The celebration was already in full swing by the time Brann pushed Mother’s chair along the path at the center of the village. The Veil
loomed in the distance, sparkling like a gateway to the afterlife.
For me, it would be.
My blood would stain the ground, my body left there to rot until the villagers brought me to the funeral pyre. I smiled at my brother for a moment as we walked, everything in me and our day spent together feeling like a deception. We’d entertained ourselves with a card game, the three of us sitting around the kitchen table in a way that was so rare when Brann and I always had to hustle to make sure our family survived.
The streets of the village were wide, the paths lined with dirt between the many houses and shops as we neared the central square. There was a well at the center where most of us drew our water, and the buildings surrounded it, curving around the edges of the dirt roads that were packed down from the foot traffic of villagers going about their day. There were dozens of buildings, all pressed neatly in rows beside one another to save space and protect from the elements once winter arrived. As the roads led farther from the main part of the village, the houses became more sporadic and in ill repair.
Lord Byron waited in the center of the village square as people offered him condolences on the loss of his wife. His eyes were heavy on my face as he waited for the conversation that we both knew we needed to have. He needed to understand that I wouldn’t back down, and the speech he was
prepared to give would not end the way he wanted. “I’ll be right back,” I said, touching Brann’s arm with a smile before I took a deep breath.
My skin tingled, goosebumps rising to the surface beneath the fabric of my dress. It wasn’t the autumn air that brought the chill to my skin, but the triumphant look on Byron’s face as I crossed the distance between us.
“Estrella,” he said, his lips tipping into the arrogant expression of a man who was so certain he’d caught his prey in his trap. “Walk with me.”
“Yes, my Lord,” I said, accepting the arm he proffered. A hush fell over the square, because the Lord of Mistfell shouldn’t have offered his arm to a peasant woman. He shouldn’t have bothered with me at all.
“I knew you’d change your mind,” he said, guiding me down the path toward the gardens. Soon enough, everyone else would follow to witness the yearly sacrifice before the evening’s celebration could begin in earnest.
“I have a question before I make my final decision,” I said, not lifting my gaze to meet his eyes. His arm twitched with surprise, and I realized he truly believed, from something as simple as walking to his side, I had accepted his place in my life.
“Then ask it so we can be done with this nonsense. I need to make my announcement before the High Priest makes his,” Lord Byron said, his voice filled with all his impatience. The fact that he’d even bothered to give me the illusion of a choice meant he truly feared what the King would do if news of his crime reached Ineburn City. He’d thought me so far beneath him that I couldn’t hurt him the way he had hurt me.
Men always underestimated the women they saw as insignificant.
“Why did you choose me?” I asked, finally turning my gaze up to his. I kept my chin tipped down, peeking up at him through my lashes to offer the image he preferred to see. “We both know there are far more beautiful women you could have given favor to, so why?”
His jaw clenched, his eyes narrowing for a brief moment as he considered my question. “I didn’t know you even existed until the day your father died. Most of the children remain silent if their parent is chosen, but not you, Estrella. You wept, sobbing so loudly I’m certain they heard you in the Hollow Mountains.”
“You chose me because I cried for my dying father?” I asked, swallowing around the nausea rising up my throat.
“You must try to imagine what it’s like being raised as the only son of a Lord. If you think I’ve been harsh with you, you know nothing of what it
was like to be me as a child,” he returned, his eyes looking into the distance as we strolled along the empty path. “I didn’t grieve for my father when he died. Seeing you suffer so openly—the way you cried at Temple every week for months after his passing and couldn’t even stand to look at the High Priest—that was what initially drew me to you. I didn’t understand it for what it was at the time. I invited you to my library because I wanted to see that sadness in your eyes, but as the years passed and I remained without a child, I realized you could teach your children to love so fully, as well.”
“You chose me because I loved my father, and you wanted me to teach our children to love you that way?” I asked, simplifying his response and taking out the horseshit that was designed to make me pity him.
