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 Twenty-Two: The Web of Lies
Year 8 – Thirteen Months After the First Sacrifice
The castle had become a stage.
Every interaction was a performance. Every smile was a mask. Every word was carefully chosen, weighed, measured for its potential to wound or reveal.
Liora moved through this stage like a born actress.
She knew her lines. She knew her cues. She knew exactly how to tilt her head, widen her eyes, soften her voice to produce the desired effect.
The servants saw a sweet child.
The guards saw a harmless princess.
The nobles saw a political asset, nothing more.
And her family?
Her family saw what she wanted them to see.
Her mother saw a daughter who needed protection.
Her brothers saw a sister who needed patience.
Her father saw a child who needed nothing—because he saw nothing at all.
Only Darian saw differently.
And Darian, she had decided, was becoming a problem.
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Liora – The Assessment
She sat in her chamber, reviewing her situation.
Strengths:
· The mask. Impenetrable. No one suspected her.
· The dark. Growing stronger with each sacrifice.
· The cellar. Hidden. Safe. Hers.
· The victims. Invisible. Forgotten. No one was looking for them.
Weaknesses:
· Darian. He knew too much. He watched too closely.
· Finn. The kitchen boy. He had been watching her for years. He had seen things.
· Aldric. The page boy. He had given her the key. He was fragile. He might break.
Opportunities:
· The king's return. He had dismissed Darian's accusations. He was not a threat.
· The growing fear in the castle. People were afraid. Afraid people made mistakes.
· The hunger. It was driving her, pushing her, making her stronger.
Threats:
· Darian, again. He would not stop. He would keep gathering evidence.
· Time. The longer she waited, the more chances for mistakes.
· Herself. The hunger was becoming harder to control.
She closed her eyes.
I need to handle Darian, she thought.
Not kill him. Not yet. But distract him. Discredit him. Make him seem unreliable.
So that when he finally speaks, no one will listen.
She opened her eyes.
She had a plan.
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Darian – The Isolation
Darian had stopped speaking to his family.
Not openly—that would have been noticed, commented upon, questioned. But he had stopped sharing. He ate his meals in silence. He answered questions with monosyllables. He retreated to the library at every opportunity.
His mother noticed.
"Darian, what's wrong?"
"Nothing."
"You've been acting strangely for weeks. Are you ill?"
"I'm fine."
"You're not fine. You're pale. You're not eating. You're not sleeping."
Darian looked at his mother.
She doesn't believe me, he thought. She thinks I'm imagining things.
She thinks I'm going mad.
"I'm fine," he said again.
His mother sighed.
"If you won't talk to me, talk to someone. The priest. The physician. Anyone."
Darian nodded.
He did not talk to anyone.
He talked to Finn.
Finn was the only one who believed him.
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Finn – The Burden
Finn had become the keeper of the list.
Sixteen names.
Sixteen faces.
Sixteen souls.
He recited them to himself every night before bed, a dark litany that kept the nightmares at bay.
Orin. Greta. Corin. The man by the river. Marta. Roran. Varek. Elara. The boy. Sir Aldous. Lyssa. Bren. Mira the seamstress. Eldrin. Elara the servant. Gared.
Sixteen.
And more coming.
He could feel it.
The princess was not slowing down. She was accelerating. The hunger was driving her, pushing her, making her reckless.
She'll make a mistake, he thought.
She has to.
No one is that perfect.
But she was.
She had been perfect for sixteen kills.
Why would she stop now?
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Aldric – The Collapse
Aldric had stopped eating entirely.
He lay in his bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for death. The other pages had stopped checking on him. The steward had stopped assigning him duties. He was a ghost now, like the victims in the cellar.
Sixteen, he thought.
She's killed sixteen people.
And I helped her.
The guilt was a physical weight on his chest. He could barely breathe. He could barely think. All he could do was lie there and remember the key in his hand, the door in the cellar, the smile on the princess's face.
I should tell someone, he thought.
I should confess.
I should—
But he didn't.
He was too afraid.
Not of punishment. Punishment would be a relief. Of her. Of what she would do to him if he spoke. Of the smile on her face when she watched him break.
She's going to kill me, he thought.
Not today. Not tomorrow. But someday.
When I'm no longer useful.
When I've stopped being interesting.
When I've become a liability.
He closed his eyes.
He did not sleep.
He did not dream.
He just waited.
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Liora – The Seventeenth Victim
She chose a woman this time.
