Chapter 64 Walking Through His Mind
Magnus
They used it once—on prisoners, on dissidents, on those taken from Arcanis when the Empire needed answers no one would willingly give.
They called it the Veilbreaker.
It did not ask permission. It did not wait for weakness. It forced its way into the mind, tearing through thought, memory, and will with precision. Those subjected to it did not forget the experience. Some lost the ability to think clearly afterward. Others stopped speaking altogether. A few never woke from it.
But the greater cost was never written in the official records.
Those who wielded the Veilbreaker did not remain unchanged. The mind was not meant to carry another’s thoughts, another’s memories, another’s fear. With each use, something fractured. Judgment blurred. Control slipped. Some began to lose the distinction between their own thoughts and those they had taken. A few turned on their own ranks. Most were quietly removed before the damage became visible.
And yet, despite the cost, it was effective.
Once the mind was opened, it did not fully close. A single moment of weakness was enough to leave it accessible—enough to return, enough to enter again without resistance.
The Veilbreaker did more than open the target’s mind. It created a bridge. The wielder’s mind became open as well, exposed to the same probing, the same danger, the same potential for fracture. One could take as much as one could hold, but the act was never without risk.
That was the part they never admitted.
The Veilbreaker did not simply break the mind.
It left both minds open.
After I uttered the incantation, the Veilbreaker formed. The sigil appeared on the rooftop’s stone floor, a spiral split in three jagged places.
Dark green etchings spread across the stone, curling from the edges toward the center, where Andreas and I stood. Thin green threads of power rose from the sigil and touched my fingertips.
At first glance, it seemed simple—a spiral. But the closer I looked, the more intricate it became: three runes etched along its curves, glowing green, pulsing in time with my heartbeat—the eye, the heart, and the knot, representing body, mind, and soul as one. Each rune unlocked fragments of forbidden knowledge, reaching into the deepest recesses of both our minds, able to manipulate memory and thought like a key turning in rusted metal.
The three runes of the spiral formed a triangle, its tip initially pointing at Andreas, ready to pierce the defenses he had built over decades.
If the triangle shifted, its tip pointing toward me, it would allow Andreas to access my mind as well. The Veilbreaker was not an ordinary spell—it was built to probe, test, and claim the contents of a mind, affecting both the subject and the wielder.
I didn't have much time.
I pressed my hand against Andreas’s forehead. The sigil flared brighter, the green light pulsing across the slab beneath us. The mist around the rooftop shivered, drawn into the spiral, acknowledging the connection.
“Do not fight me,” I murmured, though I knew he already was.
And that was fine.
The Veilbreaker was most effective when the mind resisted.
The first threads of his consciousness brushed mine. A spine of steel, impossible to bend. I pressed. The spiral drank. A shiver of power crawled up my arm.
"Break the Veil once, and it remembers you," Elyndra warned, her voice sharp, trying to sway me.
Let it remember. I did not care.
"Show me the boy," I commanded.
Then, I walked into Andreas's mind.
\---
Andreas
Cold. A cold with no wind, no shape, no mercy. He moved through the confines of my skull, each step precise, each footfall a hammer against my defenses.
“Magnus,” I forced out, my voice strangled by the invisible bonds, “stop this.”
He didn’t stop. He advanced, moving through my mind, surveying the doors I had locked decades ago, brushing against every barrier I had built.
Then, I felt it—the Veil tear. The fracture cut through my thoughts like shattered glass. Memories surged, flashing violently across my mind, moving past the walls and doors I had set in place.
No. No. No.
I slammed walls back up, brick and mortar of will, but he pressed past them. The laughter followed—low, cruel, echoing through my skull like it owned the space.
With every step he took, I felt the unbearable weight of being seen, stripped, exposed.
I had to resist. I had to fight back.
\----
Magnus
The first chamber of his mind opened before me, ordered and meticulous. Memories lined the walls like soldiers at attention.
I watched as doors and walls rose once more. Admirable—but no fortress could withstand me.
“Where is the boy?” I whispered, and the words slithered through the corridors of his mind. His memories quivered. He tried to reinforce doors, to raise walls against me, but the Veilbreaker was tipped in my favor. The green light around me confirmed it.
I flicked my hands. A door splintered. Another gate buckled. Locks shattered, walls crumbled, barriers dissolved as if they had never been. My gestures were enough; the magic did the rest. Resistance faltered, then broke.
Step by step, room by room, hallway by hallway, I pressed on. Each defense fell before me. The boy’s location awaited, and nothing—no effort, no strength, no will—could stop me from reaching it.
