Veiled Innocence (Book One, The Soul Cycle) (18 page)

The imposter
stopped.
Its
face froze, as hard and cold as stone. “Do not address me so informally
, underling
.
I am a god
, someone above you.
I am not one of your playthings
to be used up and thrown aside like trash
.”

His eyes widened so far she could clearly see her reflection in them. Her eyes were not green – they were black.

As Ana’s had been the other night.

Gabriel didn’t seem to notice.
She didn’t remember what happened next. One moment,
Gabriel was there
,
and then she was
released from the cage
with a flash of white light
. A breath of ice cold air scraped her throat dry as it rushed into her lungs, and she collapsed onto her knees, her heart beating wildly as she tried to make sense of what had just happened. Her eyes watered like mad as sensation returned to her limbs, though she didn’t feel sorrow or any
other
emotion. Her mind felt
raw
, like someone else had been there, and her body felt alien to her.

Terror
, cold and terribly real, raked her every fiber.
The darkness of her
chambers
was suddenly unbearable. Shaking uncontrollably, she staggered to her feet, frantically scanning the darkness for black feathers and long claws. Whimpers bubbled out through her chattering teeth, and she bit her tongue so hard she tasted the metallic tang of blood.
Rubbing her hand along her eyes to clear her vision, she
blinked to
find she was alone. Gabriel was gone.
T
he guards
jostled
back to their posts, oblivious to what had ha
ppened. She gasped down another breath, trying to calm the shaking in her hands.

What was that? What kind of a monster am I becoming
?
And that voice…

A hard tremor shook her at the memory of the
thing
that had taken control of her, and she hugged herself, as if by doing so she could hold onto what little sanity she felt she had left.

And in the heavy silence of her
chambers
, all she could hear were the heartbroken sobs of her friend echoin
g in the empty valley of her mind
.
There wer
e no black bars, no unending darkness
.

The
voice
was gone, returned to its nest deep inside her. She
touched
her stomach with trembling fingers, catching the last few seconds of light
emanating from the facets
before the crystal faded back to normal.

She stared at it, but it did not glow again.

That white light… could it have been the crystal?
Did it somehow save me?

Whether it had been her savior or not, it frightened her deeply. But that wasn’t what terrified her the most.

Her gaze trailed
down
her arms and her hands, unable to erase the feelin
g
of being manipulated by a foreign presence.

And in that moment, she was more afraid of herself than she had ever been of anything else in her life.

Masque

THE NEXT DAY CAME
and went in a blur of color and sound.

Lian did not remember much of it. She felt numb inside; it was easier to not feel anything at all rather than face the horrific events of the day before. Even her teardrop had lost its luster, and it was as ordinary as any other crystal.

She had barely slept the night before, too afraid she’d find herself in that dark desert if she did. When exhaustion took over the next day and she lost her concentration, e
rratic thoughts
drunk on fear slipped through her mental barrier
. What had gotten into her? Was she out of her mind?
Was it the sickness making her hallucinate, or was there truly something living inside of her?
She never would have spoken to anyone, let alone Gabriel, that way.

She had known anger,
sure;
jealousy was
even an emotion familiar
to her.
Though she didn’t always succeed, she didn’t try to encourage on her darker emotions by brooding on them too much. S
he felt fairly in control of herself
most days
. But lately
it seemed her feelings were amplified, that the darker part of her soul she fought to restrain – to forget – was struggling to free itself, like an enraged, caged animal.
Her mood swings, the visions
… they had one thing in common.
It’s the crystal. It has to be, for nothing strange ever happened to me until the day it entered my life.
But how
is it doing this
? Why me?
Why is this happening?

Once or twice
she considered taking it off. Yet when she began lifting it above her head, something stopped her, compelling her to keep wearing it.

She vaguely remembered a man speaking to her inside her head the night before, like darkness given
a
voice. It was as if he had been controlling her, making her say and do things she normally would never have done. It frightened her far
more th
an the visions ever had. S
he
even
collected enough courage to search inside herself for the source of the evil, but it never surfaced. Other than her shell shock, she felt fine. The darkness was nowhere to be found.

The day was l
onely
since most of the servants were prepping for the ball
that evening, but that was fine
with
her
. It gave her more time to think about how she was going to attempt to a
pologize to Gabriel.

She was nowhe
re near ready to face him;
she woul
d rather be run over by a carriage.
Her stomach turned into knots the more she thought of it, to the point where she almost vomited. No longer able to dwell on it, she pushed it from her mind.

Minutes turned into hours, and soon there were only two hours left bef
ore the Engagement Ball. It
was
not only
a ball; it was a masque, where everyone in attendance was expected to wear a costume and to don their disguises at all times.

