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 Forty-Eight: The Fortieth
Year 12 – Eighty Months After the First Sacrifice
Forty sacrifices.
The number had weight. Significance. The old texts had made that clear.
At forty sacrifices, the body changes. Your skin will become pale as moonlight. Your eyes will become dark as shadow. Your hair will become black as the void between stars.
You will be beautiful.
Irresistible.
Deadly.
You will no longer be human.
Not entirely.
Rejoice.
Liora rejoiced.
She had been waiting for this moment for months. The fortieth sacrifice was special. Different from the others. It required a body that had been preserved, not burned. A body that had been kept in the darkness, fed by shadows, prepared for this moment.
Varek's body.
The arrogant merchant.
He had been lying in the cellar for weeks, covered in shadows, waiting.
Tonight, he would serve his final purpose.
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The Cellar – Midnight
Liora descended the stairs alone.
The whispers followed her. Thirty-nine souls, bound to her, serving her, hungry for the fortieth.
He is ready, they whispered. The shadows have prepared him. His flesh is preserved. His soul is waiting.
He is yours.
Take him.
Consume him.
Become.
She reached the bottom of the stairs.
The cellar was dark, but she could see. The dark was her home now. Her eyes had changed, adapted, become capable of seeing in pitch blackness.
Varek's body lay on the floor, exactly where she had left it.
His skin was pale. His eyes were closed. His chest did not rise and fall.
But he was not dead.
Not entirely.
The shadows had kept him in a state between life and death. A state of waiting. A state of readiness.
She knelt beside him.
She placed her hand on his chest.
"Wake up," she whispered.
His eyes opened.
They were black.
Empty.
Hers.
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The Ritual – Fortieth
She had prepared for this.
The old texts had given her instructions. Words to speak. Cuts to make. Blood to collect.
But there was something else.
Something the texts had only hinted at.
The fortieth sacrifice is different, they said. It requires more than blood. It requires... intimacy.
The dark must be invited in.
Not forced.
Invited.
Welcomed.
Embraced.
You must open yourself to it completely.
Body and soul.
Mind and heart.
There is no other way.
Liora understood.
She had been preparing for this for months.
She took off her dress.
She knelt beside Varek's body, naked, pale, beautiful.
She placed her hands on his chest.
She closed her eyes.
She opened herself to the dark.
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The Invitation
The dark came.
Not as a whisper this time. Not as a shadow.
As a presence.
Ancient. Hungry. Patient.
It had been waiting for this moment for centuries. Waiting for someone worthy. Someone strong enough to contain it. Someone willing to embrace it completely.
You are ready, it said.
Yes, she thought.
You are willing.
Yes.
You will be mine.
And I will be yours.
Forever.
Yes.
The dark entered her.
Not through her skin. Not through her mouth or her eyes or her ears.
Through her soul.
The place where she had been hollow.
The place where she had always been empty.
The dark filled her.
Completely.
Utterly.
Irrevocably.
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The Transformation
She screamed.
Not in pain—in ecstasy.
Her body arched. Her hands clenched. Her mouth opened.
The shadows poured into her.
They filled her lungs. Her stomach. Her blood.
She could feel herself changing.
Her skin growing paler.
Her hair growing darker.
Her eyes shifting from gray to something deeper, something that caught the light like pools of oil.
Beautiful, the dark whispered.
Yes, she thought.
More beautiful than anything.
More beautiful than anyone.
You are mine now.
Yes.
And I am yours.
Forever.
The dark withdrew.
She collapsed on the floor.
Breathing.
Shaking.
Changed.
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The Body
Varek's body was gone.
Not burned. Not drained. Consumed. The dark had taken everything. His flesh. His bones. His soul.
There was nothing left.
Not even ashes.
Liora stood up.
She looked at her hands.
They were pale. Translucent. Beautiful.
She looked at her reflection in a pool of water on the cellar floor.
Her eyes were black.
Not dark gray. Not deep brown.
Black.
Pure, endless, consuming black.
