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 Four: The Weight of Silence
Year 7 – Five Months After Mira
The castle had stopped looking for Mira.
Not officially. There had never been an official search. She was a serving girl, not a noble. No one had sent riders to the neighboring villages. No one had posted notices on the gates. No one had done anything except shrug and say "gone" and move on with their lives.
Liora had counted on this.
But she had not counted on Finn.
Not because he was a threat—he wasn't, not anymore. She had neutralized him with bread and kindness, the same way she had neutralized Mira before the stone. He was hers now. He would not speak against her. He would not even think against her.
But he remembered.
She could see it in his eyes sometimes. A flicker. A shadow. A moment when he looked at her and something else looked back—something older than his six years, something that had seen Mira's face in a dream and had not yet learned to look away.
He will forget, she told herself. They always forget.
But she watched him closely.
Just in case.
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Finn – Five Months After Mira
The princess had started taking him to the garden.
Not the forgotten garden—a different one. A pretty garden near the great hall, full of roses and lavender and bees that droned lazily in the afternoon sun. She would sit on a stone bench and pat the space beside her, and he would sit, and they would talk.
Or rather, he would talk.
She asked questions. That was her gift. She asked about his day, his dreams, the other servants, the guards, the visitors to the castle. She asked like she cared. She asked like his answers mattered.
And Finn, hungry for attention, told her everything.
He told her about the cook who drank too much wine. The guard who fell asleep at his post. The visiting lord who had shouted at a handmaiden so loudly that the whole kitchen had heard.
He told her about the things people did when they thought no one was watching.
And she listened.
Always listened.
She's my friend, he thought. My only friend.
He didn't notice that she never told him anything about herself. That her answers were always vague, always soft, always sliding away from specifics like water off stone.
He didn't notice because he was six.
And because she was very, very good.
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Liora – The Same Afternoon
The cook drinks. The guard sleeps. The lord has a temper.
She filed each piece of information away in the growing catalog of secrets she kept hidden behind her smile. Knowledge was power. And power, she had learned, was the only thing that mattered.
The cook could be useful. A drunkard was easy to manipulate—a few bottles of wine in the right place at the right time, and she could make him see things that hadn't happened, forget things that had.
The guard could be useful too. A man who slept on duty was a man who could be bribed. Or threatened. Or framed.
The lord with the temper—that was interesting. A man who shouted at handmaidens was a man who had something to hide. Perhaps violence. Perhaps worse. She would watch him. Learn his weaknesses. Add his name to her list.
Everyone had a list in Liora's mind.
Useful.
Dangerous.
Disposable.
Finn was still in the useful column. But she could feel him drifting. Not toward danger—he was too thoroughly charmed for that. But toward weight. He was becoming attached. Attached meant expectations. Expectations meant demands.
She did not like demands.
She would need to remind him, gently, that she was the princess and he was nothing. Not cruelly. That would break the spell. But firmly. A canceled visit here. A forgotten promise there. Enough to make him grateful for her attention without expecting it.
She had learned this from watching her mother.
Queen Elara gave nothing and expected everything. Her children orbited her like desperate moons, hoping for a scrap of warmth that never came. They had spent their whole lives trying to earn her love.
Liora would not make that mistake.
She would give just enough.
And no more.
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Finn – Six Months After Mira
The princess stopped coming every day.
At first, he told himself it was an accident. She was busy. She was a princess, after all—she had duties, responsibilities, things to do that didn't involve sitting in the kitchen with a servant boy.
But then one day became two. Two became three. Three became a week.
He sat in his corner of the kitchen, watching the door, waiting for her smile.
She didn't come.
Did I do something wrong? he wondered. Did I say something? Did I upset her?
He replayed their last conversation in his mind. She had asked about the guards again. He had told her about the one who slept at his post—the fat one with the red nose, the one who smelled like ale even in the morning. She had nodded. Smiled. Thanked him.
Then she had left.
And not come back.
Maybe she's testing me, he thought. Maybe she wants to see if I'll come to her.
He considered going to her chamber. He knew where it was—everyone knew where the princess slept. But the door was always guarded, and the guards looked at him like he was vermin, and he was afraid.
So he waited.
And waited.
And the princess did not come.
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Liora – One Week Without Finn
She watched him from the window.
He was smaller than she remembered. Sadder. He sat in his corner of the kitchen with his knees drawn up to his chest, staring at the door, waiting for someone who was not coming.
Good, she thought.
The attachment was breaking. Not completely—it would take more than a week to undo months of careful conditioning. But the cracks were forming. Soon he would be desperate enough to do anything for her attention.
And then he would be truly useful.
She turned away from the window and began her evening prayers.
Not because she believed in the gods. She did not. The gods, if they existed, had never answered a single sacrifice. But prayer was part of the mask. The castle expected the princess to be pious. So she knelt. She clasped her hands. She murmured words that meant nothing.
"Bless this house. Bless this family. Bless those who serve us."
Her lips moved. Her eyes stayed open.
She was watching her reflection in the silver candleholder.
The girl in the metal looked back at her. Innocent. Sweet. Pure.
Liar, Liora thought.
