Page 59 of Veil of Ashes

“I’ve tried convincing myself that it was the best way to protect you,” he continues, the tape hissing as his pause stretches thin. “I’m sorry, Sylvara, even though I am not asking for your forgiveness.”

It clicks off, leaving me raw and reeling in the quiet.

I clutch the recorder, nails biting my palms as the truth sinks in deep. He shaped me, taught me to hide, then left me to rot alone.

I lurch to my feet, chair grinding harsh against the floorboards in my fury. My boots pound the wood, pacing fast as heat floods my veins with every step I take.

He’s alive—my revenge has no bones to break or bury now. Every fight, every lie I’ve painted, shatters apart in my trembling hands like glass.

I stop at the window, pressing my forehead to the cool glass as the bar’s hum drifts down from above. His voice loops in my head, cold and unasked-for, saying sorry without meaning it.

I picture him clear, paint flecking his hands as he grinned wide. He taught me to twist lies into beauty, then twisted me into this.

I whirl around and slam my fist into the wall, wood shaking under the blow. Pain flares bright in my knuckles, grounding me in this tangle of betrayal and fire.

The journal lies open on the bench, numbers glaring up at me like a dare. Pahrump, April 17—two weeks after he left us drowning in blood and unanswered screams.

I snatch the pencil, retracing them with hands that steady despite the storm raging inside me. The bunker flashes vivid, a kid trailing him through the desert, sand crunching under my sneakers.

He stashed secrets there, crates and shadows he never explained. I watched him work, his silence a wall I couldn’t climb back then.

I slump back onto the stool, the chair creaking loud under my weight as I stare at the recorder. His lessons echo in every brushstroke, every forgery I’ve crafted since he slipped away.

The room buzzes with his presence, golden light catching dust in a restless swirl around me. I grab the recorder, flipping it over, feeling its edges press into my skin.

If he ran, who’s the real traitor here? Him for ditching us, or me for what I’ll do when I hunt him down?

I stand up and walk to the massive mirror in my workshop, its gilded frame a relic I hauled from a crumbling theater years back. Golden light fades through the dusty window, washing my reflection in a warm haze as I grip the recorder, its cold edges cutting into my trembling hand.

I press play again, needing to feel the sting of Enzo’s voice rasping through the static, a blade I can’t dodge. “I didn’t want this life for you,” he says, rough and low, “but I knew you’d inherit it,” each word a brick piling onto the ruin of my heart.

My reflection wavers as I stare, eyes burning with tears I choke back, refusing to let them spill. In the sharp lines of my face, I see him—his deep-set gaze, the guilty slant of his mouth haunting me like a shadow I can’t shake.

I hurl the recorder at the mirror, a raw scream tearing from my throat as it slams into the glass with a crack. Shards burst outward, splintering across the floorboards in a jagged cascade, glinting like fractured stars in the dying light.

I drop to my knees, breath heaving hard, surrounded by broken pieces of myself scattered over the worn wood. My hands press into the floor, splinters pricking my palms, a sharp sting I lean into as rage battles the hollow ache inside.

“I spent a decade building a version of myself he could be proud of,” I whisper, voice cracking like the glass around me. “And he never planned to see it.”

The workshop looms around me, paintbrushes bristling on the bench, canvases tilting against the walls like witnesses to my unraveling. My chest burns, identity fracturing as Enzo’s myth crumbles into a truth dirtier than any lie I’ve ever painted.

I crawl forward, glass crunching under my hands, each cut a bright sting I welcome as my mind spins. Does he deserve a reunion with his daughter, or my fist shattering his world like he shattered mine? Can I face him without drawing blood?

A shard glints near my knee, its edge sharp and calling as I reach for it with unsteady fingers. Blood blooms on my fingertip, a vivid red bead welling up against pale skin as I press harder.

I smear it onto the recorder’s casing, crimson streaking over its scratched surface like a mark of my claim. “If you’re alive, Enzo D’Agostino, you owe me more than an apology,” I say, voice low and fierce, cutting through the quiet.

I rock back on my heels, staring at the wreckage of glass and blood staining the floor around me.

You owe me a reckoning.

My breath steadies, but my hands tremble as I brush hair from my sweaty brow, the room pulsing with echoes of his voice. Paint fumes linger in the space, a scent that once meant safety, now twisted into betrayal as I kneel in this mess.

I grab another shard, smaller this time, its jagged edge biting my palm as I squeeze, grounding myself. My strength came from his legend, a pedestal I built with every stroke—now it’s rubble, and I’m left picking up the pieces.

Footsteps pound behind me, heavy and urgent, snapping me out of the spiral as the workshop door bangs open. I twist my head, catching Kieran storming in, his broad frame filling the doorway with heat and leather and a storm of his own.

He freezes, eyes widening at the shattered mirror and me crouched in the chaos, glass glinting around my knees. “What the hell happened, Syl?” he asks, voice rough with worry as he strides closer, boots crunching over the debris.

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