Veilborn Chapter 9

Chapter 9 Shame

---

Author’s note: panic attacks, reference to self harm implied

---

If you haven’t read Veilborn, check out chapter 1

---

Chapter 9

Shame

My hand groped blindly across the matress, desperate for something to anchor me-- anything to drown the resonance clawing up my chest and throat. My fingers struck metal. Sharp. Cold. Familiar. The jagged little bauble Damien had snuck back into my possession earlier that morning.

Twelve knobs

Twelve tiny points of blessed, simple pain.

I wrapped my fist around it, pressing until I felt the threat of blood at the surface, enough to silence the thoughts. Just to quiet the ache.

But the magic within me recoiled.

My own resonance surged forward to reject the baubles bite. A thousand tiny pricks erupted in my palm. I jerked--gasping-- and the room shook.

No--

not the room.

Reality itself began to quake.

and a voice, ancient and resonant, split through me like the sky cracking open.

No.

Feel.

The words struck harder than any pain ever could,

My fingers went still.

The bauble slipped from my fingers to the floor with a hard clatter of fallen judgement.

“Veya.”

His name tore through my lungs--an exhale that refused to return, leaving me hollow and shaken.

My knees hit the floor as hot tears raced to meet them there.

My hands flew to the radiating glow beneath my belly. Warmth pulsed there--alive, insistent-and then--

“Azura?” Elijah’s voice pierced the stillness, my body jolted upright, startled from my trance. “My love are you alright?”

Hope blossomed.

I hesitated.

Then I grasped the thread in my mind that tethered me to him, and severed the link--unwilling to bear another moment of grief born from my own hands. I wasn’t ready to face him. Not yet.

A tremor blurred the edge of my vision. Instinct sent my right hand to the hidden blade strapped to my thigh.

The blade whisked from my fingertips toward a shadow perched near the doorframe. It struck steel, tumbling to the floor with a deafening clatter.

My heart fluttered for a moment before the figure stepped into the spill of window light--dark features dissolved the fragile expectancy I had clung to.

“Damien, what are you--“ Heat surged up my cheeks as my breath came in short, rasping bursts. My eyes kept slipping off of him, hunting the room for threats I could not name.

“I am sworn to protect you, My Lady,” he said with a gaze drifting over my shoulders to some place a million leagues away, tucking his sword into the hilt. “I heard noise and thought the worst.”

His eyes glanced me over, checking for signs of injury, then he bowed and stepped toward the door. “I see that you are unharmed, I’ll take my leave.”

Instinct drove me to cross my arms over my chest, but an awful sputter of protest escaped my lips-too close to pleading.

“No... Damien. you can stay.”

The words tasted like betrayal, boiling into hatred as I swallowed them..

He glanced at me, question flickering in his eyes. I buried it with a nod meant to harden into assurance.

“Of course, My Lady. I will remain as long as you need me.”

He crossed the receiving area to retrieve my overcoat from its perch on a wooden rack. He paused in front of me, holding it out in wordless offer.

My heart thudded, the sound of it chasing shadows of memory.

I swallowed and turned. He settled the coat over my shoulders, his fingers hovering just above my skin before he retreated to the seating area near the door. I took the velvet couch opposite him, the gilded tea table a polite distance between us.

He sat with an air of stillness, as though the quiet of early morning were enough for him, and conversation were unnecesary. It was an easy silence. One that brought the comfort of presence wwithout the weight of expectation.

A comfort I wanted from someone else.

The man I could no longer expect to hold me in his regard.

A stolen moment. A single breath of stillness, surely he could forgive. But this… It would ask too much of a King already asked to surrender more than any man should. He who bore the Lunari prophecy like a crown of light, while his own Intended unraveled into a creature he could not save.

He carried too much. How could I ask him to marry a soiled rat, and take in the orbling, the aftermath of a sinister plot?

It wasn’t a warning,

It was an explanation.

I couldn’t bring myself to be the reason he fell.

A strangled sob tore out before I could stop it, and suddenly I no longer cared what Damien thought of me. Thie emotional wave had not yet crested--it had claimed its own will. I folded forward, pressing a hand to the velvet seat, letting myself break, because there was no strength left to pretend otherwise.