I wouldn’t, because he’d stopped being a victim a long time ago and chosen to abuse me, even knowing how much it hurt. My steps faltered as I considered whether he’d done it to others in secret, or worse, when he didn’t have the prospect of marriage to restrain him from causing permanent damage.
“Yes. I chose you because you love with all your heart and do not care what people think of you for it. What more could a father want for his children?” he asked, turning to stare down at me in a moment of vulnerability. “They’ll be lucky to have you.”
He raised a hand to cup my face, the soft fingers of a life of luxury touching my swollen cheek. I wanted nothing more than to grab that hand and shove it away, but I let it stay as the first people started to trickle onto the path beside the gardens.
They passed us in silence, stepping onto overturned dirt from the gardens, which we’d pulled every plant out of during the harvest. They made their way toward the front in groups, approaching the place where the sacrifice happened every year with solemn expressions.
They’d be sad as they watched the horror unfold, but then they would celebrate as if I’d never existed.
“They won’t,” I said, murmuring the words quietly. My voice caught— the reality of what was to come staring me in the face. I couldn’t look toward the gathering assembly without seeing my father unwillingly dragged to the front, the echo of my screams and the burn in my throat assaulting me through my memory.
“Estrella,” he scolded, utter disbelief filling his expression as I took a step back.
“Your children were never going to love you the way I loved my father. Do you know why, my Lord?” I asked, letting the hatred I felt for him show in a rare moment of honesty. I couldn’t do much to hurt him, not with the pyre calling me, but I could strip away the motivation for everything he’d spent over a decade working toward.
“Why?” he asked, his throat moving with his swallow.
He glanced over his shoulder at the figure lurking at my back. I didn’t need to look to know who waited for me if I only turned, instead blasting Byron with the full force of my glare. “Because you will never be worthy of that kind of love.”
“I won’t intervene once you make this choice. You understand that?” he asked.
“I do,” I said simply, lifting my chin higher as I stared back at him. I didn’t expect him to, didn’t even want him to; not when survival was tied to his bed and his sadistic pleasures.
Lord Byron’s nostrils flared as he glared down at me, nodding briskly to the man behind me. I turned to the High Priest, finding his soft gaze on mine as he said, “You’ve been informed?”
“Can I say goodbye first?” I looked over his shoulder to where my mother and Brann approached the Veil. He heaved her wheeled chair over the raised rows of dirt in the enormous garden bed, pushing her forward as her body jostled.
“Of course,” the High Priest answered, his words solemn as I stepped away from him and walked over to my family. I helped Brann, turning my back to the Veil and grabbing my mother’s chair by the wheels and hauling it toward the shimmering white boundary.
Toward the place where she would have to sit and watch me die. My one regret.
I smiled. The people around us faded into a haze until there was only my mother’s eyes on mine, her sad expression filling her face as she undoubtedly remembered the times we’d made this journey in the past. She remembered my father pulling her to watch his sacrifice, Brann and I trailing behind them with tear-streaked faces.
We finally stopped moving, settling into a space that was as good as any. It was toward the back of the crowd, and I had to hope that would shield them from the worst of the details.
I lowered myself to a squat in front of her, taking her trembling hands in mine and pressing a kiss to the top of them. “I love you,” I said softly, smiling through the burn in my throat. I shoved back the tears that threatened, memorizing her features for one last time.
Her brow furrowed as she gazed back at me, removing her hand from my grip to touch my cheek softly. “I love you too, my girl. It will all be over soon,” she said, assuming the sadness in my eyes was due to the torment I felt on this day every year.
I pushed to my feet, stepping around the edge of her chair to draw Brann into a hug. I squeezed him too tightly, savoring the moment his arms wrapped around me. “Estrella, what’s going on?” he asked, pulling back to look down into my face.
“Take care of each other,” I said, staring at him meaningfully.
