Page 261 of Of Masks and Fury

Trew shoved again with all his strength, amplified by the magic still surging through our bond.

Coralee fell backward, impacting with the breach.

The veil sucked her in eagerly. She’d soaked herself in bloodfire magic for decades, her entire essence steeped in dark power.

And the breach didn’t just take her, it devoured her.

Coralee’s scream cut off as she passed through the barrier. Her bird companion was yanked from the sky and hauled in along with her.

On the other side of the flimsy barrier, in that nightmare realm, Skathes swarmed them both. Thousands of them, drawn by power, magic, and her corrupted life force that burned so bright it shone like a star.

They fell on her like starving wolves.

The breach shuddered. Coralee’s magic and life force and everything she’d stolen and hoarded over the years poured into the veil all at once. Combined with the blood Addie and I had already given, it provided exactly what the weave still needed.

The corrupted threads began transforming rapidly, swampy green turning to silver and gold. The pattern that had been splayed and broken started coiling inward, tightening, weaving, healing.

But it needed guidance and direction.

I poured everything I had into it, using my veil-sight to see every thread and connection. I guided the pattern as it bound together. Trew’s power flowed through me still, amplified by Gavelle and Pherin, all four of us working as one to reshape this edge of reality.

The breach began to close. Slowly at first, the ragged edges pulled together like a wound finally allowed to heal. It went faster as momentum built, the spiral tightening inward as the fundamental weave of our world reasserted itself.

The breach contracted further. The Skathes on our side lost their coordination as the controlling influence that had directed them vanished with Coralee. They scattered, their movements wild and erratic.

The veil began pulling them back. Like a great inhale, the breach sucked the Skathes toward itself. They shrieked and scrambled, trying to resist, but one by one they were drawn through the rapidly shrinking gap and deposited back in their own realm.

I watched through teary eyes as hundreds of Skathes vanished into breach. Our companions stopped fighting, panting and bloodied, watching the creatures that had nearly killed us get dragged back to where they belonged.

The breach contracted to the size of a dragon, then a person, then a fist.

One last Skathe scrambled across the ground, trying desperately to remain in our world. But the veil gobbled it up and slammed the remaining hole shut with a clap like thunder.

Silence fell across the battlefield.

The breach had sealed. Smooth and whole, the weave showed no sign it had ever been torn. Silver and gold threads spiraled in a perfect pattern, stronger than it had been before the damage, reinforced by everything we’d poured into it.

I lifted my arm, finding it unmarked despite the blood I’d given. The veil had taken what it needed and returned me whole.

Addie sagged beside me, her body no longer flickering. The veil-sickness that had been eating her alive had vanished when the breach closed, her connection to the damaged weave finally severed.

“We did it,” she said with a shaky smile. Then her expression shifted. Her eyes went distant, before a touch of pain and dismay filled them. Her hand came up to her chest, pressing flat against her sternum. “Isi.” Her voice came out very quiet. “It’s gone. The veil… I can’t feel it anymore. The ability to travel. It’sgone.”

I took her hand. I didn’t know what to say. She’d given so much of herself into the weave that it must’ve burned the connection out entirely, like a wick consumed past the point of relighting.

She swallowed. Nodded once, the way she did when she was deciding not to fall apart yet.

“Good,” she said, though her eyes were bright with tears. “I never want to go back there anyway.”

Through our bond, I felt Trew’s overwhelming relief and love, Gavelle’s and Pherin’s fierce joy. We’d survived. Against impossible odds, we’d actually survived.

A blast of magic slammed into the ground between us, throwing up corrupted earth and making us scatter. I grabbed blades from their sheaths on my sides.

Lord Alfred stood at the edge of the now-empty ritual circle, his ceremonial robes torn and bloodstained. Fury twisted his face as power crackled between his fingers.

“You’ve ruined everything,” he snarled. “Years of planning, decades of preparation, destroyed.”

He rushed toward us, magic blasting from his hands in frantic bursts.