Veilborn Chapter 1

Chapter 1 The Crossfall Masque

I watched them circle him like wolves- donned in their finest silks and satins, poised for the kill at any sign of interest from the prince.

Their faces were half hidden behind masks of lace and bone, with gold leafed edges curling like leaves on fire. Glitter from crushed orbstone dusted cheeks and foreheads to mimic youth. In truth it lent many of these females a look of death—too pale against shades of lavender and aster skin.

It was fitting, given that most of them had no idea they were going to die soon.

No prophecy named me, no blessing was spoken over my birth. I was never supposed to touch magic, or marry a prince, let alone upend an entire kingdom. I was just a girl with knowledge of an attempt on the King’s life, and a penchant for the dramatic. I was clueless to the term: repercussion.

In an effort to remain true to that character, beneath the light of the orbs encroaching upon the Crossfall and the eyes of false gods and traitors, I stepped toward the Kings Rise. If I succeeded in saving the King’s life, perhaps he would return the favor by making my execution swift.

A majestic display of marble and orbstone, the King’s Rise unfurled like a ribbon of carved ivory. White stone steps flowing from the center of a domed balcony rotunda overlooked an ethereal ballroom below.

I crossed the threshold meant for Solareth kings alone, my every step a trespass against the worship reserved for them.

Order. Propriety. Ranking.

None of that mattered, not when urgency burned in my veins. The kings death had been written, his advisor sought to ink it in blood. I needed to find the Prince, my only hope that someone might believe me.

I took a deep breath, flattened sweating palms against the deep red satin of my gown and glided along the top of the Rise.

Don’t. Fexen. Trip.

And then.

A wave of hush blanketed the mouths of High Strata, below, like the orb itself had gone silent in anticipation of my judgement.

Masks of every cut and cruelty snapped toward the stairwell, drawn to the white haired curse descending. Gasps of dismay and shock rocked through the silence.

“Soilborn rat.”

“Low strata wretch!”

“Even her steps profane the stone.”

Every word coiled in my ribs, but I breathed them out before they could become something foul.

Beneath their masks, it was easy to see that they looked at me the way one might regard the leavings of a sick mule—offended, but too dignified to look away.

Halfway down the steps, my breath caught, cheeks flushed deep aster as his golden embers locked with my ocean blues. Time and distance had proven impossible to cure it, my existence seemed to orbit that golden glimmer like prophecy when he’s near.

He was grinning from ear to ear with his hand held in the two finger signal to the Royal Guard—stand down. He too, wore no mask, a silent protest King Fornith seemed to overlook.

The orblight from above kissed the contours of his face, tracing constellations that glimmered faintly beneath his skin. It caught the lavender warmth in his cheeks, deepening to mauve—the flush of too many dances and unwanted attention.

He stood a hands length taller than I, copper curls tumbling over waves that framed discerning eyes. They watched me with quiet curiosity. Beneath the silken weave of royal regalia were broad shoulders and a proud, unshaken posture. Even without a royal title, he was truly something to behold.

I reached the bottom of the steps and settled into a deep curtsy: “My Prince Elijah, will you dance with me?” The words rose from my throat like heresy in a cathedral.

Gasps rippled through the strata once more, faces blanched at my disregard for centuries of decorum. Four hundred and twelve cycles of tradition—shattered in a single breath.

Elijah chuckled, amused by my performance. He immediately swept me in his arms, leading us through the steps of a familiar parry.

He led me expertly through the crowd and I observed for the first time, the magnificence that was this hallowed pearl of a ballroom. White stone walls rose in quiet arcs, leaving the impression that this space had been smoothed by centuries of wind rather than hand. Every surface gleamed, washed in a soft and pale luminescence that seemed to glow from the stone itself.

“My lady, Azura. I am thrilled you have found your way to me this evening.” He winked, bending to kiss my hand as we twirled. My cheeks flushed aster as his lips burned my flesh with a cruel longing.

“ My invitation was lost,” I said dryly. “I had no choice but to take it up with the parties responsible.”

“By all means,” his grin curved wickedly, “ punish me properly. File your complaint, Azura, I promise I’m a very attentive offender.” A glimmer edged his gaze, something warm and entirely unprincely.

“My prince, my most trusted” I squeezed his hand, “companion. Consider this your punishment-I’m not here to free you from betrothal trappings. I’m here because there is danger. ”

“Veya help me, the danger is what I’ll do if you call me ‘companion’ once more.” He murmured, dropping the hand at my waist, spinning me beneath his arm. “As ravishing as you look tonight, you tempt even saints to err.” Heat climbed my cheeks, and his grin widened in quiet triumph.