And smiled.
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Finn – Ten Days Without the Princess
He broke.
Not dramatically. Not with tears or tantrums. He simply gave up. Stopped watching the door. Stopped hoping. Stopped believing that anyone would ever be kind to him again.
The cook gave him bread. He ate it without tasting it.
The other children ignored him. He ignored them back.
The nightmares returned.
Mira was in the forgotten garden again, but this time she wasn't crying. She was waiting. Standing very still with her arms at her sides, her face blank, her eyes fixed on something in the distance.
"He's coming," Mira said in the dream.
"Who?" Finn asked.
"The next one."
Finn woke up screaming.
No one came.
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Liora – Two Weeks Without Finn
She visited him on the fifteenth day.
He was sitting in his corner, smaller than she remembered, thinner than she remembered. His eyes were red. His hands were shaking.
She knelt in front of him and smiled.
"Hello, Finn."
He looked at her. For a moment—just a moment—she saw something in his face that she didn't recognize. Not fear. Not gratitude. Something harder.
Then it was gone.
"Hello, Princess," he said.
His voice was flat.
She filed that away.
Interesting.
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Finn – The Day the Princess Returned
She brought him bread.
He took it. He ate it. He said thank you.
But something had changed.
He didn't know what. He couldn't name it. But when she smiled at him, he didn't feel warm anymore. He felt cold. The same cold he had felt in the nightmares. The same cold that came just before Mira opened her mouth to speak.
She's my friend, he told himself.
But he didn't believe it.
Not anymore.
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Liora – The Same Evening
He's pulling away, she thought.
It was subtle. Almost imperceptible. But she had been reading people her whole life, and she knew the signs. The flat voice. The empty eyes. The way he had taken the bread without meeting her gaze.
He doesn't trust me anymore.
She should have been concerned. A witness who didn't trust her was a liability. A witness who had stopped believing in her kindness might start asking questions.
But she wasn't concerned.
She was fascinated.
Most people, when she withdrew her attention, came crawling back. They begged. They pleaded. They did anything to earn another scrap of her regard. That was the pattern. That was what she had come to expect.
But Finn was not crawling.
Finn was retreating.
He's stronger than I thought, she realized. Not physically. But something else. Something inside.
She would need to be careful with him.
Not because he was dangerous—he was still a six-year-old boy, still hungry, still alone. But because he was unpredictable. And unpredictable people could not be controlled.
She would give him space.
Let him think she had forgotten him.
And then, when he least expected it, she would remind him why he needed her.
That was the art of the mask.
Not constant pressure. Not endless attention.
Surprise.
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Finn – Three Weeks Without Mira (Seven Months After)
He had stopped counting the days since the princess's last visit.
She came sometimes. Not often. Just often enough to remind him that she existed. A piece of bread here. A soft word there. A smile that made his chest hurt because he wanted to believe it was real.
He didn't believe it.
But he wanted to.
That was the worst part. He wanted to believe her. He wanted to believe that someone in this cold, hungry, lonely castle cared about him. He wanted to believe that the princess was his friend.
Even though he knew—knew—that something was wrong.
He dreamed of Mira every night now.
Not the crying Mira. Not the waiting Mira.
A new Mira.
A Mira who stood in the forgotten garden with her arms crossed and her face hard, looking at him like she had never loved him at all.
"You chose bread over me," she said in the dream.
"I was hungry," he said.
"Everyone is hungry," she said. "That doesn't mean you have to eat poison."
He woke up with the word echoing in his skull.
Poison.
He didn't know what it meant.
But he was afraid.
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Liora – Eight Months After Mira
She had decided not to kill Finn.
Not because she was merciful. Mercy was a weakness she had never possessed. But because killing him would raise questions she didn't want to answer.
Two disappearances in less than a year. Both servants. Both connected to her.
No. The boy would live.
But he would live afraid.
She had seen it in his eyes during her last visit—the wariness, the suspicion, the desperate hope that he was wrong about her. He was not loyal. Not anymore. But he was not brave enough to act on his doubts.
She could work with that.
Fear was easier to manage than trust. Trust required maintenance—constant attention, constant kindness, constant vigilance. Fear required only reminders.
A look here. A cold word there. A visit that came too late, or ended too soon, or left him wondering what he had done wrong.
She would keep him off-balance.
Keep him guessing.
Keep him hers.
And when the day came that someone asked about Mira—if that day ever came—Finn would be too afraid to tell the truth.
Because he wouldn't know what the truth was anymore.
She had made sure of that.
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Finn – Nine Months After Mira
He didn't dream of Mira anymore.
He dreamed of the princess.
Not the smiling princess. Not the one who brought him bread and asked about his day. A different princess. A princess with eyes like weak tea and hands that never quite touched him, no matter how close she sat.
"Do you trust me?" she asked in the dream.
He wanted to say yes.
He wanted to say no.
He woke up with the word stuck in his throat.
No.
But he couldn't say it.
Not to her.
Not ever.
Because if he said it—if he admitted, even to himself, that he didn't trust the princess—then he would have to ask himself why.
And he was afraid of the answer.
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End of Chapter Four