Page 160 of Veinblood
Tears spill from my eyes, as I reach for my power once more. Sparks sputter and die between my fingers. I try again, breath coming in gulps as I fight to form a lightning bolt, thunder,anything.
Sereven’s ball of power strikes Sacha in the chest and throws him into theair.
I scream.
And then the world stops.
Sacha hangs suspended in the air, one hand reaching toward me, his face frozen in an expression of despair. His dark eyes are wide, his mouth is open around a shout that will never be heard, the tendons on his neck stand out as he strains against gravity. Debris from the crumbling walls hover in the air, each piece of stone caught between one heartbeat and the next. Some are no larger than pebbles, others are huge boulders that would crush bone if they hit. Smoke from fire magic coils motionless around us, frozen mid-swirl in twisted patterns.
Silence falls, so complete it presses against my eardrums. But it isn’t empty. It’s dense, oppressive, filled with the energy of everything that should be moving but isn’t. There are no muffled gasps from Mira, no crackling of flames, no shouts from Sereven or Sacha. Just endless quiet that wraps around me, heavy and suffocating.
I am the only thing that moves. My heart beats against my ribs in a rhythm too quick to be comfortable. When I lift my hand, it cuts through the motionless air without resistance, leaving no wake or disturbance in the frozen atmosphere. Everything around me stays locked in place.
“At last.”
The voice, not recognizable as male or female, doesn’t come from outside of me. It rises from somewhere within, unfamiliar yet somehowrightin a way that makes my bones ache. I don’t hear it through my ears, butfeelit through every fiberof my being.
I have never heard this voice before, yet it feels like coming home.
“It is time to listen now. You are ready to understand.”
I open my mouth to respond, but no sound comes out. Instead the question forms in my mind. “Who are you?”
“I am what has always been with you. What chose you before you could choose for yourself.”
The air around me shimmers, and suddenly I can see it. Threads of blue-white light running through everything. Through the frozen debris, each fragment connected by gossamer strands that pulse with their own inner light. Through Sacha’s suspended form, the light mapping every line of his body, every shadow he casts, every breath trapped in his lungs. Through the very stones of this cavern beneath Blackvault, walls that reveal themselves to be alive with energy, networks of power running through stone.
All of it is connected by filaments of energy that pulse with quiet purpose, a vast web of connection invisible to the eye, binding everything together with a pure blue light.
“The crystal.”
“Yes. And no.” The presence grows stronger, more defined. “I am what the crystal became when it touched your infant mind. What itchoseto become rather than what the Authority demanded. Let me show you.”
An image fills my mind of a small child strapped down in this very cavern, thin wrists raw from struggling against the metal restraints. Shock rushes through me as I recognize myself.Two years old, barely able to speak, but already sensing the wrongness in what is going on around me. Authority figures in crimson robes move, their faces hidden beneath deep hoods. Their movements are careful, deliberate,rehearsed, the actions of people who have done this many times before.
“Hold her still,” one commands, voice sharp with impatience, and worse, anticipation.
I’m crying in great, gulping sobs that echo off the walls and return to me distorted and multiplied, until the cavern is full with the sound of my terror. My voice is so small, so helpless.
“Mama? Want mama!”
But there’s no one coming. There isn’t anyone who is going to save me. Just the cold stone beneath my back, and the blue crystal being lowered toward my face, full of power that makes my skin crawl before it even touches me.
“Fill the vessel,” another voice orders.
“They wanted to use you as a vessel for the power they took from others. Their plan to discard you when your body could no longer contain what they forced into it, the same way they had done to so many others before you.” The voice is gentle, a jarring contrast to the horror I’m witnessing.
The crystal touches my forehead and agony explodes through my tiny body. Power crashes into me,forcedinside me. Foreign magic that tears through veins too small to contain it, burning paths through a system that wasn’t born for this. The stolen magic of murdered Veinbloods pours into me, all at once, far too much for such a small body to hold.
I scream until I can’t anymore, until blood coats my throat, until the sound becomes something inhuman echoing off the walls.
But then something changes. The influx of power hesitates, the crystal’s light faltering for a second, and its focus turns to something metal wrapped around the child’s wrist.
A silver bracelet, glowing faintly.
The crystal’s consciousness, dormant for so long under the Authority’s corruption, stirs to wakefulness, drawn to the metal’s glow. The bracelet carries memories the crystal can sense.
New images flood my mind.
