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 Five: The First Lesson in Power
Year 8 – The Winter of Small Cruelties
Liora turned eight years old on a night when the castle froze.
Ice crawled up the windows. Frost killed the roses in the pretty garden. The servants huddled around kitchen fires and whispered about the cold, about the crops, about the hungry months ahead.
Liora did not care about any of this.
She cared about power.
And power, she had learned, was not given. It was taken. One piece at a time. One person at a time. One secret at a time.
Finn was no longer enough.
He was useful—a witness, a tool, a brick in the wall of her innocence. But he was also small. Limited. A six-year-old boy could only do so much.
She needed more.
More victims. More sacrifices. More souls to fuel the magic that would one day make her immortal.
She was not in a hurry. Immortality was a long game. But she was always watching. Always waiting. Always looking for the next opportunity.
The castle was full of them.
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The New Target
His name was Aldric.
Not the king—a different Aldric. A page boy, twelve years old, with straw-colored hair and a nervous laugh. He worked in the great hall, carrying messages, pouring wine, staying invisible.
Liora had noticed him because he was curious.
Not curious about her—not yet. Curious about everything else. He asked questions. Too many questions. About the castle, about the kingdom, about the way things worked.
The other servants called him nosy.
Liora called him useful.
A curious person was a person who noticed things. And a person who noticed things might eventually notice her. That was dangerous.
But a curious person could also be directed.
She could point his curiosity at the things she wanted him to see. Away from the things she wanted him to miss. She could make him her eyes and ears in parts of the castle she could not reach.
She began watching him.
Learning him.
The way she had learned Mira. The way she had learned Finn.
This one will take longer, she thought. He's older. Smarter. More cautious.
But caution was just another weakness.
It meant he would not trust easily. But it also meant that once he did trust her, that trust would be absolute.
She was willing to be patient.
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Finn – One Year After Mira
Finn had stopped expecting kindness.
The princess still visited. Sometimes. Rarely. Just often enough to remind him that she existed, that she remembered his name, that she could be warm if she chose to be.
But she didn't choose.
Not anymore.
He didn't understand why. He had tried to be good. He had answered her questions. He had kept her secrets—the small ones, the ones she had trusted him with. He had done everything she asked.
And still, she pulled away.
Maybe I'm not enough, he thought. Maybe no one is enough.
He was seven now. Almost eight. Old enough to understand that the world was not fair. Old enough to know that some people had power and some people did not.
The princess had power.
He did not.
That was the only explanation that made sense.
She had used him. For something. He didn't know what. And now she was done.
He should have been angry.
Instead, he was just tired.
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Liora – Approaching Aldric
She began with small things.
A smile in the hallway. A question about his day. A comment about the weather—neutral, forgettable, the kind of thing anyone might say to anyone.
Aldric responded politely. He was a page boy. It was his job to be polite.
But he did not smile back.
Cautious, she thought. Good.
She escalated slowly.
A piece of bread left on a windowsill where only he would find it. A kind word about his work to a senior servant. A small gift—a polished stone, a ribbon, nothing valuable—placed on the bench where he sat during his breaks.
He noticed.
He did not trust.
Better, she thought. This will be more satisfying.
The ones who trusted too easily were boring. Mira had trusted her within weeks. Finn had trusted her within months. They had been easy.
Aldric would be a challenge.
She looked forward to breaking him.
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Aldric – The First Sign
He found the bread on the windowsill three mornings in a row.
The first time, he thought it was an accident. Someone had left it behind. He ate it—hungry pages did not waste food—and thought nothing more.
The second time, he wondered.
The third time, he knew.
Someone was leaving bread for him.
He looked around. The hallway was empty. The windows faced the inner courtyard, where servants hurried past with their arms full of linens and firewood. No one was watching.
No one except—
He turned.
The princess was standing at the far end of the hallway.
She was small. Smaller than he had expected. Her white dress was spotless. Her dark hair was braided. Her face was soft and sweet and completely unremarkable.
She smiled at him.
He smiled back—because what else could he do? She was the princess. You smiled at the princess.
But something in his chest went cold.
He didn't know why.
He ate the bread anyway.
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Liora – Three Weeks Into the Hunt
He knows, she thought.
Not what she was. Not yet. But he knew something. He had felt it—the same way Finn had felt it, before she buried his suspicion under bread and kindness.