---

Soft grey light crept through the windows, thin and uninvited, carrying the chill of early morning air with it. The events of the night felt distant, unreal, until shock surged through me as Damien’s slumped figure hauled from his chair, his First Blade’s raiments crushed by a careless slumber.

Felryn entered mid-announcement, Elijah’s name already on her tongue.

She stopped short.

Her eyes flicked from Damien to me, lips twitched upward before she caught herself. Elijah followed a breath later. My throat tightened as his eyes swept the room--fury first, sharp and immediate, then betrayal. I found the golden flecks in the veilstone floor to be far gentler than his.

A giggle fractured the silence, too warm and alive for the cold air clinging to the chamber.

“You two really need to coordinate who gets to protect her at night.”

Elijah’s hand rose.

“Enough.” His voice cut cleanly through her amusement. Her voice trailed off, head dipped low.

“Lady Felryn this isn’t the time or place. Wait in the hall with the rest of the Guard.” She nodded once, and slipped toward the door, muttering under breath.

The door had barely closed before Elijah’s attention slipped to Damien. The careful mask of kingship fell in an instant.

I laced my fingers together, shifting on the sofa.

Elijah stood there, wordessly. Damien’s’ eyes flitted to the door then returned to the king.

“It won’t happen again, sire.” He bowed, lower than customary.

“See to it that it doesn’t.” Elijah inclined his head to the door.

Damien obeyed at once, retreating without protest. Brannic followed, offering a single nod as he passed, leaving the door ajar behind them.

Elijah turned to me then, expression unreadable, but softer. He crossed the room and took the seat Damien had vacated. Indigo royal raiments clashed against the meager setting, a king occupying borrowed ground.

I burned beneath his gaze as he settled.

I tugged my overcoat tighter, my eyes returning to the stone beneath my feet as the weight of his own fell over me--slow, inescapable, like heat building just beneath the skin.

I waited for him to speak.

No words came.

The silence smoldered, singeing the air between us, leaving me lightheaded and sharp with it.

I wanted to throw something.

“Have you come to see me off to the northern mages?” I looked up and immediately regretted it.

Pain flickered across his face--ache, longing, a grief he refused to give voice to--as though any answer I gave would only feed the fire threatening to consume us.

“That was my intention.” He leaned forward. His eyes did not leave mine.

The expectation in his gaze sparked sparked something volatile in me.

“Some men hide behind whispered hallows,” I hardened my stare, “others move. You whisper through the Veil, Elijah, but your mouth never moves.”

The air tightened.

For a moment, I thought he might leave.

Instead he rose.

Slowly. Deliberately.

His eyes bored into mine with a look of burning, like his world was on fire and I alone stood between it and ruin. His fingers came up to the crown-- gem encrusted, heavy with meaning. The symbol that declared him other.

He placed it on the glass table beside us. The soft clink was devastating.

I was on my feet before I realized I had moved--breath trapped behind my ribs like smoke with no where to go.

He stepped toward me once.

Then again.

Each step measured, restrained. As though he were willingly walking into the fire and daring me to stop him.

I glanced to the crown, then back to him. The force of his gaze commanding me to remain.

He stopped short of our chests meeting and raised his hand to my cheek.

Heat surged through my chest, fierce and blinding, and with it came the truth I had been fighting since the prophecy settled its teeth into my soul.

There was nothing he would withhold from me,

not his crown.

Not his kingdom.

Not his life.

The fire demanded it.

I remained still.

If I leaned in, if I let him choose me, I would be the one to light the match.

His breath hitched. After a breath that felt like surrender hardening into resolve, He tore his hand away and moved toward the door.

The diadem still burned on the glass between us.

Its facets caught the light, throwing my reflection back at me--shattered, incandescent, already marked by what I was refusing to let him become.

The heat between us collapsed into ash as the space widened, the promise of flame replaced by the certainty of ruin.

My heart shattered, the force of it pulled me toward his retreating form--a specter aching for the breath it once remembered.

“Elijah!” The word came out strangled.

He paused, refusing to turn.

“Elijah-” breath rasped where breath should have been, his form blurred behind tears I no longer commanded.

Then he turned-

and I surged forward like a woman already on fire.

