WHAT LIVES BENEATH THE VEIL
Book One: The Unblooded Lamb
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CONTENT WARNING: This series contains explicit sexual violence, human sacrifice, psychological torture, murder of innocent characters (including children and family members), ritualistic killing, and extreme horror. No character is safe. Read at your own risk.
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Chapter Ten: The Cracks Widen
Year 8 – Two Months After the Third Sacrifice
The winter had loosened its grip, but only slightly.
Snow still clung to the castle walls in dirty patches. Ice still crusted the fountain in the courtyard. The river still ran slow and gray, choked with half-frozen debris. The servants still whispered about the cold, about the crops, about the hungry months ahead.
But something else had changed.
Something in the air.
The castle felt watching now. Not in the way of guards and sentries and men with swords. Deeper than that. Older. The stones themselves seemed to hold their breath when Princess Liora passed. The shadows in the corridors seemed longer than they should be. The silence in the great hall seemed heavier.
No one spoke of it.
No one dared.
But everyone felt it.
And Liora?
Liora felt powerful.
Three sacrifices. Three souls fed to the darkness growing in her blood. She was stronger now than she had been a month ago. Faster. Sharper. Her senses had expanded—she could hear conversations from across the great hall, smell fear on a servant's skin, see the subtle shifts in posture that betrayed a lie.
The old texts had promised this.
With each sacrifice, the veil between you and the dark grows thinner. With each death, your senses sharpen. With each soul, you become more than human.
She was becoming more.
And soon—very soon—she would be ready for the next step.
Not the curse. Not yet. That required one hundred sacrifices, and she had only completed three.
But there were other rituals. Smaller ones. Ones that required only a single life, or a single death, or a single moment of focused will.
She had found them in the old texts.
She had been practicing.
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The Library – Midnight
The castle library was empty at this hour.
The scholars had gone to bed. The servants had finished their cleaning. The only light came from a single lantern, held by a small hand in a white dress.
Liora sat cross-legged on the floor, surrounded by books.
Not the pretty books on the main shelves—the ones bound in leather and stamped with gold, the ones that anyone could read. Those were performances. Meant to be seen. Meant to convince the world that the princess was educated, pious, normal.
The books she was reading now were hidden.
Behind a loose stone in the wall. Beneath a floorboard in the corner. In the spaces between spaces, where no one thought to look.
She had found them over the course of several months, following clues from one text to another, piecing together a picture of the world that the castle's priests would have burned her for possessing.
The Dark Communion.
The Rites of the Unspoken.
The Path of Eternal Flesh.
The titles were grandiose, almost comical. But the contents were real. She had tested them. Proven them. Three times now, she had followed the instructions in these pages, and three times, the power had come.
Tonight, she was not reading about sacrifice.
She was reading about control.
The dark is not a beast to be unleashed, one passage read. It is a current to be directed. A river to be channeled. A fire to be contained.
The fool lets the dark consume him.
The master consumes the dark.
Liora traced the words with her fingertip.
Master, she thought.
Yes.
That is what I will become.
She turned the page.
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Finn – The Same Night
Finn could not sleep.
The nightmares had returned, worse than before. Not Mira this time. Not the garden. Something newer. Something darker.
He dreamed of a cellar.
A dark place, underground, where the air was thick with the smell of blood and smoke and something else—something that made his stomach turn even in sleep.
He dreamed of a figure in white, standing over a body, holding a knife.
He dreamed of eyes the color of weak tea, watching him from the darkness.
"You see too much," the figure said in the dream. "You always have."
Finn woke up with a scream caught in his throat.
He was sweating. Shaking. His heart pounded so hard he could feel it in his teeth.
It's just a dream, he told himself.
Just a dream.
But he knew it wasn't.
The dreams had been right about Mira.
The dreams had been right about the cellar.
The dreams were always right.
He pulled his knees to his chest and waited for morning.
There was nothing else he could do.
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Aldric – The Same Night
Aldric was not sleeping either.
He lay in his narrow bed in the pages' dormitory, staring at the ceiling, listening to the breathing of the other boys. They slept soundly, peacefully, unaware of the darkness that lived in their midst.
He envied them.
He had not slept peacefully in weeks.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the cellar. The iron door. The key in the princess's hand.
What did she do down there? he asked himself, for the hundredth time.
What did she need that key for?
He had tried to convince himself it was nothing. A child's curiosity. A forbidden place. A secret adventure.
But the princess was not curious.
She was calculating.
He had seen it in her eyes. The way she looked at people—not as people, but as things. Tools to be used. Obstacles to be removed. Puzzles to be solved.
She's dangerous, he thought.
And I helped her.
The guilt was a physical weight in his chest. He had given her the key. He had kept her secret. He had made himself her accomplice, whether he meant to or not.
I have to do something, he thought.
I have to stop her.
But what could he do?
He was a page boy. She was a princess. He had no proof. No allies. No power.
All he had was a feeling.
And feelings, he had learned, meant nothing in a world that valued appearances above all else.
He closed his eyes.
He did not sleep.
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Liora – The Next Morning
She woke at dawn, as she always did.
The first thing she did was check her reflection. The silver mirror on her dressing table showed her the same face she had seen every morning for eight years. Pale skin. Dark hair. Eyes the color of weak tea.
But something was different now.
Something behind the eyes.
A light. A hunger. A darkness that had not been there before.
She studied it for a long moment.
Visible, she thought. To anyone who looks closely enough.
But no one looked closely.
No one ever looked closely.
She began her morning routine. Wash face. Braid hair. Choose a dress—white today, always white, because white was the color of innocence and purity and the mask she wore for the world.