The High Priest’s voice interrupted whatever he might have said next, arrowing through the garden like the crack of a whip as everyone fell silent. “Would the chosen please step forward?”
I pulled out of Brann’s embrace, turning slowly and drawing a deep breath. Facing the Veil ahead of me, my eyes landed on where the High Priest waited with the ceremonial dagger clutched in his grip. It was the same blade that had parted the flesh of my father’s throat fourteen years prior.
I chanced a glance over to where Lord Byron waited at the High Priest’s side, his face closed off and expression reserved. There was nothing to be seen of his frustration on his stoic face—only the hands clenched at his side.
Another breath, and I took my first step forward toward my death.
“Estrella,” Brann said, his voice oddly calm as he began to understand my movements. Another step, and the eyes of the villagers focused on me as whispers broke out. It was unheard of for two generations of one family line to be chosen by The Father. “Estrella!” my brother repeated as I took the third step.
I moved through the people gathered, allowing them to part and reveal a direct path for me to approach the Veil. No one wanted to get in the way of the sacrifice. No one wanted to risk drawing attention to themselves.
“No! Not my baby girl!” my mother cried out behind me. Her voice trembled, her words shaking just like her hands as I squeezed my eyes closed and kept walking forward. This was never the fate any of us had seen
in store for me, but as I moved through the foggy details of the crowd surrounding, my father’s last words to me rang in my ears.
Fly free, Little Bird.
I never had. I’d never escaped the life that he’d hated with every part of his being, but something in me felt freedom waiting just beyond.
I stepped in front of the High Priest, bowing my head forward in submission as my mother sobbed behind me. Her wails echoed through the gardens, each one striking against my heart.
“Kneel,” the High Priest said, the order a murmur between the two of us as he guided me forward. The Veil swayed just in front of me, close enough to touch, and for just one moment I pictured reaching out to touch it.
I wondered what would happen if I did, then watched my fingers stretching forward as if compelled. The magic pulsing off of it touched my skin, sliding over my fingers as the curtain swayed toward me in perfect unison. The High Priest pressed his hand to the top of my shoulder, guiding me to my knees. The movement pulled my hand away from the magic that covered my skin before I could touch the Veil itself, tearing away the warmth I’d almost known.
In a world filled with nothing but cold, bitter half-truths, the Veil beckoned like a warm embrace, welcoming me into a place where I would be protected at all costs.
My hands dropped to my thighs as my knees hit the sandy soil beneath me, my palms facing the sky as I tipped my head up to stare into the eyes of the High Priest. He stood just to the side of me, his body close enough that he could stop me from falling into the Veil itself when I died, but out of the way so that my blood would stain the soil and not him.
“We thank you for your sacrifice, Estrella Barlowe of Mistfell. May you find peace in your next existence, wrapped in the arms of The Mother.” He sank his hand into the hair at the back of my head, gripping the strands tightly to pull me to the angle he needed. The tip of that dagger pressed into the side of my throat, digging into the flesh as the warmth of blood trickled down my skin. “Close your eyes now, child.”
His eyes bore into mine, willing me to do as commanded. I understood at that moment that he didn’t want to watch the life fade from my eyes as he slit my throat—that he took no pleasure in doing the will of The Father.
I did, letting them drift closed. Ringing filled my ears, drowning out my mother’s hoarse cries and the sound of Brann trying to console her. My
body filled with warmth despite the cool ocean breeze against my face, like the press of a warm hearth on a cold winter’s night, the stars shimmering outside the window as I cuddled up with a book.
It was the first moment of contentment I’d felt, the first moment when there wasn’t any pain. I didn’t want to hurt anymore. I didn’t want to be afraid of what was to come.
I drew in a breath, feeling the High Priest dig his knife deeper into my skin and begin to drag it to the side. Sudden awareness burst through my contentment, the impression of someone banging on the other side of a doorway, though there was none to be found.