My fists caught up in his copper locks, twisting and pulling his face toward mine before fear could reclaim me. His breath hitcheded as my mouth claimed him, reckless and unbidden. I devoured his lips like a flame intent on consuming him whole.

A hunger I had been born with--buried and unnamed--rose and demanded its due. And I took it, just this once. Because it was all I would ever allow myself.

“Azura.” His voice broke open, radiant, victorious, as though the Veil itself peeled back to smile upon him. He said my name again and I neaarly lost myself to the sound.

But he pulled back.

Too soon.

Joy blazed across his features, oblivious to the way my unfinished longing still hung between us like unanswered hallow.

Before I could gather myself, the door flew open.

The moment broke.

I gasped, hands flying instinctively to my stomach as Elijah and I stepped apart in unison. His head snapped up at once.

“Azura, My Lady, your chariot awa--”

Felryn danced into the room, indigo fabric draped over her arm like a prize. She stopped short.

Her eyes flicked down.

Narrowed.

I jerked my hands away as though burned. “Don’t look at me like that.” I snapped, turning sharply toward the dressing screen.

The indigo robes in her grasp felt loud and accusatory. A color that did not belong to me, screaming a truth I was trying to outrun.

Damien and Brannic entered the room behind her their presence tightening the air, compressing it until it thinned to a single thread stretched between Elijah and me. I felt Damien’s gaze lock on mine, but I refused it. I turned back to Elijah.

“You’ll be back in my arms before you can remember what it is to miss me.” He said softly.

He placed a chaste kiss on my nose as though sealing a vow neither of us dared speak aloud.

“You’ll have my crest to bear in the meantime. When you return we’ll make it official.”

Damien’s eyes flicked, just once, to the crown still resting on the table.

Then to me.

Heat climbed my cheeks, sharp and humiliating. As if I had been caught in something far more intimate than the fragile moment we had shared.

Brannic moved without comment. His gaze tracked Damien’s, then shifted to the diadem. He retrieved it and placed it upon Elijah’s head with a practiced reverence—restoring the balance of the room.

“Ahem.”

Damien cleared his throat.

“Majesty, my King, indigo marks her as house of Clover.” His tone was measured, respectful. Too careful. “She should blend in, not stand out. It would be far safer wearing the girl’s rags.”

He gestured to Felryn.

Her mouth fell open with an audible pop.

My face burned.

Elijah’s jaw tightened, eyes flicked to Damien, the golden glimmer within them unreadable behind the mask of a king.

Felryn’s head whipped back and forth between the three of us, before landing-deliberately-on my stomach once more.

“I’m sure her hair won’t be an issue.” She said flatly.

“She wears indigo.” Elijah’s voice cut cleanly through the moment.

He turned back to me, a quiet fire raging behind the finality in his eyes,

Damien’s fist clenched once before he bowed, nodding wordlessly. He exited with Brannic, the door closing behind them.

My chest heaved. I fought the urge to press my hands to my stomach again—to quiet the small, questioning pull beneath my ribs.

“Let’s fix that mess of a mop on your head, Azura.”

I snapped my gaze back to Felryn.

Her smile was too sharp to be kind.

I stepped behind the dressing screen, glancing between the indigo rainmemt and Felryns chamber-dress. She followed.

“He had a point, you know.” Resignation flooded through me. I clutched the robes, pulling them over hair as white as specters, then nodded to her dress.

“Fetch me another of yours. Place it with my things, discreetly.”

Her left eye brown perked up.

“Bold choice after… whatever that was. Should I congratulate you or console the king?”

“Mind yourself, Felryn.” My eyes narrowed. “It seems my choices carry a great deal of weight around here.

Then colder: “Send Damien. I’m ready to leave.”

She dipped her head, just barely, and turned for the door. Damien entered again and she wagged her eye brows suggestively before the door shut behind her

I scowled, pretending to grab belongings near my bedside as my hand brushed against the jagged bauble on the floor.

I hesitated, then swept it into my palm and rushedtoward the door, uncertain whether I could bring myself to leave if I remained a moment longer.

“Indigo suits you, my lady.” His gaze swept me, lighting my cheeks on fire.

And the tension thread snapped.

I pivoted, sweeping my ankle behind his knee, elbow driving into his gut, blade to his throat as his head cracked against the stone wall. My eyes narrowed.

