Chapter 125: Screeching Screams
The Tower had never felt so cold. Stone arched high above them, casting long shadows that flickered with the torchlight clutched in Rohen’s hand. The night air buzzed with strange energy, thicker than tension, denser than dread. It felt alive and watchful.
Isla walked beside Damian, her body aching from everything it carried, grief, power, and the unborn life inside her that had begun to pulse stronger with each breath. She was changing. They both were and somewhere deep inside, she feared the child growing within her was changing too.
Lucia reached the staircase first, her dagger already drawn. “Whatever the Sombrosi wanted, they didn’t leave quietly.”
Brienne moved behind her, tense, alert. Her hand hovered near her belt where two slim throwing knives gleamed faintly. Her memories had returned in full force, and with them came an eerie stillness. She hadn’t spoken much since the firelit confession, but her gaze had darkened, matured with knowledge that refused to be buried again.
“They were working with someone,” Brienne murmured. “They weren’t alone.”
“Who?” Alaine asked. Her voice was sharp but controlled, matching the rigid line of her shoulders. Leo stood at her side, quiet for once, though the twitch of his fingers betrayed his readiness to strike at any moment.
Brienne looked at Isla. “The Veyra.”
A silence dropped like a blade.
“The Veyra?” Rohen echoed. “That’s impossible. They vanished after the Fall.”
“They were banished,” Brienne corrected. “But not destroyed. They’ve waited in the shadows for the bloodline to reawaken.” She turned toward Isla now, her expression hard. “You’re the bloodline.”
Isla blinked, shaken by the calm certainty in Brienne’s voice. “You’re saying… this baby, my baby, is what they’ve been waiting for?”
Brienne gave a single nod. “You carry the tether between light and void. The Veyra want the child because it’s more than just a fusion of power. It’s a keystone and if they get it, they can open the door to the Otherlands.”
Damian’s growl was low, guttural. “Then we burn the door shut.”
“But they’re already inside the walls,” Lucia said, her eyes narrowing. “And they’ve had help.”
“Vincent,” Isla whispered, and the name made the walls pulse colder.
Brienne exhaled slowly. “He’s not what he seems. He was never just a rogue. I remember now, his bloodline, the things we were told to forget. Vincent is Veyran-marked.”
Alaine cursed under her breath, unsheathing her blade. “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”
But Damian’s hand shot out. “Wait.”
All eyes turned to him. He stood at the edge of the narrow stairwell, the torchlight cutting sharp lines across his face. “If the Veyra are here and Vincent knows how to open the gateway, we’re not going in swinging blindly.”
His golden gaze settled on Isla, then on Brienne. “We need to understand exactly what he wants and what Isla’s connection to all this truly is.”
Brienne moved toward the window slit, the distant forest a blur of moonlight and frost. “I remember one more thing,” she said quietly. “The Veyra can’t take the child by force. It has to be given. Willingly.”
A fresh wave of cold swept through Isla’s chest. “What if they find a way to manipulate it out of me?”
“You won’t let them,” Damian said fiercely. “We won’t let them.”
The tower trembled. At first it was faint, just a murmur in the stone, but then came a long, aching groan. The magic pulsed from the floor upward like a heartbeat, sick and warping.
“Something’s wrong,” Rohen snapped. “They’re opening something. Now.”
“Where?” Leo demanded, already moving.
Lucia turned, her eyes flaring with the old fire that once made even Rohen yield. “The ruins beneath the crypts. It’s where the old stones whisper. That’s where they’ll try to summon the gate.”
Without another word, the group surged into motion.
Down the stairs, torches blazing, blades drawn. The fortress was waking, stone groaning with secrets buried too long. Wind howled through cracks like voices lost to time.
As they reached the final turn in the spiral stairwell, Damian caught Isla’s hand.
“We stay together,” he said.
Isla nodded, fire burning behind her ribs. “Together.”
They burst into the open courtyard, the ground shaking beneath their boots and from the eastern mouth of the fortress, the direction of the catacombs, rose a column of violet light.
Lucia stopped mid-step, eyes wide. “That’s not just the gate.”
“What is it?” Brienne asked.
Lucia’s lips parted. “It’s already begun.”
Then inhuman and echoing screams screeched. The sound of magic clashing with bone and blood. Black-robed figures emerged from the stonework like smoke, moving with serpentine grace. Sombrosi. But behind them came something worse, beings draped in shadow and silver, faces blank, eyes glowing with spectral gold.
“The Veyra,” Brienne breathed.
They all ran toward the gate and the war.
Toward the moment everything would break.