CHAPTER 60: VEINS OF SHADOW

The air bent around her.

At first, it was nothing more than a shift in warmth, like the way a chamber sometimes changed when a door had been left open somewhere far away. Then the light wavered, and the rain outside that had almost subsided seemed to darken imperceptibly.

Ilaria slowed her breath, bracing herself for the storm to come. She could feel the hairs along her arms rise.

"Ilaria..."

Her pulse leapt. The sound was the same as before, so very wrong. Maybe because she finally allowed it to speak to her, the voice had weight this time, as if it had been waiting for her to answer the call.

"Daughter of Light..." the voice hissed, softer now, the syllables curling like smoke. "You should not be here."

Her throat tightened. She could not move from where she still knelt, could not even answer. And perhaps because there was no longer a barrier between them, the voice did not wait for her permission.

"The soil beneath you is wrong. It does not know your name. It remembers another, and it will not forgive her."

The water in the bowl began to tremble, rippling so violently it nearly spilled over the rim. Shadows crawled up the walls, twisting and reaching, just as they had that day in her chamber. The glass panes that once held the faint shimmer of sun and sky darkened in an instant like the world beyond had been swallowed whole.

Ilaria’s breath came fast and thin, her heart pounding in her ears as beads of sweat slid down her temple. In her petrified state, she recited a prayer in desperate rhythm, hoping for an ease of heart, but the very air itself felt furious.

"You don’t belong to this darkness," it continued to hiss, each word brushing her ear though no one stood beside her, tempering with her faith. "The Blithe marks what it will devour, and it already feeds near your door."

The room tilted cruelly as her vision wavered. Though every part of her body screamed to run, she remained rooted to the spot and because she no longer had the option to flee, she forced herself to whisper, "W-what are you?"

The laughter that followed was wrong, like glass grinding together so sharply it made her flinch, her eyes clenching shut, and her fingers curling tight against her thighs.

"Names mean nothing to you. Only one of yours still matters, the one who will fall before you do."

Her heart plummeted. She wanted to cover her ears, but even her hands refused to obey.

"Your land prays for light, but not all light is merciful. Because when the skies open, what pours from them will not be rain."

The voice went on.

"She will die beneath the open sky, and the world will mourn for her. And the light she leaves behind—" there was a pause, deliberate and cruel, then it continued menacingly, "—will burn you eternally."

Ilaria could visibly feel her heart cracked. The veil quivered where it met her shoulders.

"Leave, princess. This place has no use for trembling hands and half-born radiance. You are no threat here, only a remnant of warmth where none is needed. Go before you are swallowed by what does not even notice you."

The voice faded then, and she should have felt relieved, but instead she found herself unable to move as the prayer died in her throat. The bowl’s surface shuddered, and the water ran with thin black currents that raced and curled against the rim.

Something crawled across her arms. At first, she thought it was the chill, until she saw the faint veins blooming darker beneath her skin, a slow ink spreading from wrist to elbow. The blood that ran beneath her veins looked as though it had turned to shadow.

Fear planted itself in her chest, and the fear became a key. She tried to draw a proper breath, but it felt like her lungs had forgotten how to do so. Feeling helpless, her arms shook as her eyes widened in alarm. "W-what—"

The words broke apart before they left her mouth. Her pulse slammed against her ribs; her heartbeat was so loud she could hear nothing else. The shadows seemed to thicken with every beat, crawling higher and higher until they reached her fingertips.

A sound rose in her throat, half gasp, half sob, as the blackness on her skin kept moving, threading through her veins with a will of its own as if it was drawn by her panic. The more she struggled to steady her breath, the faster it spread. It was as though the darkness itself fed on the rhythm of her fear and on the wild, uneven drum of her heart.

Her vision blurred then, tears spilling faster than she could stop them. The edges of the room twisted to the point that the once-familiar ritual that had always soothed her now felt sour. It was as if something had reached into her chest and closed its hand around her heart.

"M-mel—" she tried to call, but it took too much effort to let her voice out, let alone lift herself off of the floor and move.

