Chapter 4. Veilgrove

The raven’s single word—Veilgrove—still rang in my bones when the escort arrived.

It wasn’t just a place. It was a name that hummed in my blood, a pulse echoing down some buried corridor of memory. Veilgrove. Seat of the Moon Court. Where judgment waited. Where the sacred and profane danced in shadows. Where secrets went to be sanctified—or buried.

The summons was not a request. It was destiny, pounding on the doors of my fractured past.

By midmorning, a small escort arrived—five guards in ceremonial armor, their eyes veiled, their blades polished to shine like starlight. Kael was not among them. That should have brought relief. It didn’t.

When I glanced back, he was on the parapet, watching us go. His hands were clasped behind his back, the pose of an Alpha in control—except for the way his thumb rubbed over the same spot on his wrist, over and over, like he was counting something he’d already lost.

They gave me a hooded cloak lined with dark velvet. It smelled of salt and pine and something older, like the dust of forgotten temples. I slipped it over my shoulders without a word.

Kael’s hand found the strap, loosening it where it had bitten into my shoulder. His knuckles brushed the curve of my collarbone—brief, unthinking—and the brand stirred, not in pain but in something warmer. His gaze caught mine for a breath too long before he stepped back.

The journey to Veilgrove began in silence. We rode sleek shadowmares bred for stamina, their hooves almost soundless on the worn road. The world beyond the fortress walls felt different—quieter, yes, but also aware.

We rode in silence until Mavienne muttered something about the wind favoring fools. “You talking about me or him?” I asked, jerking my chin at Elyan. He didn’t look up. “If it were about you, I’d have said ‘stubborn fools.’”

Three nights and two days passed.

We did not speak. We didn’t need to. The closer we came to Veilgrove, the louder my memories became.

On the third morning, as the fog rose like a veil being lifted, I saw it.

Veilgrove.

Built into the side of a silver-veined cliff, the Moon Court city rose in tiers of marble and obsidian. Spires twisted upward like reaching hands. Light refracted through hanging crystals suspended by moonsteel chains. The great gates shimmered with ancient wards that flickered as we approached, tasting our intent.

The city opened for us.

Citizens parted as we passed. Some bowed. Others turned away, whispering behind gloved hands. A child pointed at me. His mother pulled him back sharply and muttered something about omens.

I kept my eyes forward. My heart hammered, though my face remained unreadable. The brand beneath my cloak tugged behind my ribs in time with every footfall.

They took me directly to the Hall of Reflection.

The hall was vast, its ceiling a dome of ever-changing moon phases. The floor was mirrored glass, so that every step seemed taken across starlight. Thirteen thrones stood in a crescent at the far end, each occupied by a member of the Lunar Conclave.

But I only saw one.

Kael.

He stood at the foot of the thrones, cloaked in formal armor, a silver sash draped across his shoulder. His eyes found mine—and for a second, the weight of memory buckled me.

He had stood here before. Not as an Alpha. As my mate.

As my betrayer.

“Thessia of the Shadowfang,” a woman’s voice rang out, calm and resonant. She wore robes of starlight, her crown a simple circlet of bone and pearl. “You stand accused of fracturing the sacred bond and abandoning your station.”

I lifted my chin. “I don’t remember abandoning anything.”

“Then we will help you remember,” said another elder.

The floor beneath me shimmered.

Before I could speak, light engulfed me.

When it cleared, I was no longer in the hall.

I stood in a field of silver flowers, the air thick with the scent of jasmine and magic. This was a memory. Not a dream. Real. Anchored.

Kael stood beside me, younger, his hair tousled by wind, his mouth curved in a rare smile.

“We don’t have to tell them yet,” I heard myself say. “We can keep this for just a while longer.”

His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist as if to seal the promise. The touch was light, almost nothing—and yet the brand answered in a sudden rush of heat, so sharp I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from flinching.

“If they find out—”

“They will find out,” I interrupted. “And I don’t care. I choose you.”

The world shimmered.

We were in a temple now. Our hands intertwined. A blade between us. The ancient vow of mates spoken, not just in flesh, but in blood.

Then shadows fell.

Kael, arguing with someone—another Alpha? A priest? I couldn’t tell. Voices blurred. Words like exile, shame, consequences rang through.

And then I was running.

Not from fear.

From betrayal.

He had let them take me.

I snapped back to the Hall of Reflection with a gasp.

