Chapter 2 - SAINT VEYR
The forest north of the village had once been called the Green Mantle.
There was nothing green left.
Trees rose white and bare from black soil. Their bark had peeled away in strips years ago, revealing wood beneath that looked disturbingly like bone. Where roots broke the surface, small human teeth grew from the knots.
Lyra stopped noticing after the first mile.
Seren did not.
She kept her eyes down.
“You’ve been through here before?”
“No.”
“You know the way.”
“I dream it.”
Lyra looked sideways.
Seren sighed.
“Yes, I know how that sounds.”
“In Valek, dreams are usually trying to eat you.”
“These are worse.”
“What happens?”
“I wake up.”
Lyra almost smiled.
Good.
Seren had humor.
That made her harder to treat as a lie.
The Red Court followed at a distance.
They did not rush.
That worried Lyra.
Hunters who believed prey had nowhere else to go did not waste horses.
By dawn, the girls reached a ravine cut deep into the dead forest.
Across it stood Saint Veyr.
The monastery had been built into the opposite cliff, a gray complex of towers, bridges, and prayer halls hanging over empty space.
Once, pilgrims came to worship the first kings.
Now iron thorns covered the gate.
No birds flew over it.
No moss grew.
No demons nested nearby.
Even monsters avoided the place.
Seren stopped at the old bridge.
“This is where the dream ends.”
Lyra looked down.
The ravine contained fog.
No visible bottom.
“What happens if the bridge breaks?”
“We learn to fly.”
“You first.”
The bridge was stone, narrow, and carved with royal names.
Lyra recognized ancestors from history lessons.
Vale the Builder.
Queen Sera of Three Winters.
Orin Blackhand.
Mad King Ther.
Blessed Elian.
Many names had been chiseled out.
Near the center, Lyra saw two fresh carvings.
LYRA VALE.
SEREN VALE.
She stopped.
Seren nearly walked into her.
“What?”
Lyra pointed.
Seren stared.
The letters looked old.
Not newly cut.
Weathered.
Cracked.
As if they had been there for centuries.
“That’s impossible.”
“Yes.”
A whisper rose from the fog.
Not one voice.
Many.
Both names repeated.
Lyra drew the silver sword.
The symbols on it glowed.
The bridge shuddered.
From below, hands appeared over the edges.
Dozens.
Gray.
Thin.
Fingernails torn away.
Seren backed up.
Lyra stepped forward.
The first corpse dragged itself onto the bridge.
It wore a pilgrim robe fused to dried skin.
The face had no mouth.
Only one eye and a deep cut across the cheeks where a mouth should be.
Lyra cut it down.
Three more climbed up.
Then ten.
Seren drew a narrow dagger from her boot.
Lyra looked at it.
“That?”
“What?”
“You’re fighting ancient dead with a fruit knife?”
“It has sentimental value.”
They fought.
The bridge became chaos.
Mouthless pilgrims crawled up from both sides, grasping with cold hands. Lyra used the silver sword against them and discovered the blade did something her chipped steel could not.
When it cut one, the body stopped moving.
Completely.
No twitching.
No crawling severed hands.
No second form.
The old seal blade ended whatever bound them.
Seren fought badly.
Not uselessly.
She ducked, stabbed joints, kicked fingers from the bridge.
One corpse grabbed her hair and nearly dragged her over the edge. Lyra hacked through its forearm and caught Seren by the collar.
“Fruit knife.”
“Shut up.”
They reached the far side breathless.
The mouthless dead stopped at the final bridge marker.
They could not cross.
Lyra looked at the monastery gate.
“Why?”
Seren pointed to the carved lintel.
Two queens stood there in relief.
Each held half a crown.
Between them, a kneeling king.
Lyra stared.
“This is our family.”
“Older.”
The doors opened by themselves.
Of course.
Inside, Saint Veyr was colder than the dawn.
Dust covered the floors.
Prayer bells hung motionless.
At the center of the entry hall stood a stone basin filled with clear water.
Lyra had not seen water that clear in years.
She did not drink.
Good instinct.
A voice came from above.
“You took your time.”
Lyra looked up.
A woman sat on the rafters.
Not old.
Maybe thirty.
Black hair braided tightly.
One eye covered by a red cloth.
Leather armor under a gray monk’s robe.
A bow rested across her knees.
Lyra raised the silver sword.
The woman dropped lightly to the floor.
“Still aggressive.”
“Still alive.”
“Same family habit.”
Seren stared.
“You know us?”
The woman looked at her half-crown.
“I know the crown.”
“Name,” Lyra said.
“Maelin Voss.”
Lyra knew it.
Everyone did.
The King’s Blade.
Captain of the royal guard.
Officially executed ten years ago after refusing to swear loyalty to the Usurper.
