Chapter Twelve: Sparks at the Threshold
The knock came again—two sharp raps, lighter this time. Familiar.
Veylen didn't need a vision to know who stood on the other side. Only one person knocked like they were drumming a beat they invented halfway through.
He exhaled, shaking off the last grip of the vision, and opened the door.
Zhada stood in the hallway, hands on her hips, grinning as if she hadn't just come from dragging a half-dead blood-singer across half the city.
Her copper-toned skin shimmered with sweat and a few blood smudges—not her own. Her braids were half undone, wild around her face, and her cloak looked like it had been in a wrestling match with fire and won on style points alone. She carried herself like she had nothing to prove and everything to offer.
"Well," she said, tilting her head. "You gonna invite me in or let me monologue dramatically from the hallway?"
Veylen gave the faintest smirk. "Since when do you wait for an invitation?"
She shoved past him without breaking stride, eyes already scanning the study.
"Fair point," she said. "But I'm trying to seem respectable today. First impressions and all. Didn't know if you were entertaining someone important—like a shadowy patron, or a half-formed ghost."
Veylen closed the door behind her with a tired sigh, but already, the room felt lighter.
Zhada had that effect—like a thunderclap clearing the fog.
She dropped a heavy, cloth-wrapped bundle onto a nearby chair and stretched, arching her back like a cat.
"Got you something," she added with a wink.
Veylen didn't answer. He just raised an eyebrow.
Zhada flopped into the armchair, legs slung over one arm, and gestured dramatically toward the cloth. "Open it. Don't worry, it's not ticking."
He peeled back the layers carefully.
Inside: the Red Choir woman, bound tightly in glowing bands of ember-strung sigilwire—Zhada's own elemental weave. The Choir member was unconscious, blood-streaked, her crimson robes torn but intact, and her lips sealed shut with a shimmer of flame-kissed binding rune. Even asleep, her presence was unnerving.
Zhada watched his expression closely.
"Caught her in the middle of a solo act," she said, tone light. "Blood was floating mid-air, this poor guy half-hypnotized against a wall. Creepy. Beautiful. Total nightmare fuel."
Veylen's jaw tightened.
"Did she say anything?" he asked.
"Nothing helpful. Just threats, posturing, something about blood harmony and 'the Mother returning.'" She twirled a braid around her finger. "Was hoping you'd do your necro-mojo and shake more out of her than I could. You always had a way with the quiet ones."
She grinned wider, then paused. Her gaze narrowed.
"You look like you've seen a ghost. Or twelve. What happened?"
Veylen didn't answer at first.
His eyes were still on the bound woman—but in his mind, the image burned bright: the sigil, the chanting, her eyes.
Zhada leaned forward now, casual grin replaced with something quieter—attentive.
"Vey," she said, her voice still warm, but lowered. "What is it?"
He looked at her, debating.
Then, slowly, he turned toward the desk. The page he'd drawn the sigil on was still blank to her eyes.
"I think I may have touched something I shouldn't have."
Zhada raised a brow. "Wouldn't be the first time."
He didn't laugh, but his lips curved slightly.
She stood up and wandered toward the desk, then leaned her hip against it, eyeing him sideways.
"Tell me what you saw."
He hesitated.
"I'm not sure it was a vision," he said. "It felt older than that. Deeper. Like it was already waiting for me."
Zhada crossed her arms. "And what's our policy on things that wait for you in the dark?"
"…Don't touch them."
She grinned. "Exactly. You touched it, didn't you?"
He sighed. "I drew it."
"That counts."
But the teasing faded as she looked at the page again, then at him.
"Was it her?" she asked softly. "The sigil-witch?"
He shook his head once. "No. Someone else. Worse."
The room fell still again.
Zhada, despite all her fire and jest, didn't mock that statement. She just nodded, slow, steady. The air shifted around her slightly, the warmth of her presence deepening into something more alert.
"Well," she said finally, straightening her posture. "You know me. If it's worse, I want in."
Veylen gave her a look.
Zhada smiled brightly. "Come on. It's me. I've been bored, and you know how I get when I'm bored."
He chuckled once, faintly.
She tossed him a wink, then glanced toward the bound Choir woman. "So. What now? You gonna open her up?"
"Later," he said. "I need answers first."
"Good. While you do that, I'll freshen up. Got Red Choir gunk under my nails."