Across the hall, Kael’s grip on the edge of the dais tightened until the leather of his gloves creaked. For a moment, his eyes weren’t silver-gray—they were darker, storm-clouded, the way they had been the night he carried me away from blood and fire. He didn’t look at me like an Alpha looks at his Luna. He looked at me like a man who has been waiting years for this exact wound to open, because it was the only way I’d see him bleed.

Kael hadn’t moved. His face was unreadable.

The first time he had kept the truth from me, it was to keep me alive. This time, I wasn’t sure if it was to keep himself standing.

“The bond was real,” I said. “And you broke it.”

The conclave murmured.

“It was not broken,” one of them corrected gently. “It was sealed.”

From the shadows beside the dais, a masked Seer finally spoke, voice mild and merciless. “The sanction for unregistered mate-bonds is death by silver.”

“Why?”

Kael’s voice was low. “Because they would have killed you.”

“You let them erase me.”

He stepped forward. “I saved you.”

“You buried me.”

The chamber rang with silence.

Finally, the elder woman in starlight robes stood.

“There will be no punishment,” she declared. “But there will be a price. The bond must be tested.”

“Tested?” I echoed.

“Through the Rite of Thorns. At moonrise.”

Kael closed his eyes briefly. His shoulders tensed.

I looked at him. “What is the Rite?”

“Pain,” he said. “And truth.”

“And the First Luna?” I asked before they could dismiss me. The elder in starlight robes stilled, the silver threads in her crown catching the moonlight. “When she moves, she does not walk toward her prey,” she said. “She walks toward her claim.”

That night, they led us into the Spiral Garden—a sacred grove hidden deep beneath Veilgrove, where moonlight dripped like water through roots older than memory.

The Rite began at moonrise.

They bound our wrists in silver thread.

Kael glanced down at it, then at me. “Still time to run,” he murmured. I arched a brow. “You first.” The corner of his mouth betrayed the ghost of a smile before the Seers yanked the knot tight.

Magic coursed through it—raw, unforgiving. We were to speak no lies. To feel what the other felt. To shed what could no longer be hidden.

The first question came like a blade.

“Do you still love him?”

I looked at Kael. Saw the storm behind his calm.

“Yes,” I said.

Pain flared through the thread. His. Not mine.

The pain wasn’t clean. It came jagged, dragging shards of memory with it. Kael’s hand in mine under a winter moon, his voice—hoarse, desperate—telling me to run. Another flash: his face turned away as silver chains closed around my wrists. I didn’t want to see it, but the Rite forced it into me until my teeth ached. Across the thread, his breath broke on my name, not as Alpha, but as a man too close to breaking. The sound hurt worse than the silver.

Then:

“Do you still love her?”

Kael did not speak.

The thread bled.

“Why did you let them take me?”

“Because I was weak,” he said. “And they promised you would live.”

His silence after that told me everything.

The magic turned molten. The pain became unbearable.

But still I stood.

Still, we stood.

Then came the final whisper from the roots beneath us:

“Do you still choose each other?”

I did not speak.

Kael did.

“Yes.”

The thread caught fire.

Heat snapped through the silver. His thumb found the inside of my wrist—accident, reflex—and pressed where my pulse kicked. The echo thudded through both of us, not pain this time but recognition. He let go as if the feeling might be seen.

And turned to ash.

We collapsed, not from pain, but from the weight of truth. Feeling crept back into my hands as needles—magic settling its price, one pinprick at a time.

In the silence that followed, the Seers stepped forward.

“The bond lives,” they said.

But so does the wound.

Kael’s wrists were still marked, silver burns curling like script around the bones.

He flexed his hands once, twice, as if testing the shape of them.

“You didn’t look away,” he said, voice low.

“I wanted to.”

“But you didn’t.”

I stepped closer until the frayed ends of the bond still humming between us brushed the edge of my breath. “Why do you still keep pieces from me, Kael?”

His jaw tightened, but he didn’t meet my gaze. “Because some truths don’t save — they burn.”

“So let them burn.”

He looked at me then, eyes storm-dark. For a moment, I thought he might give me one. Just one.

Instead, he turned away.

The seam between us held — stretched thin, but unbroken.

The New Moon inclined her head. “Understand this: the Rite measures truth, not law. Without Conclave seal, your joining remains unsanctioned. Further judgment will be required.”

The Rite was complete.

But the war was just beginning.

And somewhere deep beneath Veilgrove, something had awakened.

A dark pulse echoed in my blood.

The Vesper Court had felt my presence.

And they were moving.