WHAT LIVES BENEATH THE VEIL
Book One: The Unblooded Lamb
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CONTENT WARNING: This series contains explicit sexual violence, human sacrifice, psychological torture, murder of innocent characters (including children and family members), ritualistic killing, and extreme horror. No character is safe. Read at your own risk.
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Chapter Thirteen: The Seventh Seal
Year 8 – Five Months After the Sixth Sacrifice
The castle had grown accustomed to the darkness.
Not the physical darkness—the nights were still lit by torches and candles and the occasional lantern. But the other darkness. The one that lived in the spaces between spaces. The one that followed Princess Liora like a second shadow.
The servants had stopped commenting on it.
They had stopped noticing it.
Or rather, they had trained themselves not to notice. Because noticing meant acknowledging, and acknowledging meant fearing, and fearing meant acting—and no one wanted to act.
So they looked away.
They changed the subject.
They told themselves that the princess was just a child, that the disappearances were just coincidences, that the cellar was just a cellar.
They lied.
And Liora?
Liora watched them lie.
She found it instructive.
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Liora – The Seventh Victim
She chose carefully this time.
Not a traveler. Not a beggar. Not a servant or a soldier. Someone higher. Someone whose disappearance would cause a stir—but not too much of a stir. Someone who could be explained away.
A merchant.
A man named Varek, who traveled between the castle and the southern cities, trading in silk and spice and other expensive things. He came to the castle once every few months, stayed for a week, conducted his business, and left.
No one would miss him until his next scheduled visit.
By then, his body would be ash.
Liora approached him in the great hall, where he was drinking wine with the steward.
"Excuse me."
Varek looked down. Saw a child in a white dress. His expression shifted from annoyance to curiosity.
"Yes, little one?"
"I'm Princess Liora."
His eyes widened. He set down his wine. He bowed—not deeply, but respectfully.
"Your Highness. Forgive me. I didn't recognize you."
"That's all right. I have a question for you."
"Of course. Anything."
She tilted her head. Widened her eyes. Softened her voice.
"Do you believe in secrets?"
Varek frowned.
"Secrets, Your Highness?"
"The castle has many secrets. Old ones. Hidden ones. I found one recently. A cellar beneath the east wing. No one uses it anymore. But I think—I think there might be something valuable down there. Something left behind by a previous king."
Varek's eyes gleamed.
Valuable.
That was the word she had chosen carefully.
Greed, she thought. Such a useful thing.
"I'm not allowed to go alone," she continued. "My mother worries. But if I had someone with me—someone strong, someone brave, someone who knows the value of old things—"
She let the sentence hang.
Varek leaned forward.
"You want me to accompany you to this cellar?"
"I want you to help me," she said. "I'll share whatever we find. Half and half. You have my word as a princess."
Varek looked at her for a long moment.
Then he nodded.
"Tonight," he said. "After the steward goes to bed."
Liora smiled.
Thank you, she thought.
You're so kind.
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Varek – The Cellar
The princess led him through the dark corridors of the castle.
He had been here many times, but never at night. The castle felt different after dark. Colder. Quieter. Watching.
It's just my imagination, he told himself.
I'm tired. I've had too much wine. The princess is just a child.
But his instincts—the ones that had kept him alive through twenty years of trading in dangerous places—were screaming at him to turn back.
Something is wrong, they whispered.
Something is very wrong.
He looked at the princess.
She was walking ahead of him, small and pale, her white dress ghostly in the darkness. She seemed so innocent. So helpless.
She's just a child, he told himself.
She needs help.
That's all.
He ignored the screaming in his gut.
He kept walking.
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The Seventh Cellar
The door was old. Iron. Locked.
The princess produced a key.
"It's down there," she said. "I found the key in my mother's chambers. I think it belonged to my grandfather."
Varek looked at the door. Looked at the princess. Looked at the key in her small, pale hand.
"After you," he said.
The princess shook her head.
"I'm scared. You go first. I'll follow."
Varek hesitated.
Then he took the key.
He opened the door.
He walked down the steps.
He did not walk back up.
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Varek – The Realization
He heard the door close behind him.
He heard the lock click.
He turned around. The princess was not behind him.
"Princess?"
Silence.
"PRINCESS!"
He ran up the steps. Pounded on the door. The wood did not break. The iron did not bend.
"LET ME OUT!"
Silence.
He stood in the darkness, his heart pounding, his hands shaking.
Why? he thought. Why would a child do this?
He did not understand.
He would never understand.
The darkness pressed against him.
The cold seeped into his bones.
And the princess did not open the door.
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Liora – The Seventh Ritual
She waited five hours this time.
Varek was not a fighter. His screams were desperate, not furious. His pounding was frantic, not strong. He begged. He pleaded. He offered her money, silk, spices, anything if she would just let him out.
She did not answer.
She sat on the top step and waited.
Patience.
Always patience.
When the screams finally stopped, she descended the stairs.
Varek was curled against the far wall, his face wet with tears, his hands bloody from pounding on the door.
