WHAT LIVES BENEATH THE VEIL
Book One: The Unblooded Lamb
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CONTENT WARNING: This series contains explicit sexual violence, human sacrifice, psychological torture, murder of innocent characters (including children and family members), ritualistic killing, and extreme horror. No character is safe. Read at your own risk.
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Chapter Eight: The Weight of Secrets
Year 8 – One Week After the First Sacrifice
The castle did not change.
The servants still hurried through the halls. The guards still stood at their posts. The cooks still shouted in the kitchen. Life continued as it always had, indifferent to the darkness that now lived beneath the east wing.
Liora walked among them with her soft smile and her white dress and her eyes that saw everything.
No one looked at her differently.
No one suspected.
No one knew.
She had expected to feel different. Changed. Marked by what she had done. But the morning after the sacrifice, she had woken up feeling exactly the same as she always had.
Empty.
Hungry.
Waiting.
The power she had felt in the cellar was gone now. Not faded—gone. Used up. Consumed by the ritual. She would need more. Another sacrifice. Another life. Another soul to feed the magic that was slowly, quietly, taking root in her blood.
Ninety-nine more, she reminded herself.
Ninety-nine more until the curse.
Ninety-nine more until forever.
She could wait.
She had always been good at waiting.
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Aldric – One Week
He had not slept well since giving her the key.
The nightmares came every night. Not the cellar—he had never been in the cellar. Not the princess—she was still kind to him, still grateful, still warm.
But something.
A shadow at the edge of his vision. A sound in the dark. A feeling that he had done something wrong, something irreversible, something that could never be taken back.
It was just a key, he told himself.
She just wanted to explore.
She's just a child.
But the words felt hollow.
He had seen the way she looked at him sometimes. Not like a friend. Not like a princess looking at a servant.
Like a collector looking at a possession.
He tried to avoid her.
But she always found him.
A smile in the hallway. A kind word in passing. A reminder, gentle and unspoken, that he belonged to her now.
He had given her the key.
He had kept her secret.
He was hers.
And he didn't know how to escape.
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Finn – The Observation
Finn watched the princess the way a mouse watches a cat.
From a distance. In silence. Ready to run.
He had seen her talking to Aldric again. The page boy was different now—thinner, paler, more nervous. He jumped at loud noises. He looked over his shoulder when he walked through the castle.
He knows, Finn thought. Or he suspects. Or he's starting to.
He wanted to warn Aldric.
He wanted to say: Run. Before she sinks her hooks into you. Before you become like me—too scared to leave, too broken to fight.
But he didn't.
Because Aldric wouldn't believe him.
No one ever believed him.
So he watched.
And waited.
And hoped that Aldric would figure it out before it was too late.
He wouldn't.
They never did.
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Liora – The Next Target
She had chosen her second victim.
A woman this time. A beggar who lived in the lower town, in a hovel made of scrap wood and desperation. Her name was Greta. She was old—forty, maybe fifty, it was hard to tell through the dirt and the hunger and the hard years on her face.
No one would miss her.
No one even knew she existed.
Liora had found her during one of her walks through the town. She had been looking for someone invisible, someone forgotten, someone whose absence would leave no ripples.
Greta was perfect.
She approached her the same way she had approached Orin. Soft voice. Wide eyes. A story about a lost cat, a dark cellar, a reward for anyone who would help.
Greta hesitated.
"I'm the princess," Liora said. "I can pay you. I can give you food. I can help you."
Greta nodded.
She followed.
They always followed.
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Greta – The Walk
She didn't trust the child.
There was something wrong with her. Something in the eyes. Too old. Too cold. Too empty.
But she was hungry. She was cold. She had not eaten in three days, and the princess had promised her bread and silver and a warm place to sleep.
Just a cat, she told herself. Just a cellar. Just a few minutes of work.
She followed the child through the castle gates, past the guards who nodded and didn't ask questions.
She's the princess, Greta thought. She can't hurt me. She's just a child.
But the child's hand was small and cold when it reached back to guide her.
And the child's smile did not reach her eyes.
Turn back, a voice whispered in Greta's mind. Turn back now.
She didn't listen.
She never listened.
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Liora – The Second Cellar
The same cellar. The same door. The same key.
Greta walked down the steps.
Liora closed the door.
The lock clicked.
"Princess?" Greta called up the stairs. "I don't see any cat."
Liora did not answer.
"Princess?"
Silence.
She heard the woman moving down there. Footsteps. A curse. A gasp.
"Let me out!"
Liora sat on the top step and waited.
Patience.
Always patience.
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Greta – The Terror
She knew now.
Not what—she couldn't name it, couldn't understand it. But she knew that the child had brought her here to die.
Why? she thought, pounding on the door. Why would a child do this?
She had done nothing wrong. She had only wanted to help. A lost cat. A frightened girl. A few coins for her trouble.
"PLEASE!" she screamed. "SOMEONE HELP ME!"
No one came.
The darkness pressed against her.
The cold seeped into her bones.
And the child did not open the door.
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Liora – The Second Descent
She waited two hours this time.
Greta was older than Orin. Weaker. Her screams faded faster. Her pounding was softer. By the time Liora unlocked the door, the woman was curled against the wall, weeping, praying to gods who would not answer.
"Please," Greta whispered. "I have children. They're grown, they're gone, but they might come looking—"
"No, they won't," Liora said.
She set down her lantern.
She opened her book.
"No one will come looking for you. No one even knows your name."
Greta opened her mouth to scream.
Liora was faster.
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The Second Ritual
It was easier this time.
She knew the words now. Knew the cuts. Knew how much blood she needed and how to collect it and how to make the body stop twitching when the soul left.
The power came again.
Stronger this time. Thicker. It filled her like warm wine, spreading through her limbs, settling in her chest.
More, she thought.
I need more.
She looked at the body.
Two sacrifices. Ninety-eight to go.
She was making progress.
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Aldric – The Second Morning
He saw the princess at breakfast again.
She was smiling. Eating porridge. Talking to her mother about the weather.
But her dress was different.
Not white.
Blue.
He had never seen her wear blue before.
Why? he wondered. Why blue?
He didn't know. But something about the color made his stomach turn.
She's hiding something, he thought. She's hiding stains.
He looked away.
He did not want to know.
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Finn – The Same Morning
Finn saw the blue dress too.
He remembered the white dress. The one that had been too clean the morning after Mira disappeared. The one that had been washed in the middle of the night.
She's wearing blue because she can't get the blood out of white, he thought.
He didn't know how he knew.
He just knew.
He looked at the princess.
She was smiling at her brother Darian. Laughing at something he said. Looking for all the world like a normal eight-year-old girl.
Monster, Finn thought.
The word echoed in his skull.
Monster. Monster. Monster.
He ate his bread.
He kept his mouth shut.
He survived.
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Liora – The Aftermath
She burned Greta's body in the same place she had burned Orin's.
The fire was easier this time. She knew how much wood to use, how long to wait, how to scatter the ashes so no one would find them.
She smelled like smoke again.
She told everyone she had been near the kitchen fire.
No one questioned her.
No one ever questioned her.
She sat in her chamber that night and counted her victims.
Two.
Ninety-eight more until the curse.
Ninety-eight more until forever.
She looked at her reflection.
The girl in the mirror looked back.
Innocent. Sweet. Pure.
Liar, Liora thought.
She smiled.
The girl in the mirror smiled back.
And somewhere in the darkness beneath the castle, the cellar waited.
Hungry.
Patient.
Ready.
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End of Chapter Eight