Lyra’s childhood memory surfaced.
A tall woman lifting her onto a horse during the palace fall.
A voice saying, Do not look back.
“You’re dead,” Lyra whispered.
Maelin smiled.
“So is everyone important.”
Lyra’s sword lowered by one inch.
“Did you save me?”
“Yes.”
“Where were you after?”
“Busy not being caught.”
“That is a poor answer.”
“It kept me alive.”
Seren stepped closer.
“Did you know about me?”
Maelin’s smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
Lyra turned sharply.
The anger arrived so fast it made her vision pulse.
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“All these years?”
“Yes.”
Lyra struck her.
Maelin took the hit.
Did not raise a hand.
Lyra hit her again.
Seren grabbed Lyra’s arm.
“Stop.”
Lyra tore free.
“No.”
She looked at Maelin.
“My whole life was built on graves. My father dead. My mother dead. No family. No one.”
Maelin’s uncovered eye filled but remained steady.
“I know.”
“You knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because if the Usurper found both heirs before the seals were ready, Valek ended.”
Lyra laughed bitterly.
“Valek ended anyway.”
“No.”
Maelin pointed downward.
“Not yet.”
The monastery floor trembled.
The thing beneath the kingdom again.
Lyra’s rage sharpened into focus.
“What is under us?”
Maelin walked to the clear water basin.
She drew a knife across her own palm and let three drops fall into the water.
The surface turned black.
An image appeared.
Valek.
Not as a map.
As a body.
Mountain ranges formed ribs.
Rivers formed veins.
Cities sat like wounds.
The capital occupied the sternum.
Beneath everything curled a colossal golden shape.
Dragon?
No.
Too many limbs.
Too many eyes.
A spine wrapped around the entire kingdom.
“The First King did not found Valek,” Maelin said.
“He found this.”
The image shifted.
Ancient people kneeling around the creature.
A crown hammered from golden bone.
A royal bloodline binding itself to the prison.
“The Vales became jailers.”
Seren touched her fused crown.
“Two heirs.”
Maelin nodded.
“Always two when the seal weakens.”
Lyra looked at her.
“My mother had a sister?”
“No.”
“Then how—”
“Two vessels do not always mean siblings. Sometimes king and queen. Sometimes twins. Sometimes heir and chosen guardian.”
“Chosen by what?”
Maelin’s eye turned toward the black water.
“The prison.”
Lyra hated that.
“So Seren and I are what? Locks?”
“Half of one.”
The image changed again.
Queen Elara in the burning throne room.
Alive.
Wearing the full crown.
King Arcten beside her.
The Usurper approaching through smoke.
And between the royal couple, two small children.
Lyra.
A baby.
Seren.
Lyra’s heart stopped.
Her mother had held both of them.
Maelin continued.
“The Usurper came for the crown. Your father split it before he could take it. Elara bound one half to Seren and sent her below with the wardens.”
“And me?”
“I carried you out.”
“Why separate us?”
“Because together you could reseal the prison.”
Lyra frowned.
“That sounds like reason to keep us together.”
Maelin looked at her with grief.
“Together you could also open it completely.”
Silence.
Seren touched the metal fused to her skin.
“The Usurper tried to crown me.”
“Yes.”
“With her half?”
“Yes.”
Lyra’s hand went to her belt.
The broken crown piece felt suddenly much heavier.
“If he gets both…”
Maelin answered:
“He wakes the thing beneath Valek and binds it to the throne.”
Lyra looked at the silver sword.
“And this?”
“The Lockblade.”
“The guard dog was afraid of it.”
“It was pinned by it.”
“Who put it there?”
Maelin looked away.
That was enough.
“Who?”
“Your father.”
Again.
Always father.
Lyra felt old rage returning.
“Was he alive after the palace fell?”
Maelin said nothing.
Seren whispered:
“Lyra.”
“No.”
Lyra stepped closer to Maelin.
“When did he die?”
Maelin’s voice went low.
“Six years ago.”
Lyra stopped breathing.
Not eight.
Six.
That meant for two years after Lyra believed him dead, King Arcten Vale had been alive somewhere in Valek.
“And he never came for me.”
Maelin’s silence was a blade.
Then she said:
“He was trying to keep the prison closed.”
Lyra’s eyes burned.
“So everyone had something more important than telling me the truth.”
“No.”
“Sounds exactly like that.”
Maelin turned toward the inner doors.
“You want to hate him? Fine. But hate him accurately.”
She opened the doors.
Beyond lay a crypt hall.
At its center stood a stone sarcophagus.
KING ARCTEN VALE.
Lyra stared.
Maelin said:
“Ask him yourself.”
The lid moved.
May you like
From inside the tomb—
something knocked back.