She practiced her expressions while the handmaiden laced her bodice.
Eyes wide. Innocence.
Mouth soft. Gentleness.
Head tilted. Curiosity.
Perfect, she thought.
The handmaiden saw nothing unusual.
No one ever saw anything unusual.
She went down to breakfast.
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The Breakfast Table
Her family was already seated when she arrived.
Queen Elara at the head of the table, picking at a plate of fruit, her face drawn and tired. Prince Theron beside her, shoveling eggs into his mouth with the enthusiasm of a boy who had never known hunger. Prince Kael across from him, glowering at nothing, his fists clenched on the table. Prince Darian at the end, watching everyone with those quiet, observant eyes.
Liora took her seat.
"Good morning, Mother. Good morning, Theron. Good morning, Kael. Good morning, Darian."
Her voice was soft. Sweet. Forgettable.
Her mother nodded without looking up.
Theron grunted.
Kael ignored her.
Darian said, "Good morning, Liora."
He was the only one who ever responded.
She smiled at him. The soft smile. The innocent smile. The smile that had fooled everyone for eight years.
Darian smiled back.
But his eyes—his eyes—lingered on her face a moment too long.
He sees something, she thought.
Not what I am. Not yet. But something.
She filed that away.
Darian was observant. Darian was dangerous. Darian might need to be handled sooner than she had planned.
But not today.
Today, she would eat her porridge and smile at her family and pretend to be the sweet, simple princess they expected her to be.
The mask was heavy.
But she was used to the weight.
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Finn – The Kitchen
Finn worked in the kitchen now.
Not officially—he was too young, too small, too unimportant for an official position. But the cook had taken pity on him, given him scraps to eat and corners to sleep in and small tasks to perform in exchange for his keep.
Today, his task was peeling potatoes.
He sat on a three-legged stool in the corner of the kitchen, a knife in one hand and a potato in the other, working his way through a basket that never seemed to empty.
The other servants ignored him.
That was fine. He preferred being ignored. Being noticed meant being watched, and being watched meant being seen, and being seen meant—
He stopped the thought.
Don't think about her, he told himself.
Don't think about the cellar.
Don't think about Mira.
He peeled another potato.
The knife slipped.
He barely felt the cut.
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Liora – The Lower Town
She slipped out of the castle in the afternoon.
It was easy. The guards were used to her wandering—she had been doing it for years, ever since she was old enough to walk without a nursemaid. They saw a little girl in a white dress, exploring the world, doing no harm.
They did not see the darkness in her eyes.
They did not see the hunger in her smile.
They did not see the monster wearing a child's face.
The lower town was crowded today. Merchants shouted their wares. Children played in the muddy streets. Women haggled over bread and cheese and cuts of meat that were more bone than flesh.
Liora walked among them, invisible.
No one looked at her twice. She was just another child, just another face, just another ghost in a city full of ghosts.
But she was looking.
Always looking.
For the next victim.
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The Fourth Victim
She found him near the river.
A man, middle-aged, sitting on a broken crate, staring at the water. His clothes were ragged. His face was gaunt. His hands shook when he lifted them to his mouth.
He looked like a man who had given up.
Perfect, Liora thought.
She approached him slowly. Softly. The way she had approached all the others.
"Excuse me," she said.
He looked up. His eyes were red. His lips were cracked.
"What?"
"I need help," she said. "My cat is lost. She went into a cellar and she won't come out. I'm afraid to go alone."
He stared at her for a long moment.
"Why should I help you?"
"Because I'm the princess," she said. "And I can pay you."
She held up a silver coin.
The man's eyes widened.
Hunger, Liora thought. Such a useful thing.
She smiled.
He followed.
They always followed.
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The Fourth Cellar
The same cellar. The same door. The same key.
The man walked down the steps.
Liora closed the door.
The lock clicked.
"Princess?" the man called up. "I don't see any cat."
Liora did not answer.
"Princess?"
Silence.
She heard him moving down there. Footsteps on dirt. A curse. A thud.
"Let me out!"
She sat on the top step and waited.
Patience.
Always patience.
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The Fourth Ritual
She waited three hours this time.
The man was stronger than the others. Younger, despite his haggard face. His screams lasted longer. His pounding was louder. His begging was more desperate.
But in the end, he broke.
They always broke.
She descended the stairs with her lantern, her knife, her book. The man was curled against the far wall, weeping, praying to gods who would not answer.
"Please," he whispered. "I have a daughter. She's only six. She needs me."
"Then you shouldn't have followed a stranger into a cellar," Liora said.
She set down the lantern.
She opened the book.
"Please—"
She was faster.
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The Power
It came again.
Stronger than before. Thicker. More intoxicating. Liora felt it fill her, spread through her limbs, settle in her chest like a second heart.
Four, she thought.
Ninety-six to go.
She looked at the body.
She would need to dispose of it. Burn it. Scatter the ashes. Erase every trace.
But first—
She closed her eyes.
She reached for the darkness inside her.
And she pulled.
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The First Spell
It was small.
A flicker. A whisper. A shadow that moved when she willed it, crossing the cellar floor, climbing the wall, pooling in the corners like spilled ink.
She had read about this. Practiced for this. Hungered for this.
The dark is not a beast to be unleashed. It is a current to be directed.
She directed.
The shadow coiled around her hand, cold and alive, responding to her will.
I am the master, she thought.
Not the fool.
The master.
She opened her eyes.
The shadow vanished.
But she could still feel it. Waiting. Watching. Hungry.
Yes, she thought.
Yes.
She smiled in the darkness.
No one could see her.
No one ever saw her.
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End of Chapter Ten