’t he?”
I scan the shifting dark for movement—not that eyes help here, with the shadow-creatures that slither between thought and form. “Well, if I could drop into Morendahl and snap back on command, I’m surehe’dfind that convenient.”
“Yes,” she says, turning slowly, her feathers catching glimmers of nothing. “But I don’t think the Veil is about convenience. I think it’s about existence.”
Existence.