"Melyn—" she tried again, yet it only came out as a pained whisper, like a pair of iron hands were pressing against her shoulders so heavily that her body felt too numb to fight.

But just when she thought there was no longer helping herself, the door slammed open.

A rush of wind swept through the old gallery, scattering the shadows that had consumed the entire chamber into trembling shards. The darkness guttered, and for one suspended heartbeat, the pressure that was holding her body down shrank.

She could not see who it was, she could not even muster the force to turn her head no matter how much she tried, but the presence was so overwhelming that it made her shudder.

At the end of the room, Levan stood in the doorway. And he was angry.

He did not speak directly. The moment his presence breached the threshold, the air itself changed. The oppression that had been building and suffocating her convulsed fiercely, obviously recoiling from him.

His gaze swept the room once, sharp, dark, and searching, before it landed on her kneeling form. The sight rooted him where he stood. He had felt it earlier, that shift in the air when he was returning from the solarium — a tremor running through the wards.

He had thought it distant, something minor, a disturbance easily dealt with like always. But no, his gut turned cold as realization struck.

It was not distant. It was her.

"Ilaria," his voice cut through the storm.

The sound snapped something in her. Her chest heaved, her breath staggering, the tendrils of shadow along her arms pulsing in defiance of him.

He crossed the space in long strides, and the remaining shadows receded from his boots like it was burned. The air between them crackled, alive with the sound of something old and furious. She could almost hear it; the echo of something ancient recognizing its equal.

"You again... bastard son of the crown," the voice spat at him, causing Ilaria to wince.

Before it could so much as hiss another insult, it vanished into the thin air like it was never there. Levan’s presence alone was a command, and the dark seemed to shrink from it, writhing toward the corners, desperate to escape the reach of his wrath.

Upon seeing her husband, Ilaria hastily tried to stand up, but her legs buckled beneath her the moment she got on her feet.

Levan’s hand caught her wrist before she could fall forward. His palm was warm and real, but the veins beneath her skin thrashed even more, rejecting his touch. He jerked back once, then gripped tighter, the tremor in his jaw betraying what the fury in his voice tried to hide.

"What in the Gods’ name did you do?" The words came out a snarl, cutting through the crackling air. His glare burned through the chaos, not out of cruelty but sheer, desperate terror, like a man lashing out at what he did not know how to save.

The storm around them bent, as if even it knew his anger had teeth. Ilaria was not sure if she even wanted to answer him right now, but she knew ignoring him would only make him even more angry.

"I-I didn’t mean to," she gasped out, her voice breaking between the sobs that tangled in her throat. "It-It was only supposed to be a prayer—"

Levan gripped her wrist tighter it almost hurt, his eyes slitting. "A prayer?" His voice rang hard against the walls, sharp enough to make the air tremble. "I told you—I told you—never to answer it!"

She flinched at his outburst, clutching her arm to hide the spreading blackness beneath her skin, but it only made it worse when the dark veins coiled higher.

"I’m sorry!" She managed, her breath coming fast and desperate as she shook her head, trying to make amends, "I’m sorry— It kept on c-coming back to me and I just wanted to understand why—"

"Understand?" His tone cracked on the word, his brows furrowing like he had just heard something offensively stupid. "You think that thing speaks to be understood? Look at you!"

He yanked her arm to make her see, the fury in his face shattering into horror as he saw the severity of the black tendrils that were blooming up her arm like ink bleeding through paper. He grabbed her wrist again, even rougher this time, as if by sheer will he could pull it out of her.

"Saints, Aria," he muttered, his voice low but unsteady, the kind of anger that trembles because it cannot decide if it wants to shout or break.

"Do you even know what you’ve done?" He went on, looking at her like he was disappointed. "You knew you feared it, so why bother wearing bravery like it means nothing?"

Ilaria’s tears spilled freely then, her lips parting to answer but no sound came. He was right, so she did not try to defend herself, there was nothing left to say.

The weight of what she had done hung heavy between them in the silence, the last of the shadows twisting at the edges of the glass before fleeing into nothing.