A weaver from the lower town. Her name was Sera. She was young, skilled, and alone. Her husband had died in the winter. Her children had been sent to live with relatives. She had no one.
She was perfect.
Liora approached her in her workshop, late at night, when the streets were empty.
"Sera?"
The weaver looked up. Her eyes were red from crying.
"Yes?"
"I need your help," Liora said. "My mother—the queen—she needs a new tapestry. Something special. Something no one else can make."
Sera frowned.
"The queen?"
"Yes. She asked me to find someone. Someone talented. Someone discreet."
Liora held up a silver coin.
"I'll pay you triple her usual rate."
Sera looked at the coin. Looked at the child. Looked at the coin again.
"Where is she?"
"In the castle. I can take you to her."
Sera hesitated.
Then she nodded.
"Let me get my loom."
Liora smiled.
Thank you, she thought.
You're so kind.
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Sera – The Cellar
The princess led her through the dark streets of the lower town.
Sera had lived in this town her whole life. She knew every alley, every courtyard, every hidden passage. But tonight, the streets felt wrong. The shadows seemed deeper than they should be. The silence seemed heavier than it should be.
It's just my imagination, she told herself.
I'm tired. I haven't been sleeping.
But her instincts—the ones that had kept her alive through thirty years of hard living—were screaming at her to turn back.
Something is wrong, they whispered.
Something is very wrong.
She looked at the princess.
She was walking ahead of her, small and pale, her white dress ghostly in the darkness. She seemed so innocent. So helpless.
She's just a child, Sera told herself.
She needs help.
That's all.
She ignored the screaming in her gut.
She kept walking.
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The Seventeenth Cellar
The door was old. Iron. Locked.
The princess produced a key.
"The queen's chambers are down here," she said. "Private entrance. No one knows about it."
Sera looked at the door. Looked at the princess. Looked at the key in her small, pale hand.
"After you," she said.
The princess shook her head.
"I'm not allowed. The queen would be angry. You go first. I'll follow."
Sera hesitated.
Then she took the key.
She opened the door.
She walked down the steps.
She did not walk back up.
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The Seventeenth Ritual
Liora waited only an hour.
Sera was young, but she was not a fighter. Her screams were desperate, not furious. Her pounding was frantic, not strong.
By the time Liora descended the stairs, the woman was already weeping.
"Please," Sera said. "I have children. They need me."
Liora set down her lantern.
She opened her book.
"Then you shouldn't have followed a stranger into a cellar."
"Please—"
She was faster.
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The Power – Seventeen
The fire in her veins burned brighter.
Seventeen sacrifices. Seventeen souls. Seventeen streams of darkness flowing into her, merging with her blood, becoming part of her.
She raised her hand.
The shadows answered.
They came faster now. More eagerly. They wrapped around her arms, her throat, her face. She could feel them inside her, in her lungs, in her stomach, in her mind.
More, they whispered. We need more.
Soon, she thought.
Soon.
She released the spell.
The shadows retreated.
She looked at the body.
A weaver. Young. Skilled. Dead.
No one is safe from me, she thought.
No one.
She smiled in the darkness.
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The Disposal
She burned Sera's body with the others.
The fire was hot. The smoke was thick. She worked quickly, efficiently, scattering the ashes before dawn.
No one saw her.
No one ever saw her.
She returned to her chamber as the sun rose, smelling of smoke and blood and darkness.
She washed her face.
She braided her hair.
She chose a white dress.
She practiced her smile.
Eyes wide. Innocence.
Mouth soft. Gentleness.
Head tilted. Curiosity.
Perfect, she thought.
She went down to breakfast.
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Darian – The Morning
Darian saw her at breakfast.
She was sitting with her family, eating porridge, smiling at her brothers. Her dress was white. Her hair was braided. Her face was soft and sweet and completely ordinary.
But Darian saw something else.
Something in her eyes.
A darkness.
Deeper than before. Hungrier than before.
She killed again, he thought.
Last night.
Someone else.
He looked at his father.
The king was eating eggs, reading a letter, oblivious.
He doesn't see, Darian thought.
He doesn't want to see.
No one wants to see.
He looked back at his sister.
She was watching him.
Smiling.
I know what you are, his eyes said.
I know you know, her eyes replied.
And I don't care.
He looked away.
He ate his breakfast.
He kept his mouth shut.
But he did not stop watching.
Neither did she.
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End of Chapter Twenty-Two