\----
Andreas
Pain. Not physical. I could endure that. This was different. It felt completely wrong.
He entered a memory of Helena handing bread to children in the Dust District years ago. Light slanted through the alleys, warm and bright.
“No,” I growled, fighting him with every ounce of focus I had. “Leave her at peace.”
But he didn’t stop. He pressed on, breaking through more of my defenses.
My mind weakened with every strike. The walls inside me flickered, and he slipped through another crack.
\----
Magnus
Ah. A tender spot. Helena. He had protected it with desperation, but now the memory had provided me direction.
I glided past it and moved forward, knowing I would find the boy.
And I was right.
Another memory surfaced.
Small hands clutching Andreas’s. A girl with green eyes and a bonnet, and a boy, light red hair, green eyes—naïve, trusting. Lio.
I let a smile creep across my face. “There you are.”
I traced the memories, watching how Andreas had cared for them over the years. Every small provision, every hidden meal, every scrap of clothing—he had kept them safe without alerting Elara or her Collectors.
“Stop!” he roared, throwing up a wall of will between us. The Veilbreaker shuddered under the force, the green light around me stuttering and flickering.
“Get out of him!” Elyndra’s voice screamed from somewhere beyond.
But she could do nothing. In here, there was only Andreas and me.
A new memory snapped into view. Andreas holding a teenage boy—the same red-haired boy I had glimpsed through Nyxara’s echo magic—inside a hidden tunnel. The space was not of Dust. White light reflected faintly off the walls, the ceiling streaked with grime and cobwebs, but the floor and arches were unmistakably marble beneath the dirt.
“Yes,” I whispered. “I have finally found Lio. Show me where he is hidden.”
At the end of the tunnel, the memory opened into a low, shadowed undercroft—an underground chamber of uncertain purpose. At its center stood a massive, abandoned kiln, wide and tall enough for a person to sleep inside, its stone blackened by years of disuse.
I saw him lay the boy on a mattress within the kiln. The boy had no evidence of the Black Shroud of Death that I had casted on him. He was breathing evenly, his cheeks and lips had color.
"Somnara," Andreas whispered. "You will only awake when Serafina utters your name."
Suddenly, the green light around me dimmed, flowing toward Andreas. The Veilbreaker had tipped in his favor.
His head snapped toward me, eyes blazing with fury. “Get out of my mind!” he screamed, his words echoing around me.
He lunged, grabbing my robes and punching me in the face. Hard enough to stagger me backward. He didn’t stop. Punch after punch landed, until the memory shifted beneath me, and I found myself standing in the Academy infirmary.
It was a memory—but not Andreas’s. It was mine.
The night was quiet. Most healers and nurses were gone or dozing.
I appeared beside the bedside of a student nursing her newborn son. A third year. Euphemia. Blonde hair like Helena’s, but blue eyes instead of green. Not as pretty, slightly larger, but willing.
I shouldn’t have touched her. But she gave herself willingly. And it bore a mistake—a bastard. My bastard child.
“Magnus,” Euphemia said once she saw me. “I didn’t expect to see you here so soon.”
“He looks like you,” I said softly. “What have you named him?”
“Cassian Ryven Mirelle,” she said proudly. “Why are you here? Your son and I are well.”
“I have come to take the child away as we had agreed, so you may continue with your studies,” I said. “Give me the child. He will be well taken care of.”
She shook her head. “No, Magnus,” she said. “I have changed my mind. I want you to wed me and make my son your legitimate heir so he may bear the Ironside name.”
“Euphemia, that is not what we discussed,” I said, gently. “You know I cannot wed you. I need someone of nobility by my side.”
“Someone like Helena?” she scoffed. “She can wed the Emperor if she wanted. Marry me, Magnus. Or I will tell everyone who the true father of my baby is and you will burn in scandal.”
I said nothing. Instead, I raised my hand and curled my fingers into a fist, stilling her breath.
When it was done, I took the baby from her limp hands and uttered, “Nullform.” Her body disappeared.
I hid Ryven in Spark. All was well—until Arclight threatened to take Ryven because I had not delivered the Valen boy.
“I did not know Cassian Ryven was your son, Magnus,” Andreas said.
I snarled. I knew he would use this knowledge as leverage.
Suddenly, a familiar male voice broke through the memory. “Stop this, Magnus,” he said.
The connection snapped. The hold I had on both Elyndra and Andreas faltered.
I gasped as I lifted my gaze, meeting a pair of light blue eyes, filled with shock and laced with disgust.
“Ryven!”