“You undermine my king again, I won’t hesitate to cut you down and never think twice about it.” He didn’t resist, didn’t protest the obvious disparity in weight or strength.

He nodded, dark grey orbs compliant, but watchful.

I tucked the blade in its sheath in the slit of my cape, then clasped the bauble.

“Oh and this is yours.”

I held it out and dropped it in his hand and brushed past him out the chamber door to a fate I never wanted, but could never turn back from

I stormed through the halls clutching fury like my life depended on it. If I let go, the dam would burst and I would drown in a flood that carried me away from the life I had only just begun to taste.

I couldn’t bring myself to think on it, I let the rage drive my steps toward the chariot just outside Castle Kevar’s main entrance.

There was no pomp awaiting the would-be-rat queen.

No king to send me off.

Only his First Blade standing in his stead.

Brannic bowed slightly. “Your Grace, the king has been called to a council meeting . He has asked that I give you this.” He held out an envelope with Elijah’s signet seal.

My hand shook as I reached for it, certain his words would punish me to the end of my days.

“A letter?” I asked through the Veil, “Are you concerned we cannot mindspeak when I am in the north?”

There was no answer, only the familiar, aching quiet where his presence had been.

I slipped into the carriage, Damien sat across from me, posture composed, hands clasped before him.. The air felt tight, and somehow he appeared completely at ease, studying me like a puzzle he had not yet decided how to solve.

I clutched the letter, unwilling to read something meant only for me in front of the man who haad seen me unravel more than once since the evening of the Crossfall.

The carriage lurched forward.

Wind tore through the open slats, pulling the castle away from us-stone giving way to green, towers shrinking to memory. I forced myself to breathe as the valley unfolded beyond the gates of Kevar.

The rising Orb cast violet-white light, tracking our progress as though it watched us leave. I felt it tally the number of times his silent gaze flitted back to me. Measured, but deliberate..

Fog rolled across the valley, leaving an icey chill in its wake. I parted the curtains wider, searching the landscape for something familiar.

Charred dust scarred the path where the Felveil army had marched-Malekhar at the front, my mother beside him. Death laid bare against green grass and morning light.

Would she would have felt any differently if tshe knew she was to be a granna? Would the knowedge of her own flesh and blood at risk stay her hand, or sharpen it.

The thoughts turned over in my mind until the sound of resonance filled my ears. It filled me with a calm I had never known before. Not relief. Not peace.

Certainty.

I felt Damien’s attention shift. When I looked up, his gaze had settled on my hands-resting unconsciously on my stomach.

I didn’t move. What good would it do? Nothing escaped his perceptive eyes. It brought a wave of reluctant acceptance. He was a man of duty before all, of that much I knew I could trust. It mattered very little beyond this diplomatic journey.

Fitful sleep found me in fragments, hovering between dream and waking. A dream where I tasted honey on my tongue between whispered sighs, then bones beneath my feet, a valley paved in white.

The carriage jolted to a sudden halt.

I pitched forward with a sharp gasp

Strong hands caught my shoulders, steadying me before panic could take hold. Damien guided me back to my seat, grip firm, anchoring.

“Breathe, my lady. Breathe” his voice cut through the noise-low, commanding. “Inhale.”

I did.

“Again.”

Inhale.

“Exhale.”

The storm receded in reluctant waves. My pulse slowed. The edges of my vision steadied.

“You’re safe, Lady Azura.”

My eyes snapped to his at the mention of my given name. He didn’t retreat, didn’t soften his hold.

“That’s all I’ve ever wanted.” He said quietly. “I serve you first, not the king.”

I searched his expression for meaning beyond the words. I found nothing false.

Still. Echoes lingered. Fear braided itself through the calm whenever he was near. The same fear I felt with Elijah-only there it was drowned beneath other things.

I said nothing. Silence was safer.

I shrugged gently, slipping free of his hands.

I removed the indigo cloak from my shoulders, and reached into the pouch beside me to reveal the clothing Felryn had packed. He nodded once, and removed himself from the carriage. I changed, quickly, absorbing the voices from the Royal Guard filtering through the door.

Emerging from the carriage was like stepping across a Bridge to another world, another time and place.