She strolled out like she owned the place, calling over her shoulder, "Try not to summon any eldritch horrors while I'm gone!"
Veylen looked down at the blank page again.
The blood on his thumb had stopped, but he swore the candle still leaned toward the sigil he hadn't drawn.
Something had seen him.
And it remembered.
Veylen waited until Zhada's footsteps faded down the hall.
Then he turned to the bound Choir woman, still slumped and silent, the sigilwire gently glowing against her skin.
He knelt beside her with careful precision, studying the faint runes on her wrists. The flame-seal Zhada had placed was impressive, almost elegant. He could feel the tension beneath it—the raw heat of elemental magic laced with instinct. Sloppy, perhaps, but fierce. So like her.
He murmured a soft spell and touched a blood rune beneath the Choir woman's throat. The sigil pulse shimmered and parted like oil under a scalpel. Her mouth twitched.
"You're going to answer some questions," he said calmly.
Her eyelids fluttered. Her breathing changed.
And then it happened.
Her eyes rolled back until only white was visible. Her jaw slackened. Her lips peeled apart, too wide, too wrong.
Her tongue lolled forward—and twitched.
Then, it curled unnaturally, like a puppet pulled by thread, and a voice not her own slithered out from her throat.
"Really, Veylen."
He froze.
The voice echoed, but not loud—intimate, velvet-lined and scornful.
"You've taken one of mine. And I do find that… presumptuous."
The Choir woman's lips stretched grotesquely, bearing Sylith's signature smirk. Her head tilted, not like a living thing, but like something observing from a great distance—inhabiting.
"I gave her a simple task. A sweet solo. And instead, you intercept her like a jealous husband catching his wife whispering in another man's ear. How quaint."
Veylen stood slowly, not intimidated—but alert.
"You're speaking through her," he said.
"I am her voice. I am every voice in the Choir."
A soft laugh echoed beneath the surface.
"Our harmony is shared, you see. I hear what they hear. I sing when they breathe. Their blood… belongs to me."
Her tongue retracted, lips curling lazily as Sylith's tone grew silkier.
"You're playing conductor now, are you? I wonder… do you even know the melody you've stumbled into?"
Veylen stepped closer, eyeing the still-bound woman's body for strain. "If you're so in control, why not come yourself?"
"Why indeed." Her tone dipped lower. "But it's so much more delicious to watch you squirm in shadows. You, with your polished wards and careful rules. You, pretending you're not what you are."
The woman's neck flexed, vertebrae cracking with the unnatural movement. Her mouth hung open as Sylith continued.
Graveblood," she cooed, too familiar. "You've taken something that belongs to me."
Veylen's brow arched, but he didn't move. "That depends. Does a spider weep for every fly caught in someone else's web?"
A dry, amused hum fluttered from her mouth. "You've forgotten the old rules, Veylen. For every thread snapped, another must be spun. If you do not return her to me..."
The body tilted its head unnaturally, the neck creaking like tired wood. "...I may have to take one of yours in turn."
Veylen's fingers tightened at his side. He didn't blink.
Sylith's voice turned airy—almost giddy. "One of your precious girls, perhaps. One already fluttering in my silk. Mmm. I wonder how long before she realizes her wings are no longer her own."
His eyes flicked—just once. Wide. A tremor, brief as breath, passed through him.
But his mouth stayed calm. "Empty threats," he said coldly. "You wouldn't risk a war."
Sylith's voice lowered to a dark croon. "You mistake devotion for hesitation. Let her go, Veylen... or I will unravel her."
With that, the Choir woman's body shuddered once—then fell limp. Whatever thread Sylith held had been cut.
Veylen stood there silent. He turned to the window behind him and stared into the shadows, jaw locked, heart hammering beneath his practiced stillness.
He muttered calculations, predictions, curses under his breath for a few minutes.
Then he called…
"Zhada." He rushed out of the room to see her sharpening her bladed gauntlets by the door, eyes sharp and amused. "What's got your cloak in a knot now?"
"We're going to an outpost," he said, hurriedly.
"Why?"
He met her eyes—and this time, there was no banter in his tone.
"Thae's there. She's on a mission. And Sylith just implied... she may already be compromised."
Zhada stilled, her amusement hardening into resolve.
"Then what the hell are we waiting for?"