"Please," he whispered. "I have a wife. Children. They need me."
"Then you shouldn't have followed a stranger into a cellar," Liora said.
She set down her lantern.
She opened her book.
"Please—"
She was faster.
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The Power – Seven
The fire in her veins blazed hotter.
Seven sacrifices. Seven souls. Seven streams of darkness flowing into her, merging with her blood, becoming part of her.
She raised her hand.
The shadows answered.
They coiled around her arm, up to her shoulder, cold and alive and hungry. She could feel them tasting the air, sensing the fear that still clung to the body on the floor.
More, they whispered. We need more.
Soon, she thought.
Soon.
She released the spell.
The shadows retreated.
She looked at the body.
A merchant. Wealthy. Successful. Dead.
No one is safe from me, she thought.
No one.
She smiled in the darkness.
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The Disappearance
Varek was missed sooner than the others.
His business associates noticed when he didn't return to his inn. His wife sent a message when he didn't come home. The steward organized a search.
But the search was half-hearted.
Varek was a merchant, not a noble. His disappearance was inconvenient, not tragic. People shrugged and said "probably robbed and killed on the road" and moved on with their lives.
No one searched the cellar.
No one asked the princess.
No one connected the disappearance to the little girl in the white dress who had been seen talking to him in the great hall.
Because why would they?
She was just a child.
Just a princess.
Just innocent.
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Finn – The Pattern
Finn had started keeping count.
Not on paper—he couldn't read or write, and even if he could, he would never leave evidence. In his head. A list of names. A list of faces. A list of people who had disappeared since the princess started smiling at him.
Orin. Greta. Corin. The man by the river. Marta. Roran. Varek.
Seven names.
Seven lives.
Seven deaths.
And no one—no one—had noticed.
She's getting bolder, he thought. The first ones were invisible. Forgotten. No one missed them.
But Varek? People knew Varek. People will ask questions.
Unless—
He stopped the thought.
Unless she's already thought of that.
Unless she's already planned for it.
Unless she's already chosen someone to blame.
He looked around the kitchen. The cook was shouting at a scullery boy. The handmaidens were gossiping by the fire. No one was looking at him. No one ever looked at him.
I'm invisible too, he thought.
Just like the victims.
Just like Mira.
Just like—
He stopped.
He did not want to think about what came next.
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Aldric – The Guilt
Aldric had stopped eating entirely.
The food made him sick. Everything made him sick. The sight of the princess. The sound of her voice. The smell of her perfume—something floral, something sweet, something that clung to the air long after she had passed.
He was wasting away.
The other pages had stopped talking to him. They avoided him now, the way the servants avoided the east wing. He was tainted. They didn't know how or why, but they could feel it.
He knows something, they whispered.
Something bad.
Stay away from him.
Aldric didn't care.
He was beyond caring.
He lay in his bed and stared at the ceiling and thought about the key.
I gave it to her, he thought.
I gave her the key, and she killed them.
Orin. Greta. Corin. The man by the river. Marta. Roran. Varek.
Seven people.
Dead because of me.
He wanted to die.
He wanted to walk into the cellar and wait for her to come for him.
But he was too afraid.
Not of death—death would be a relief.
Of her.
Of what she would do to him before he died.
Of the smile on her face when she watched him break.
He closed his eyes.
He did not sleep.
He did not dream.
He just waited.
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Liora – The Evening
She sat in her chamber, reading by candlelight.
The old texts were becoming clearer with each sacrifice. New passages revealed themselves. New spells. New rituals. New ways to use the darkness that was growing inside her.
The seventh sacrifice opens the door, she read. The eighth strengthens the bond. The ninth and tenth seal it.
After ten, the dark will be part of you forever.
There is no going back.
There is no redemption.
There is only forward.
She closed the book.
Forward, she thought.
Yes.
Always forward.
She looked at her reflection in the window.
The girl who looked back was not a girl anymore.
Not really.
She was something else.
Something more.
Something that the world had never seen before.
Three more, she thought. Three more until ten.
Then the dark will be part of me forever.
Then I will truly begin.
She smiled.
The darkness smiled with her.
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The Cellar – That Night
The cellar was not empty.
Not anymore.
Seven bodies had burned there. Seven souls had been consumed there. Seven streams of darkness had flowed from that place into Liora's veins.
But something else lingered.
Something the old texts had warned about.
Residue.
The souls do not vanish completely. They leave traces. Echoes. Fragments of fear and pain and despair.
These fragments are dangerous. They attract things. Things that should not be named. Things that should not be summoned.
Do not linger in places of sacrifice.
Do not sleep where death has been.
Do not—
Liora had read the warnings.
She had ignored them.
Because she was not afraid.
She was the master.
The dark served her.
Not the other way around.
But tonight, as she walked past the cellar door, she heard something.
A whisper.
Not from the shadows.
From inside.
More, it whispered. We need more.
Soon, she thought.
Soon.
She walked away.
The cellar watched her go.
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End of Chapter Thirteen