The journey had lead us to the edge of Kevar, and beyond, into the Cloverfields, where white light blended to violet and blue and the fields danced with a an unmoving breeze. The hills rolled and moved in the pattern of a beating heart.

It seemed even fate would not allow me to escape from the memory of him so easily.

The company of Royal Guards Elijah had sent with us gathered by the fire. They ate, traded war stories and reflected on the thickness of the atmosphere. No one spoke it aloud, but the fear of an army of blood mage encroaching upon Kavareth’s gates had settled over the men. It settled over the company like a heavy mist, laced with the chill of night.

They fell asleep in clusters, taking shifts as watchmen, but Damien sat at the edge of camp, a sentinel as his eternal post.

I took to my tent and let the cool of night settle around me. Sleep kept its distance, memory did not.

Memories of him stayed with me, a king willing to give everything, and a love I wasn’t certain I could protect

The swirling surface, a quiet storm of light and shadow—a gentle reminder that Veya’s watchfulness was never still or silent.

The orb of Orevethos clung to the noctorbs shadow, its own kind of prophecy of the judgement of Kavareth.

Damien appeared from the fringes, his watchful gaze always fixed where I was. The echo of his hands on my shoulders burned my skin, tainting the memory of Elijah’s form pressed against mine.

My fingertips brushed my lips, recalling the desperate ways they formed around Elijah’s, convincing me with every breath that all of who I was would only ever belong to him. Every last broken piece.

Damien’s gaze shifted across camp, surveying who watched and those who slept, like a predator in the night. One who preyed on silent moments and vulnerability like it was currency

He settled on a rock nearby, too far from the fire to receive any of its comforting warmth, “Couldn’t sleep?” He asked once he had finished his mental inventory of the Guards.

I didn’t move. An unending stream of thought and regret would not allow rest to claim me. And he lingered there in the quiet space between morning and night, a solid rock forged from unknown origins.

“The orbs collide and ours trembles…” I whispered, directing my attention to the sky. “I wonder if they feel it coming before we do.” He didn’t look up. He turned his attention to me, and something about his gaze made me squirm. I fought the instinct to cover my stomach.

“I don’t know anything about the cosmos, the orbs, what destiny they follow, none of that. But I do know this: I’ve watched you endure more than any woman should survive. And every time the world tried to break you… you rose.”

I swallowed. Hard.

“That’s not divinity, Azura. That’s you…” the words trailed off softly, like they hadn’t been spoken aloud, but the Veil had revealed his thoughts to me beneath an array of cosmic of orbs.

I shifted my position on the rock, turning my gaze to the fire before me. Silence passed between us like a moment waiting for permission.

Fire crackled against the backdrop of fields that stretched on without witness.

Sweet resonance rambled low beneath my fingertips, I pulled my arms away and sat up, exhaling a sharp breath laced with worry.

“I won’t pretend nothing has changed.” I said, turning to face him.

Dark grey pools searched me. Then he nearly whispered, “Sometimes that kind of changes means something new is trying to grow.”

I turned back to the fire, willing my hands to remain at my sides. The crackle of fire pressed in, no longer waiting, only watching.

“You don’t have to say anything. Some things are safer when they’re left untouched.” He stood, turning his gaze across camp in that trained way of his. I kept my eyes fixed on the fire, the flames full of what neither of us would tell.

“There are things set in motion that cannot be undone.”

“Then we don’t undo it—we figure out where it belongs.” I turned sharply, the fire light no longer enough to soften him.

“I meant protecting you from the consequences others would impose,” his hands raised, palms facing outward, “there are places in the north where difficult beginnings don’t have to become public burdens.”

My gaze returned to the fire as it shifted, settling into something hotter, steadier—no longer wild but no less capable of burning.

“I’ve never been one to choose the path with fewer repercussions.”

Damien’s head nodded once, from the corner of my vision. He stayed silent, and I made no further effort to speak.

The silence between us stretched on between valleys, carving a distance that could not be numbered. A distance I was certain was safe to cross, but not tonight.

I rose from the rock, brushing dust from my maidens skirts before returning to my tent.

Sleep did not come easily. I wavered between waking and sleeping worlds that never felt complete, and somehow inevitable.

---

Updates about the journey to self publishing coming soon. Thank you for reading and supporting this story!