Beautiful, she thought.
I am beautiful.
I am powerful.
I am more.
She smiled.
The darkness smiled with her.
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The Return
She climbed the stairs.
She walked through the corridors.
The guards saw her. They did not recognize her. Not because her face had changed—it hadn't. But because something about her was different. Something wrong.
"Your Highness?" one of them asked.
"Yes?"
"Are you... all right?"
"I've never been better."
She walked past them.
They watched her go.
Their hands were shaking.
They did not know why.
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Her Chamber – Dawn
She stood before her mirror.
The girl who looked back was not a girl.
Not anymore.
She was something else.
Something more.
Something the world had never seen before.
Her skin was pale as moonlight.
Her hair was black as the void between stars.
Her eyes were dark as shadow.
She was beautiful.
Irresistible.
Deadly.
This is what I am now, she thought.
This is what I will always be.
She smiled.
The darkness smiled with her.
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Darian – The Forest
Darian and Finn had found the witch.
She lived in a cottage deep in the eastern forest, surrounded by herbs and candles and the smell of old magic.
She was old. Wrinkled. Bent.
But her eyes were sharp.
"You're the ones who've been asking about me," she said.
"Yes," Darian said.
"Come in."
They stepped inside.
The cottage was warm, lit by candles, smelling of sage and something darker.
"Sit," she said.
They sat.
"You want to know about the princess."
"Yes."
"What about her?"
"She's a monster. She's been killing people for years. Draining them. Changing them."
The witch nodded.
"I know."
"You know?"
"I've seen her. In my visions. The dark one. The one who wears a child's face."
"Can you help us?"
The witch was silent for a long moment.
Then she said, "I can try."
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The Witch – The Warning
"The princess is powerful," the witch said. "More powerful than you know. More powerful than I know."
"She's only twelve," Finn said.
"Age doesn't matter. The dark doesn't care about age. It only cares about hunger."
"She's been killing for years," Darian said. "We think she's killed forty people."
"Forty?"
"Yes."
The witch shook her head.
"Forty is a threshold. A transformation. She's not the same as she was before."
"What do you mean?"
"The dark changes things. Bodies. Minds. Souls. At forty, she will have become something new. Something not entirely human."
"Can we still stop her?"
The witch looked at them.
"I don't know."
"Try."
"I will."
She stood up.
She walked to a cabinet.
She took out a small pouch.
"Give her this," she said.
"What is it?"
"A poison. Not for the body. For the mind. It will make her... vulnerable. For a short time."
"Then what?"
"Then you kill her."
Darian took the pouch.
His hands were shaking.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me," the witch said. "Thank me if you survive."
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The Return
Darian and Finn walked back to the castle.
The pouch was heavy in Darian's pocket.
"What if it doesn't work?" Finn asked.
"Then we try something else."
"What if she finds out?"
"Then we die."
They walked in silence.
Two boys.
One desperate plan.
And a monster who was always watching.
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Liora – The Awareness
Liora knew.
The whispers had told her.
Darian has found the witch, they said. She gave him a poison. For your mind. To make you vulnerable.
He plans to use it on you.
He plans to kill you.
She smiled.
Let him try, she thought.
Let him bring his poison.
Let him bring his desperate, foolish hope.
It won't matter.
Nothing matters.
I am already more powerful than he can imagine.
I am already more powerful than anyone can imagine.
I am the dark.
The dark is me.
Forever.
She closed her book.
She looked at her reflection.
The girl in the mirror was gone.
Something else was looking back.
Something ancient.
Something hungry.
Let them come, she thought.
Let them all come.
I will devour them.
One by one.
Until nothing is left.
Until I am the only one.
Forever.
She smiled.
The darkness smiled with her.
And somewhere in the depths of the castle, in a cellar that no one visited and no one remembered, forty souls whispered her name.
Liora.
Liora.
Liora.
She heard them.
She always heard them.
They were hers now.
Forever.
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End of Chapter Forty-Eight