What Lies Beyond the Veil (Of Flesh & Bone, #1)(3)
No one could blame them for their urgency to escape the village of Mistfell; to get away from the magical boundary that separated us from them.
The Fae of Alfheimr.
Everyone who had any sense hated being so close to the Veil and what it represented. Crafted from the magic of the ancient witches who'd made the ultimate sacrifice to protect us from the nightmares beyond, it was like the thinnest of fabrics blowing in the wind, shimmering with the light of a thousand stars trapped within it. Somehow transparent, and yet not, the mist of the waters beyond provided us with the illusion of being alone in this world.
Even when we were very much not. Even when we'd never been alone.
Despite our fear of the Veil and the Fae beyond it, there was a part of the land of Faerie that drew us back here, the magic of the Primordial of Nature stretching through the soil itself. It compelled some of us to live in this hellhole of a village, where it snowed for over half the year and winter plunged the world into a darkness that seemed never-ending to those who craved the sunlight.
The gardens of Mistfell closest to the Veil yielded the lushest, most bountiful crops every year, with berries as big as my palm and vegetables massive enough to feed an entire family. This was the reason we braved the proximity to the Veil and the cursed magic of Faerie.
It was the richest soil in the land. The life of Alfheimr itself coursed through the earth beneath the Veil and bled into ours in such a way that the crops of the human realm could never compare. The Primordial of Nature was the one being from Alfheimr that we were thankful for, because she had taken soil and water and made the first humans, breathing life into the resulting clay form. She’d been our champion against the Fae, but even she was rumored to have treated us as errant pets, in the end.
The Veil shuddered and grumbled, thunder and lightning streaking through it, as so often happened with no explanation, as if the magic itself was made from storms. Yet it was not made of the sky, but of pure, unpredictable, wild magic. The shards of light that illuminated from within were quite possibly the most beautiful things I'd ever seen, causing the barrier to glimmer like spun moonlight.
The people who were forced to work in the King's Garden were the poorest of Mistfell and the neighboring villages; the ones who were the most expendable to Lord Byron. He needed our labor to supply the King with his favorite crops for winter, but that didn't mean he couldn't play favorites in the jobs he assigned to each of us.
This was how my brother and I had been assigned to harvest the twilight berries at the rear of the gardens. The bushes were furthest from the Veil and the magic anchored there, as well as closer to Mistfell Manor, for the Lord of the village to watch over me from the balcony of his library when he so desired. We were among the poorest families, people who should have been working against the Veil, suffering from the pervasive magic that tried to reach across the barrier. Our mother should have been at our sides, doing the backbreaking labor that she was unable to accomplish. No matter that she was all but crippled after her difficult pregnancy and delivery with me, and that the work itself would likely kill her.
Duty was duty, even in death.
Instead, she worked inside the manor, helping to preserve the produce that wouldn't be used before it could expire. But that kindness came at a price, and I swallowed when I thought of paying it later that night, when Lord Byron's soft, manicured hands would feed me twilight berries and other delicacies as the hard length of him pressed against me.
He couldn't take from me, not with our laws and the Gods’ demand for purity until marriage. Not without condemning us both to eternal suffering.
But that didn't mean he couldn't touch. It didn't mean he couldn't hurt.
As I fought the shudder in my limbs at the thought, the Mist Guard moved on, tormenting another harvester as he finally turned his attention away from me. I heaved a sigh of relief, drawing a small measure of comfort in the fact that I hadn't been whipped for moving too slowly. On the last day of the harvest, all of us were bone-tired and exhausted, ready to drop and sleep for a week. The end of the day couldn't come soon enough.
"Brann," I hissed at my brother under my breath as he shoved two of the twilight berries into his pocket. He was lucky they hadn't torn yet with all the times he’d stolen the fruits from the King's Garden, risking his hand for a few bites of the luxury he would have never tasted otherwise. "They'll catch you one of these days."
"Relax, baby sister," he said with a hushed laugh, seeming entirely unconcerned about the watchful eyes of the Mist Guard as they walked through the paths in the garden. "No one will notice two missing berries in the rush to complete the harvest."
"And yet that will not stop them from taking your hand if they catch you stealing," I snapped, irritated with his recklessness. He judged me for my propensity for going on midnight walks in the woods, yet he risked everything for a few bites of fruit. Not only would he lose his hand, but he would lose all the favor I'd curried for him over the years with Lord Byron. Favor that had come at a great expense to me personally.
Horrifyingly enough, no matter what the price might be, or how unimaginable it seemed in the nights when my body slicked with sweat and I couldn't sleep, for fear of what memories would haunt my dreams, working at the edge of the Veil was a far more terrifying prospect. I'd heard rumors of the plants that grew just before the shimmering curtain itself—that they were nearly as likely to eat you as you were them. If you survived those, there was the magic-induced sickness that stole the youth from a person's flesh and reduced them to little more than skin-covered bones.