“Tempt you? Forgive me, dearest Prince. You must know my mother is—”

“I will forgive you if call me your devoted, instead.” He spun me into a dip, my breath didn’t follow.

“I’d sooner pray for thunder.”

His laughter rambled low, warm enough to weaken something vital beneath my ribs. “Here I mistook you for the lightning that struck me first.” He tugged me against his chest with a certainty that made my breath falter. “You are simply divine in wine. It is enough to make a man forswear duty and claim you for his Intended.”

I vowed to wear this dress to my dying breath.

“Careful,” I said, arching a brow. “Lest divinity forget you back.” He winked, and tightened his grip around me.

Golden eyes peered down, daring me to push back. I resisted, just this once.

Hadn’t we agreed, after all, that ours was an impossible kind of love? An agreement echoed in the halls of ancient prophecy. But prophecy did not bade me to indulge the ache this night was sure to leave in the hollow of my chest.

Over Elijah’s shoulder, swift movement caught my attention—I stiffened in anticipation, searching for eyes that mirrored my own.

Bile threatened to heave from my stomach as I tracked her steady stride from the Stratarch staircase toward King Fornith, tucked into a shadowed corner beside the Rise. Her black hair and blue eyes a striking contrast against the evergreen silk gown.

She entered his company without question, a trusted advisor to the king. After all, how could the King’s right hand be guilty of absence at an event such as this? Especially when her presence painted a portrait of innocence.

Her arrival meant one thing: her plan had yet to be enacted.

“Azura, what is it?” His low voice a balm to my rising distress. My mind raced, weighing possible scenarios. This regal room, filled with wined down witnesses, none of it should invite the kind of darkness she follows.

“This is too public.” I muttered, and Elijah nodded once before ordering a change in song. With one glance to the orchestra, the music shifted. He began leading me through the steps to a quicker paced intro, lacing tension through the air in anticipation of a snap.

My eyes locked on the king as Elijah turned us around veilstone etchings and scattered rumor. He sensed my gaze, locking on with a stern look of warning. I knew I had monopolized more of his son’s attention than his temper would forgive.

Fret not, King Fornith. I won’t steal away with your son’s heart this evening—I am far too occupied trying to keep a blade from finding yours.

My eyes slid to Samara. She laughed too loudly with the clans of Virethan and High Caldrith, her own poisonous gaze locked on the unsuspecting king knocking back yet another drink.

What did he have to fear, after all? The royal guard surrounded him like a sphere, keeping him sealed from the rest of the continent. A reminder he savored: I am other, only one is Solareth. I am above, all else are below.

Elijah bent close, his breath brushing my ear. ”She’s going to kill him, under the Crossfall?”

I nodded, unable to trust my voice. His hand found the small of my back, steadying me as the room tilted with the weight of the truth.

“We need a distraction.” I whispered. “He is not safe here in the open.”

My gaze flicked to my mother, alarm building within as she stationed herself on the outskirts of King Fornith’s fanfare. A vulture waiting its cue.

She caught my eyes with a look of approval, unaware I knew her endgame.. I could almost hear voice threading through my mind.

“Yes. Dance with the Prince. Let them look at you. The ruby jewel of the Crossfall.”

Let her believe. Let her savor the illusion that I acted for foreign suitors, playing into her own need of distraction. Any remnants of the once doting mother I once imagined had been burned out of me.

The room brightened before pulsing with wavering light. The Crossfall was close.

“Everyone here is at risk.” Elijah’s voice dropped, calculated and calm as he scanned the shifting circle of glances and gossip. He looked toward the glass dome above, then back to me, holding my eyes hostage. “How fortunate, then, that I have brought a rather sizable distraction. Perfect timing, don’t you think? Father will be proud.”

He winked as he drew me closer still. Something subtle shifted in him, something he didn’t need to name. I felt it at once in the quiet charge between us, lightning deciding whether to strike.

My eyes tore from his gaze, uncertain, for once, what to say. Only then did I realize how he had guided me through the last steps, carving space through onlookers until the entire dance floor belonged to us alone.

“Elijah.” I rose on my toes, lips near his ear. “My mother will bleed the king dry while you distract yourself with confessions. This is not the moment.” I slipped into Veilish, the language of the Light.

His body tightened beneath my hands, but he didn’t falter.

“Elijah, warn your father.” I glanced up toward the dome, pulse rising. “The danger tonight runs deeper than you see.”

I caught his gaze. “She’s betrothed me to a Virelen cohort. Her influence is spreading.. The First blood council, outer clans, all of it.” A flash of anger lit his eyes like embers.