The world shook as an animalistic roar came from the other side of the Veil in front of me, raising the hair on my arms, and making the back of my neck tingle.
My eyes sprang open to watch a streak of black surge through the fabric of the Veil. “Did you see that?” Lord Byron asked, stepping forward and closing the distance between us. I turned my attention back to him, following his line of sight to where a ripple of bright light followed the black surge.
Behind me, everyone froze as a collective unit as we stared in awe-filled horror at the Veil. The Mist Guards approached the boundary, their hands on the hilts of their swords as they prepared for the worst.
“What do we do?” Lord Byron asked, staring at the curtain of magic as it pulsed and throbbed as if it was being battered against from the other side. Sounds of tearing and wordless anger crossed through the barrier, while silence reigned on our side.
Another shock of inky darkness spread through it, throbbing in time with the beating of my heart in my chest. I couldn’t breathe, didn’t dare to close my eyes as I rose to my feet. “We need to strengthen the Veil,” the High Priest said, turning to me once again.
He touched my shoulder, shoving me to my knees in a way that was far less graceful than I’d managed the first time. I sprawled forward, landing on my hands and knees with my face only a breath from the shimmering and pulsing magic. Blood dripped from my throat and landed upon the soil, trickling over the grains as if in slow motion.
The ground convulsed as if the world itself was angry, quaking beneath me as another wave of black rippled through the wavering white at the edge
of the boundary. The High Priest moved toward me, his knife coming straight for my throat in a way that I knew would kill me without delay.
I reached out with one hand, touching a single finger to the magic that called to me. A shock of electricity spread up my arm, drawing a pained gasp from my lips as the sky rumbled in response, the sound reverberating through the open field of gardens.
The High Priest froze as he stared at the way darkness bled through the Veil, bathing the world in shadow and drowning out the sun. It spread forward, oozing across the sky until it covered the clouds above, eclipsing all the light from our world. “What have you done?” His eyes were wide with terror, having heard the myths we’d all been taught. The legends of what lies beyond the Veil shaped us all, a warning of what could come if we made the mistake of poking at things that were better off left alone.
Of the monsters who would come to steal us from our beds in the night, never to be seen again. Of the humans unfortunate enough to be marked by the Fae, chosen for a life that amounted to being nothing more than a wretched pet.
The ground shook so violently that the High Priest and Lord Byron fell to their knees beside me. The people closest to the boundary behind us screamed, turning and racing through the gardens that stood between them and safety as cracks fissured through the Veil and the mist that separated our worlds filtered through.
Black streaks penetrated the mist, creeping like spider veins over the horizon. The Veil stopped blowing in the wind, suddenly, as if frozen to glass.
“Run,” Lord Byron whispered, getting to his feet clumsily. There was nothing but panic in his expression, the terror of what would come should the magic fail after centuries of protecting us.
And then the Veil shattered.
Broken shards rained down across the crops closest to the boundary. The wave of pure, undiluted power broke across the field. In the place where the Veil had once shimmered, only the wall of mist between realms remained, open to any who dared to traverse the land and sea between realms, to cross from here over to Alfheimr or enter the realm of humans.
Time slowed, and what felt like an eternity passed while I turned my head and locked eyes with Lord Byron. He fell first, knocked backward before I felt the blast of inky power against my skin. Like nothing I’d ever
felt before, it seeped into the cracks in my skin and made itself at home within this body, which had once been mine, but now felt like something else entirely.
The power sank inside me before it shoved me backward, lifting me off my hands and knees and twisting my body in the air with the force of the explosion that rippled through the gardens. I only stopped when my spine hit the soil and my eyes stared up at the slowly blackening sky, as those tendrils of darkness wound their way around the sun.
Night fell in truth, and when the blades of grass tickled my skin where it peeked out of my dress and light cloak, for a brief moment, I wondered if the sun would ever rise again.
And then I felt nothing but blinding pain.
