Page 46 of Blood Marked

The citadel felt different now. Not just in the way the guards nodded at her—warily, with some twisted mix of fear and reverence—but in how she saw it.

The towering arches and dimly lit corridors were no longer just symbols of power. They were walls closing in. And every step toward the ritual made the place feel more like a cage dressed in stone.

Kael had come to her the evening after the incident. Not as a ruler. Not as a lover. But as something broken trying to make sense of the pieces left behind.

“You should’ve told me,” she had said, arms crossed, jaw tight.

“I know,” he’d murmured, not meeting her eyes.

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because if I said it out loud, it would make it real.” He paused. “And I didn’t want you to think the kiss was aboutthat.”

She’d hated him for the silence. For keeping something so important secret. But she hadn’t hated thetruthin his voice when he said that.

“I still don’t know what to believe,” she had whispered.

“Then believe this—I’m not trying to claim you like some title. I’m just trying to survive what this bond is turning me into.”

Hadn’t she felt that too?

Now, a full day later, the ache in her chest hadn’t faded, but it had changed shape. It wasn’t anger anymore. It was a dull, echoing ache of something deeper. Something not yet said.

She took a left she hadn’t before, her fingers trailing the grooves carved into the wall—ancient symbols worn by time. Shedidn’t know what led her down that particular hallway, but the air felt different there. Thicker. Still.

A tapestry hung crooked over the end of the hall, faded and threadbare. She tilted her head and noticed the edge of a seam behind it.

A door. Hidden.

Typical shifter subtlety, if you could tear it down, it counted as secret.

She ducked behind the tapestry and nudged the door open.

Dust and silence greeted her.

And then books. Hundreds of them.

A hidden library. Not the formal one she’d been paraded through once with Kael during a court session. This was different. Smaller. Older. Shelves of hand-bound tomes and scrolls with brittle edges.

Selene stepped inside, the air thick with parchment and the promise of secrets long buried.

Her fingers skimmed the spines. Most were unlabeled. Some had titles in languages she didn’t recognize. But one—one caught her eye.

The Veilborn Chronicles.

The leather binding was cracked, the silver script faded but still legible.

She pulled it free and opened to the first page.

They were never meant to rule.

Her brows furrowed.

The Veilwalkers were chosen not for conquest, but for connection. Bridging realms, not severing them. Their blood carries the echo of two worlds, and it is through them that balance may be maintained.

She flipped pages faster, heart pounding.

In ancient days, when the Veil thinned, a child was born to both lines—a seer from the mortal court and a warrior from theOld Blood. That line birthed the first Veilwalker. And through her, the treaty of balance was born.

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