“The kingdom is stitched by a thread. If you tear it now—it may never mend.”

The grin that split his lips could have brought peace to the dust orb. “Then let it tear. Azura.” He laced one hand with mine, the other remained firmly at my waist. “My love. Trouble is what we do. Let us remake this nation. Together. Awaken the liturgy and reclaim what belongs to Veya.”

My eyes darted across blurred faces. Did anyone hear their prince invoking dead religion—words that could have him killed?

“Is the Orb heating your brain?” I hissed, “or are you actually proposing we defy your father, the King and my mother, the priestess of darkness?” Yet even as I mocked him, my heart thrummed with the resonance of sweet, impossible opposition.

I saw it then—what he meant to do.

And what it would cost us.

Samara would learn, far too late, that whatever she had carved into me had not held. And the power she feared most did not need an Echohold to breathe.

We only had to survive long enough for the Crossfall to crest.

“We’re going to die, Elijah.”

He froze midstep, pulling me still with him, eyes alight

“Does that mean your answer is yes?” Golden embers dared me to defy the beating of my heart, as though it wasn’t his to command.

Evergreen velvet caught my eye, Samara’s own gaze locked on another across the room. She stepped toward the king with a curt nod.

Out of time.

I dipped my head once, shoving down every fear and certainty that my own death was soon to follow, he grinned once more. “It would seem as though Veya, Himself, has created this profound opportunity for us.” With a gesture to the conductor, silence blanketed the room. Each of Kavareths finest Strata looked on as their prince strode to the center of the hollowed pearl, hand in hand with the daughter of an Archseer mage beneath the light of the nearly crested Crossfall.

The first notes of a forgotten liturgy rose from the strings of a violin—quiet, reverent, dangerous.

We were either moments from being named Intended… or charged with treason. I wasn’t certain which thought made my heart race faster.

In swift answer to the rhetorical questions plaguing my mind, King Fornith moved to disrupt our progress. With an angry bellow, he commanded the dance to halt.

Elijah tucked me behind him as a warm glow of essence appeared in the palms of his hands. I clutched at his forearm, squeezing it tightly in warning. Not here. Not now.

The glow faded and he raised both hands as a caution while the royal guard moved toward our mark in the center of the room.

“Father. Let us discuss this—“

“We will do no such thing!” King Fornith’s face flushed a deeper shade of lavender. “Arrest that soilborn rat and send her to the Depths!” He turned just slightly, pointer finger aiming for my jugular.

A sound like thunder cracking bone split through the ballroom, freezing guards and King Fornith in their place. Elijah turned his head upward at the glass dome as the murmurs in the ballroom fell into silent reverence. My breath caught, then held within my chest as I turned my face toward the light and ember descending before us. Golden mist fell in ribbons of glory toward Elijah and I before splitting at a single point just above our heads. The light encircled us in a swirling dome of essence before shooting skyward in continuous beams, stretching toward the crossing of the Orb and Noctorb above.

I released the breath I had been holding, basking in the sphere of light that protected us from the coming onslaught as the celestial Crossfall began.

From the east came the Orb, radiant and unyielding. Its golden hued light cutting across the sky like the blade of a divine sword. From the south, the noctorb rose swift and silver, softer in hue but no less commanding. A collective gasp reverberated at the moment between blaze and breath, where the daylight kissed the edge of night.

Forever set in opposing paths, the Orb and noctorb moved toward a meeting point, crossing bodies in the ancient mark of Veya: a perfect blinding cross point suspended in the firmament.

The Crossfall.

Light fractured at the center, dimmed, then transformed. Golden ember bled to violet, charging the air with an unseen current that laced through every breath. The very essence of Veya became palpable in that moment. It felt tangible. More than life or air.

In the presence of Someone so other, and true, I felt a blasphemy for remaining transfixed on the cosmos. I did not deserve to look upon such beauty with unshielded eyes and upright posture, none of us did. How could the others in this room not feel this immense pull and longing? I am but dust before the mighty Light of Veya, and the dust of this soil is where I belong.

Elijah turned his gaze back to me beneath the shielded daylight, his eyes glazed in reverence and awe. He could feel it too, of that I was certain. He swirled his wrist, motioning to the orchestra to resume playing, as though the ambiance of a divine dance was missing a key element.

The Veilish Dance of Intended filled the room, once more, filling the atmosphere with a chorus of sound like pure worship.

Elijah spun me around once with a dip low to the ground before tugging me back into his arms. One arm circled my waist. The other pressed our palms together while my back arched into the strength of him. I felt his breath tickle my forehead as my lips nearly brushed the hollow of his throat.

And just like that, I forgot the orbs existed.