Aldric was older than Finn. More experienced. His suspicion was not a flicker. It was a wall.
She would need to climb it.
Not break it—breaking would leave scars. Scars were evidence. Evidence was dangerous.
She would climb.
Slowly. Carefully. One handhold at a time.
She began leaving things he needed. Not bread—that was too obvious now. But information. A warning about a guard who was in a bad mood. A tip about a visiting lord who was looking for a reliable page. Small things. Useful things.
Things that proved she was on his side.
She watched him struggle with the math.
Why is the princess helping me? he was asking himself. What does she want?
He would not find an answer. Not because there wasn't one—there was always an answer—but because the answer was too terrible to contemplate.
No one wanted to believe that evil wore a child's face.
No one wanted to believe that kindness was a weapon.
By the time Aldric understood, it would be too late.
It was always too late.
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Aldric – One Month
The princess had saved his position.
Not directly. Not obviously. But the warning she had given him—about the visiting lord who needed a reliable page—had been exactly right. Lord Harrow had been pleased with his service. Had praised him to the steward. Had mentioned his name in the great hall where the king could hear.
The steward had looked at Aldric differently after that.
Promising boy, he had said.
Aldric had never been called promising before.
He owed the princess.
He didn't like owing anyone. Owing gave them power over you. Owing made you vulnerable.
But he couldn't deny it. She had helped him. For no reason he could see. She had asked for nothing in return.
Maybe she's just kind, he thought.
He didn't believe it.
But he wanted to.
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Liora – The Same Evening
He's almost there, she thought.
The suspicion was fading. Not because she had convinced him she was innocent—she hadn't, not completely. But because he wanted to believe. He wanted the world to be simple. He wanted kindness to be real.
She would give him that.
For now.
She would be kind. Helpful. Generous. She would save his position again, and again, until he could not imagine his life without her interventions.
And then—
Then she would ask for something.
Not a sacrifice. Not yet. Something small. A message delivered. A secret kept. A favor that cost him nothing but proved his loyalty.
He would do it.
Because he owed her.
Because he trusted her.
Because he had forgotten—or convinced himself to forget—that he had ever been afraid.
That was the art of the mask.
Not hiding the monster.
Making people want to look away.
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Finn – Eighteen Months After Mira
He saw the princess talking to Aldric.
They were in the great hall, standing near the fireplace. The princess was smiling. Aldric was smiling back. They looked like friends.
Finn's stomach turned.
He didn't know why. Aldric was a page boy, same as Finn would be someday if he lived long enough. The princess was allowed to talk to whoever she wanted.
But something about the way she was looking at Aldric—
The same way she used to look at me, he realized.
Before.
When she was still pretending.
He wanted to warn Aldric. He wanted to run across the great hall and grab his arm and say "don't trust her, don't eat her bread, don't believe her smile."
But he didn't.
Because he was afraid.
Not of the princess—not anymore. He was past fear. He was past hope. He was past everything except the dull, heavy certainty that nothing he did would matter.
If he warned Aldric, Aldric wouldn't believe him.
No one ever believed the truth until it was too late.
Finn turned away.
He had his own bread to eat.
His own silence to keep.
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Aldric – Two Months
The princess asked him for a favor.
A small one. A message to deliver to the kitchen. Nothing illegal, nothing dangerous, nothing that would get him in trouble.
"I would do it myself," she said, tilting her head, widening her eyes, "but I'm not allowed in the kitchen after dark. My mother worries."
He delivered the message.
It took two minutes.
The next day, the princess thanked him. Publicly. Where other servants could hear.
"Aldric is so helpful," she said to the steward. "You're lucky to have him."
The steward looked at Aldric again. Nodded.
Aldric felt something warm in his chest.
Approval, he realized. She gave me approval.
He had never realized how hungry he was for it.
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Liora – That Night
He's mine, she thought.
Not completely. Not yet. But the hooks were in. He wanted her approval now. He would do things to earn it. Small things at first. Then larger things. Then things he never thought he would do.
She had seen it happen before.
With Mira. With Finn.
With everyone.
People were so predictable.
She turned to her mirror and practiced her smile.
Eyes wide. Innocence.
Mouth soft. Gentleness.
Head tilted. Curiosity.
Perfect, she thought.
The girl in the mirror smiled back.
She had no idea what was coming.
None of them did.
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End of Chapter Five