Guests had started arriving when Ursa let herself in to help
Lian
change into her costume gown. “Hello,” Ursa said brightly as she crossed the room to the wardrobe. If Lian had not witnessed her heartache in the garden, she never would have known anything was amiss with her friend. Ursa’s eyes were a dull brown rather than the rich hue of fresh soil, but otherwise
,
she seemed completely unfazed. 

The
ache
from last night stirred inside her as Lian watche
d Ursa, and her heart instantly picked up several paces.

No. No, not again.

The muscles in her stomach clenched as she fought to suppress the rising nausea.

“All this time she’s lied to you,”
the dark voice purred.

“No!”
Lian snarled inside her head.
“Ursa is my dearest friend. It doesn’t matter; we can sort it out.”

“But do you really want to?”

She paused. There was nothing she wouldn’t forgive Ursa for, and they had been in plenty of rows before. Though Gabriel was dear to her, he wasn’t worth the price of their friendship. Yet somewhere, locked away in the darkest, most forbidden part of her heart, there remained a stain of doubt and the sting o
f betraya
l. Part of her
didn’t
want to forgive Ursa.

The dark spirit pounced at her indecision. Her soul was suffocated, driven back to that black cage while it slipped into her body like it was shrugging on a familiar piece of clothing. Her soul gripped the bars; blood ran down her wrists from the cuts in her hands as she
looked
through the imposter’s eyes
and
watche
d Ursa move about, unsuspecting
.

Her soul drew breath to yell when a
black rope raced out of the dark fog, gagging her.
The binds from before returned and
latched
themselves around her wrists, waist, throat, and legs, forcing her to watch, mute and unable to stop whatever entity now
possessing
her body.

Ursa helped
her
out of her nightgown and into her leggings. They felt scratchy against her thighs.
She
snorted. “You really wore your nightgown all day? What’s gotten into you? You’re not feeling ill again, are you?”

The imposter
stared blankly ahead as Ursa slipped the layered shift over her head. “You might say that.”
The voice was cold and void of emotion.

Her soul chewed against the gag; it tasted like old dirt and dead flesh.

Ursa adjusted the skirt and began threading the ribbon through the back of the bodice. “Are you sure you’re all right? With the scare you gave us a few days ago…”

Her heart twisted.
Something about the fragile tone of Ursa’s voice tugged at
her
heart. In that moment, Ursa was her friend again, and the genuine worry Lian heard in her voice made her momentarily forge
t the pain Ursa had caused her. That’s how it had always been between them: love, forgive, and forget.

“I’m fine,”
the imposter
purred
.
“More than fine, actually. I am divine.”

Ursa paused in her threading. Lian imagined Ursa biting her lip, as she often did when she was trying to work up the courage to say what was on her mind.

“Don’t let your father or your sister pressure you into going to this ball,” Ursa said in a low voice, as if she was afraid Ana-Elise, or Feron himself, was listening. She never had much of a mind for defying authority. “I can send for a page, and I’m sure they would forgive you if they knew you truly were not feeling up to the occasion.”

Ursa gently placed her hand on Lian’s shoulder, and that one simple motion sent
her emotions hurtling back into a state of agony
.
The imposter
jerked her shoulder away as if Ursa had burned
it
.

“What is it? What’s wrong?” Ursa asked.

Lian caught her body’s reflection in the wall mirror. Her
eyes widened as she watched her
face flicker
with
shadows. “You know what’s wrong,” the imposter hissed.
“
How did he taste, Ursa? Like sunshine and spearmint? Because that’s what I tasted.”

The air tingled with an almost electric intensity as they stood there,
the imposter
with her back to Ursa, whose breathing was becoming increasingly erratic as her realization gave way to shock.

Slowly,
the imposter
turned to face her friend
, spinning smoothly like
it
was floating
. “I could
n’t care less if
my father or sister never forgive me for missing a
ball
.
” The last word was spit out like it tasted foul.
“
What I believe I am more concerned about is if
I
can ever forgive
you
so easily for betraying my trust.”

Ursa’s entire body seemed to tremble as she repeatedly shook her head, all the while never removing her eyes from
the imposter’s
.
It broke Lian’s heart, seeing her friend suffering while she was unable to stop it.

“How did you… I never meant…
I didn’t want to hurt you!”
Ursa shouted.

The imposter
licked its lips, as if savoring Ursa’s suffering.
“If you never meant to hurt me, you would have been honest with me from the start, like a best friend should be. You should have told me you were in love with him.”

“How could I? He was all you ever spoke of for so long! I knew it would break your heart, so I dared not tell you.”

“No, you wanted him all to yourself.”

“That’s not true!”

“Isn’t it though? Who could blame you, craving a man’s love when your father never gave it to you.”

Ursa paled in shock. “Lian…”

The imposter’s lips curled into a vicious smile. “You’re pathetic. I never had a father, and I turned out all right, didn’t I?”
It
walked around Ursa and raised
its
arms, as if daring her to say otherwise.