My mind forgot how to function. My knees forgot their role entirely. My pulse scattered like startled birds.

He was close—too close. Closer than propriety allowed, and more than my pride could survive. Worse still, he wasn’t speaking. He was just looking at me, like I was something sacred in the light of divinity above us.

“I knew, when I first heard this song that I would one day play it again for you.” He took a deep breath seemingly to calm nerves while I stood beneath his gaze, positively dumbstruck by the feel of his hand in mine and the grip at the small of my back threatening to rewrite memory.

He cleared his throat and began again. “I knew I would play it for you, when I thought you might be ready to accept me as your Intended.”

“Elijah, this is madness…” My voice barely came out a whisper.

“If I am mad, I do not wish to be remedied. Dance with me. But only if you want to.”

He meant it. I nodded my head, meekly and with a triumphant grin, he stepped toward a destiny I had only dared to dream of in the quiet moments alone

We danced and spun as the crowd surrounding us faded into dust and shadow.

Resonance filled the air around us as warmth and sound bloomed. Somewhere between his hand threading through mine, and the ground slipping slipping away beneath our feet, a thought I had long buried pushed through the cracks:

What if impossible was the lie?

What if I wasn’t wrong for wanting this?

The Crossfall above pulsed once, then bloomed. The center ignited, spilling forth impossible flame not of orb or noctorb but something older, purer.

Essence descended in golden wisps, it wrapped around our limbs, shoulders, and joined hands—tangible and warm, like being held by something unseen.

The Veil had opened. And Veya was watching.

“Elijah, is this real? ” He laughed once more and shrugged. He looked so grand, exultant and expectant all at once.

“Veya answers a hallow I have whispered for some time, now. If He joins our paths, Azura then let me walk beside you, not before you.” He caught my eyes in his gaze once more, with a look of knowing.

The final steps of the song proclaimed triumph, and warmth washed through me, quieting every shard of doubt until only one remained:

I believed he was impossible, but what if he was inevitable?

The final note crashed into silence. The world stilled, holding its breath, as if even creation waited for what would happen next.

Elijah stepped closer, his hands closing around mine, his voice low and unsteady,

“Azura… do you feel it too?”

I nodded, unsure of my own voice

“My Lady, Azura of the Grassland.” His voice settled into something sacred. “I stand in the presence of Veya before you, a prince who has loved you since we were younglings. I seek to court you in a manner that aligns with Veya’s calling for his Chosen: to walk in purity of friendship, until the day we swear our eternal vows before the Flame of Veya in the Echohold. Will you walk this path with me, and agree that we are Intended before Veya and the great people of this Kingdom?”

He lowered to one knee.

“Azura… will you stand with me as my Intended.”

Orb strike me.

Maybe he wasn’t impossible, maybe our love was inevitable.

“Elijah- I.” I sputtered, trying to regain the knowledge to speak. I watched a flash of nervousness cross his face with beautiful aster and it was all I needed to relieve the tension and fear.

“Yes.”

Resonance and light around us intensified and peaked, the Avarin’s silent confirmation of the path laid before us.

Elijah released my hands before grasping my face between his palms. He leaned down to place a soft and blooming kiss on my forehead. Warmth and heat exploded from the meeting point and flowed down through the rest of my body. The look of shock and amazement in his eyes informed me that he was feeling a similar sensation.

Mine. Elijah is bound to me, and I to him. A feeling beyond ecstasy escaped as a gasp of joy from my lips.

All at once, Veya’s powerful Light presence lifted from the room, leaving high strata in a dumbfounded state.

The silence around us fractured, like a thousand breaths being sucked in all at once.

Gasps.

A stifled scream.

A wine goblet clattering on the floor and rolling endlessly as though it, too, did not know where all of this would end.

Whispers began at the edges of the crowd, low and frantic, like rats beneath silk.

“He will be the ruin of this kingdom.” A singular voice rang out above the masses. It sounded like Masseh’s voice. King Fornith’s most trusted advisor.

“It is Veya’s blessing!” A Veilborn from the crowd called out.

And while the kingdom reeled. Samara’s eye burned from the outskirts, reminding me that every blessing claimed comes with a curse yet to fall.

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Chapter 2 is available now

Lore Note: The Orberry Flower

The Orberry is a finicky bloom—requiring cliffside air, unbroken Orblight, and solitude to thrive. It cannot share oxygen with other plants, nor grow under shade. It must choose to open fully. Only when it grows exactly seven petals will it bear its rare, pale berries—clusters of three, said to be kissed by Veya Himself.

Like truth, it blooms only in the light. And like the resolute Veilborn, it will not thrive when forced to compete for air