Page 58 of Veil of Ashes

“This war is eating you, boy. And it won’t stop until it eats her too.”

I swallow against the dryness in my throat.

“I know.”

“Do you?” His eyes are too sharp. Too tired. “Your soul’s already scorched. How much more are you willing to lose?”

I don’t answer.

Because I don’t know anymore.

We sit like that for a while—him smoking again, me trying not to pass out.

The dead lie outside. The sun rises like it’s got no idea what just happened.

I lean my head back, watch the dust swirl through a crack in the roof.

“Ashes to ashes,” I whisper.

And I was starting to wonder if I had anything left to burn.

Chapter 20 – Sylvara

I slump over my workbench in the hidden nook beneath the dive bar, fingers brushing the cracked leather of my father’s journal as golden light floods through the dusty window.

The faint thump of boots and laughter drifts down from upstairs, but here, it’s just me and the echoes of paint and secrets scratching at my nerves.

Golden hour streaks across the room, brushing warm hues over scattered brushes with bristles stiff from neglect. Half-finished canvases tilt against the walls, their forged faces staring back like old friends who know too much.

I flip open the journal, its pages crinkling under my touch as Enzo’s wild handwriting drags me back to nights thick with turpentine and his steady voice.

Numbers twist in the margins, flipped backward in a code he drilled into me when I was a kid sneaking into his world.

I grab a pencil and reverse them on a scrap of paper, breath hitching as coordinates tumble out tied to a date.

Pahrump, April 17—a bunker in the desert where he’d stash crates under the blazing sun.

My gut clenches tight, a fist squeezing as I picture that hideout, sand crunching under my boots from years ago. Blood stains my memory, dark and wet on the hardwood from the night he vanished, my mother’s scream slicing through the house.

Her cry rings in my ears, high and jagged, tearing me open. Then nothing, just a void that buried us both in its grip.

I shove the journal aside, hands shaking as I lurch up, boots scraping the floorboards in this cave of lost dreams.

The cabinet waits in the corner, wood warped and stained from years of holding truths I never wanted. I cross to it, pulse hammering loud, and press the secret latch he carved into every hideout we shared.

A drawer pops free with a soft click, revealing its prize nestled inside. An analog recorder sits there, plastic scratched and dusty from time untouched, a ghost of the man I mourned.

I lift it out, the cool weight pressing into my palms as I stumble back to the stool. My breath catches quick, chest tight with the truth I’m about to face.

The play button shines under the lamp, daring me to press it. I jab it down, static buzzing out before Enzo’s voice rolls through, rough and low.

“If you’re hearing this, I failed you, Sylvara,” he says.

Each word is a blade carving into the shell I’ve built around his memory. My chest caves in, his confession slicing fresh wounds I thought had scarred over.

“I lied and ran, I wasn’t killed.”

He chose to vanish, his voice cold and steady, leaving us to drown in his absence.

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