Page 129 of Kissed By the Gods
I draw in a breath, focus on the thrum inside—the thread that connects me to the Veil. I pull. It responds, sluggish, something rousing from sleep.
I step forward.
The Veil snaps taut and twists. It seizes, jerking me sideways like a marionette with tangled strings. I stumble, lose balance. The world around us fragments—pieces collapse in the wrong direction, light shatters into something too sharp to be light.
I’m so tired. I want to cry—not again.I want to rest like I haven’t in months, maybe even years. I want gentle hands to anchor me, soft murmurs in the dark, and my mother’s voice whispering that everything will be alright with that fierce certainty only a mother can summon.
I almost fall. But … The Veil stills.
Something soft flickers in the distance ahead. It doesn’t shift or warp or lurch. I take a step toward it. The closer I get to it,the more everything else fades away. The Veil is quieter here, softer. My fists unclench without me meaning to. My breath evens out. The ache behind my eyes dulls. That softness ripples and takes the shape of something not quite human. A silhouette? A suggestion of curved lines and warmth. It’s a presence I almost recognize though I don’t understand how or why. The sensation that washes over me is small—like a hand brushing my hair back or a hum I used to know.
Something in my chest cracks open. Then, just as softly as it came, the silhouette begins to drift. I chase after it.
“Wait!” I cry out. “Wait, please!”
“Strider!”Vaeloria chases me, too, but I don’t stop. I’m almost … almost there.
I reach out—too late. It dissolves into nothing, swallowed by the shifting folds of the Veil.
But the warmth lingers. Not in the air. Not in my skin.
I scan this new part of the Veil with something that’s not quite eyes.There. There’s another source of that soft warmth.
I reach for it, grasping with both hands.
We tumble into the cold snow, hitting the ground hard. I land on my side with a grunt, half-buried in the cold, my breath stolen by the sudden return to air and gravity. My fingers dig into the powdery white, and I gasp, blinking against the brightness. The disorientation is always the same when we leave the Veil—utterly jarring.
We’re not at the Synod.
The cold here is gentler. The snow beneath me is thick and soft, untouched, more like a blanket than the hardness of the ice on the Faraengardian cliffs. There’s no salt on the wind, no sting from the Ebonmere Sea. Just stillness. And the trees here—they’re nothing like the spindly ones near the Synod. They’re towering giants, with trunks so wide I couldn’t span them with both arms, and branches that reach for the clouds. The air isthick with the scent of sap and something like grief, as droplets bead on the branches and slip down, silent and steady.
The Weeping Forest.
I push up on my hands and knees, as Vaeloria shifts beside me with a huff, her wings half-furled and dusted with snow. Her ears twitch as she catches a sound before I do.
“Tag! You’re it!”
I snap my head around.
Leo.
He’s barreling between the trees, all arms and clumsy enthusiasm, the snowshoes on his feet flopping comically as he runs. His grin is so wide it practically splits his face in half. Behind him, an older girl with a mess of dark curls shrieks with laughter as she lunges to tag him back, but she trips on her snowshoes and collapses into a heap of giggles and flailing limbs.
I slap my hand over my mouth to cover a sob, but Leo hears it anyway. He whips his head around to us. So does the girl, who looks at me with stark terror in her pretty grey eyes until she sees Vaeloria behind me. Then she grins.
“Hello, Vaeloria!” she says, as if they’re old friends.
But even with the complete impossibility of it—of this strange child knowing Vaeloria by name, speaking to her with ease—I can’t form any questions for her.
I can’t take my eyes off Leo. He’s right there, whole and laughing and alive. He stares at me in disbelief for only a moment, and then his expression crumples.
He stumbles forward, trying to run to me, but trips over his snowshoes. “Leina!”
I lurch to my feet and close the distance between us in a sprint, catching him up in my arms and clutching him to my chest. Carefully, mindful of the strength I know how to control now.
“Leo! Oh, my gods, Leo! You’re alright!”
His little arms curl tightly around my neck. I breathe him in—earth and snow and that unmistakable smell of little boy—and press my face against his curls, heart pounding. Too soon, he starts to squirm in my arms. Still, he doesn’t let go completely. He grabs my hand and tugs me forward, grinning.
