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By the time I hand the dagger back to Garrick, the cut on my hand is healed and the veil is whole again. Garrick cleans the blade on the edge of his cloak and slides it back into the sheath.
“What do you think’s causing it, my lord?”
I sigh. It’s not the first time he’s asked me that question since this whole thing began. But I tire of never having an answer for him, for myself.
“I don’t know.”
“Things have seemed better in recent weeks. Stronger.”
“Yes,” I agree, taking a step back, eyes still fixed on the veil. “They have been.”
“Can you account for the change?”
I can. Or I thought I could. But now I’m not so sure. The timing of Elora’s arrival fit perfectly with the realm seeming to heal itself. Not only has the veil held in all the time she’s been here, but the power thrumming through the land itself has felt stronger than it has in years.
There’s been a change in the Shadow Realm since she came to us, and I might have believed I was imagining it or seeing only what I wanted to see if others hadn’t been experiencing it too.
I know I’m not alone in sensing these changes. Kaia found me after breakfast to ask if I’d noticed any oddities with the realm in recent days. And Railan mentioned it over a glass of liquor in my sitting room last night.
If Elora’s mere presence in the realm no longer explains the effects we’ve all noticed, then how did she cross the veil in the first place if she wasn’t meant to? And what else could account for the unmistakable improvement these last weeks?
“Have you noticed any weaknesses to the west?” I gesture in front of us. “To the veil or maybe the ferry on the Loret?”
Garrick’s brows draw together, and he tilts his head. “No, my lord. The western border is the strongest it’s ever been.”
I look to my left. I found Elora kneeling by the River Axan, her hand hovering over the surface. I sensed her arrival in the realm immediately. It was a heavy hum on the air and the insistent beat of her heart in my chest.
I tap two fingers over my heart center where the dull but steady beat of hers still thrums. It has never left me in all this time. A feeling so normal to me now I hardly question it anymore.
Whatever it is, there’s something about the western border that allowed her to cross unimpeded. And if I can find out what it is, perhaps I can use it to repair the realm permanently. No more patching over the cracks and waiting until another leak springs.
“Thank you, Garrick. I’ll look forward to your evening report.”
Garrick inclines his head and disappears in a fog. Restoring his demi powers after death was a feat in and of itself, but worth it for all the help he’s been over the centuries.
Shifting to the west, I arrive on the Axan’s bank, not far from where Elora tried to cross when she attempted to escape. And now that I see it in the clear light of day, it’s not altogether far from where I found her either. The veil runs maybe twenty paces from the river’s edge, and I cross to it, pressing my hand against the shield.
As Garrick said, it’s at full strength. The power of it sighs up my arm and warms me through. I sense the thread of my power as clearly as I feel the breath leaving my lungs. But there’s something else too. Something that feels familiar yet foreign all at once.
I coax it forward with my power, attempting to draw it out, but it slips from my grasp and fades into the background. Over and over, a dance of energy, a whisper of power I don’t recognize. A power that might be nothing but definitely feels like something.
Leaving the veil, I pace back to the river bank. There was a boulder where I found Elora. Nearly as tall as she is and large enough for her to lie on if she’d had a mind to. It would have been safer than touching the black water.
Around the subtle bend in the river, the boulder comes into view, but something is different about it now. Where before it was nothing but a craggy piece of rock jutting out of the earth, now it’s covered on one side by vines. Thin tendrils of them crisscrossing up one side and down the other.
The vines snake across the ground toward the riverbank, stopping at the edge. Crouching down, I run my finger along the length of one, and it warms at my touch, curling toward me.
I stroke it again, and again it moves closer, stretching up to make contact with my skin. These vines weren’t here before. When I scooped Elora up from this spot, bloody and barely conscious, there was nothing but grass and rock.
Pushing to my feet, I look past the boulder and see more of the same. Following the trail of vines away from the river and through the trees, I reach a single tree with a thick trunk. Vines climb the bark like greedy fingers but stop abruptly a few feet from the ground. Right where someone stumbling might brace themselves with a hand.
My heartbeat quickens, and I continue following the weaving, winding path of the vines. The closer I come to the veil, the harder my heart pounds. I’m drawing conclusions I don’t like. But I have to be sure. I want to be wrong about this. I’m not sure what I’ll do if I’m not.
I feel it before I see it. The warm simmering of power on the air. The veil used to feel this way all the time. Warm, magnetic. Alive.
When I break through the last thick copse of trees, I stop short, blood pounding in my ears.
The vines travel up to the veil, reaching for it but not touching it. The veil isn’t just stronger here, it pulses. With energy, with light, with power. It’s been so long since I’ve seen it like this I’d forgotten it could.
