Page 75 of The Fractured Veil

The light slowly began to fade, the blinding white receding like a tide. My vision swam with spots, struggling to adjust to the sudden return of the darkness. Slowly, the scene came back into focus. The creatures—every single one of them—lay scattered across the ground, lifeless, like discarded toys. Their grotesque forms were still, their snarls forever silenced.

I blinked, trying to comprehend the sheer devastation. What in the hells had just happened? What kind of power could obliterate an entire army like this? Scanning the area, my eyes found her. Thalia. She stood amidst the carnage, a fragile silhouette against the fading light. Blood stained her torn and tattered dress—the once vibrant emerald-green now a horrifying canvas of crimson and black. She swayed for a moment, a broken flower in a field of destruction, before collapsing to the ground with a thud that made my stomach twist.

“Thalia!” I roared, my voice raw with a terror I hadn’t felt since I was a child, sprinting towards her. Nox and Zarek were already by her side, their faces mirroring the same fear that clawed at my insides.

She was motionless, eyes closed, her skin an unnatural, deathly pale. I dropped to my knees beside her, my hands shaking as I reached for her neck, desperately searching for the faintest flutter of a pulse. Nothing. No heartbeat. No breath. Just a chilling, terrifying stillness.

“No, no, no,” I choked out, the words catching in my throat, a strangled sob escaping my lips. This couldn’t be happening. Not Thalia. Not her. My vision blurred, tears stinging my eyes as I fumbled to her chest, pressing down, desperately trying to force her heart to beat again. “Come on, come on. Don’t do this! Fuck!”

My hands kept pumping, a desperate rhythm against her still chest.She can’t be dead. I won’t let her be dead.But beneath my trembling fingers, her skin remained cold—lifeless. A wave of nausea washed over me, a bitter taste rising in my throat. It was my fault. All my fault.

A memory, sharp and unwelcome, sliced through the panic. The training grounds. Thalia—small and vulnerable—facing me with a defiance that both intrigued and irritated me.

“You’re wasting your time,” I sneered, my voice dripping with contempt. “You’re nothing. You have no real power.”

Her chin tilted up, her gray eyes flashing with an anger that surprised me. “Maybe not,” she spat back, “but I’m not afraid of you.”

I scoffed. “Brave words for someone who can barely hold a shield.” I lunged, my shadow tendrils lashing out, wrapping around her wrists, pinning her arms to her sides. “Let’s see how long that lasts.”

I pushed her, tested her, relished in her frustration, her struggles. It was a twisted game, a way to deflect my own anxieties, my own fears.Arethax. My father. Losing my brothers.Thalia was a distraction, a convenient target for my anger, my resentment. Nox and Zarek, blinded by some misguided sense of protectiveness, had forced my hand—making me her reluctant mentor. So I took advantage, letting everything out on her, using her as a punching bag for my pent-up rage. She was a convenient scapegoat, a lightning rod for the storm brewing inside me.

She never backed down. No matter how hard I pushed, how cruel I became, how viciously I attacked—she always met my gaze head-on, her spirit unbroken, her gray eyes blazing with defiance. It was infuriating. It was… unsettling. There was something about her resilience, her unwavering determination, that chipped away at the carefully constructed walls—walls I had built to protect myself from the very emotions I was now experiencing.

Another memory surfaced. The forest—the night she wandered into our territory, trespassing without a clue of the danger she was in. I watched her from the shadows, a predator observing its prey, my own darkness drawn to her like a moth to a flame. She was lost, vulnerable, a lamb wandering into a den of wolves—yet there was a strange peace about her, a calmness that I both envied and resented.

I had hoped that Nox's panther—usually so bloodthirsty and territorial—would go feral, teaching her to stay away from us. I didn't want her here, didn't want her anywhere near Nox or Zarek, poisoning their minds with her innocent eyes and quiet strength. Their fascination with her, their inexplicable protectiveness, was a baffling weakness I couldn't comprehend. It made no sense. She was nothing but a liability—a fragile human girl in a world far too dangerous for her kind. It was a crack in the armor of the Shadow Brothers, a vulnerability I hadn't anticipated and certainly didn't welcome. We were supposed to be untouchable, a force to be reckoned with, not simpering fools pining after a stray.

And now she’s gone.The thought pierced me like a shard of ice, the reality of the situation crashing down with the force of a tidal wave.Because of me.

Nox was beside me, his usual stoicism shattered, his eyes wide with disbelief and dawning horror. Zarek leaned over her, gently brushing a stray strand of auburn hair away from her face, his jaw clenched so tightly I thought it might break. We were united in our desperation, our terror a evident force in the unsettling silence.

She wasn’t breathing. Her chest remained still beneath my hands, her lips turning a ghastly blue. I pressed harder, praying to any gods that might be listening for a miracle. Any god at all.

"We failed her. We failed her, and she still saved us," Zarek whispered, his voice hoarse with grief, barely able to contain the raw anguish that filled his words. He didn't need to say it; we all knew.Iknew. Thalia—the girl I'd treated with such disdain, the girl who'd irritated me with her very existence—had sacrificed herself for us. Forme. My shadows writhed around me, mirroring my inner turmoil—a chaotic dance of darkness and despair. She wasn't supposed to be important. She was supposed to be a fleeting annoyance, another obstacle in our path.

This couldn’t be real. It couldn’t be happening. Why did she do this? Why did she have to be so fucking stubborn, so reckless? So selfless?

"Damn it!" I roared, the sound tearing from my throat, a primal scream of denial and rage and unbearable loss.

I could hear Nox whispering her name, a series of pleas lost in the wind, a desperate prayer to a silent goddess. The cold was seeping into her, the shadows claiming her light, her warmth, her life.

She’s so cold.

Thalia, please. Don’t leave us. Not like this.I clung to the fading hope—the echo of her laughter, the memory of her wild spirit. She couldn't be gone. Not now. Not when my brothers needed her.

Fuck,Ineeded her.

The guilt gnawed at me—a vicious beast tearing at my insides. The way I’d treated her, the accusations I’d hurled at her, the way I’d pushed her away. I was just beginning to understand what this was—what she meant to me. I was finally ready to admit that she was more than just an annoyance, more than just a distraction. More than just the woman that pulled at my shadows.

She was…everything.

The world seemed to close in on me, the battlefield shrinking to the small circle around her lifeless form. All around us lay the grotesque remains of the creatures she had saved us from—a testament to her power, her sacrifice. Yet all I could focus on was her—fragile, lifeless, slipping away from us like sand through my fingers.

Zarek’s hand shook as he cradled her head, his lips moving silently, as if he were trying to speak but couldn’t find the words to express the enormity of his grief. Nox’s hands hovered over hers, as if he was afraid to touch her, afraid to truly accept the reality of what had happened.

“Please, Thalia,” I whispered, my voice breaking. My hands continued their desperate rhythm, but my heart was shattering with each moment that passed without a sign of life. “Come back. Please.”

I thought of all the moments we’d shared—the arguments, the biting banter, the fleeting moments of connection that I had dismissed, too stubborn and afraid to admit what they truly meant. I had been so blind, so foolish. And now it felt like I was losing the chance to make it right. To tell her that she mattered more to me than I had ever allowed myself to believe. More than I had ever dared to hope.

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