Beautiful Torture *Book Two of the Beautiful series*

22) The Veil

Another heavy pause. Lucy saw again the watching figure flash in and out of sight. She wanted to claw her way through the mists to her friend and lover waiting on the other side.

"It is true, she is in a delicate place. I can sense her soul is untethered, moving through Faion's realm. My brother, God of purgatory. It will be her own decision to join Venyres in the Underworld, or come back to the living."

Lucy could feel the wave of anxiety tinge the air. She wished she could see them. To comfort them, but she was so very afraid herself. The goddesses' words rang true. And now that she knew where she was, she was evermore frantic to get out. Purgatory. An in-between. It was said that lost souls who could not make up their mind roamed these mists into eternity. Never resting. Always alone, aside from the fears of life that plagued them.

"What is she feeling? Can you see into her mind, cat?" Alexander asked, sounding more tense now. Like he had been trying to be strong before, but this new reality was too much. It shook his foundation.

"No," Hunter responded forlornly. "I have been trying, but I see only white mist. I feel nothing but my own worry for her."

"That is Faion's vale. He will let no one from the outside influence her decision."

As though on cue, the mists thickened around Lucy, drowning their voices until she was completely alone once more. Alone with her thoughts. Her fears. And the decision that waited at the end of her path.

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Alexander sat next to Lucy's cot, holding her cold fingers in his warm ones. He drifted in and out of sleep–never fully awake or in slumber. Hunter sat in the corner chair, starting when the door next to him opened and Akeso came through, her face a serene mask that did not hint at a single emotion she might be feeling. Alexander wondered if the other gods had that ability, to hide it all.

She swooped past the Familiar to approach the bed side and rest a hand on Lucy's forehead. "Yes, should be any time now," she muttered, mostly to herself, and then reached for a greenish salve that she rubbed along the skin at the low neckline of the nightgown they had put Lucy into. It had a severe minty smell to it.

"Why did you decide to leave Celestia and the other gods behind?" Hunter blurted suddenly from his chair near the door.

The unexpected question fully roused Alexander from his fitful, in-between state which had felt like a purgatory of his own. He could only imagine what his woman was enduring. Rubbing his dark eyes, he blinked up at the goddess, waiting to see what she would say to a question that seemed deeply personal.

Akeso stiffened a fraction and her wide pupils flashed in the dim light. She grabbed a towel to wipe her fingers clean before releasing a gentle sigh. "I suppose I was not like them. I am not like them. I heal, they destroy. I fix, they ruin. I fix again, they kill. You get the picture." Despite the brewing anger and sadness in her voice, she smiled at the Familiar. "Would you believe that no mortal here has had the courage to ask me that before?"

They stared at each other, a look passing between them that Alexander recognized because he had shared so many with the girl who's hand he held tight in his fist. Suddenly, he felt like he was intruding on a deeply intimate moment, as though the two were sharing a first kiss from across the room. It provoked a sharp ache in him. He set his sights back on Lucy, brushing her sweat damp hair off her delicate brow. Her long lashes rested against the crown of her cheekbones and her lips were slightly parted, drawing in even breaths. His hand traveled lower to rest upon her stomach. He hoped they were okay. Both of them.

In spite of Akeso's harsh review of the gods, he closed his eyes and prayed. Take me, he pleaded. Spare them.

His prayers were answered with silence, but he felt Akeso's gaze flicker over to him before going back to Hunter. "Would you like to see the gardens with me? I need to harvest more Calendula, and the summer's bloom is quite beautiful."

"You manage to grow a garden way up here?" Hunter replied, genuinely awed from the sound of it.

Akeso nodded with an almost girlish eagerness, seeming pleased by his reaction. Hunter rose from his chair but paused before opening the door. "Will you be alright, Lizard?" The words were tight with sudden concern. But Xander only waved him off, clearing the lump that threatened his throat.

"All the better without you here to annoy me, cat."

He caught Hunter's small smirk before leaving the room with the goddess turned monk. When they were gone, he let his shoulders slump and reached his empty hand up to cup Lucy's with the one already holding it. "Please," he begged. "Please come back to me."

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Lucy felt the end drawing near like sand running through an hourglass she could not see. The white mist intermingled with the black, glassy, water surface beneath her. Images of her life thus far flashed across and within, richly layered. She saw herself as a baby fresh from the womb, wrapped tight in her mother's arms. But even then, so long ago at the beginning, she could see the shadow that loomed over her. It followed her as she grew from infant to toddler. Its presence was overwhelming on the night her mother transferred Alexander's Flame into her. But after the bright light and flood of pain she knew had filled her body, the shadow simply vanished.

Her brow crinkled as she searched the images that followed for any sign of the darkness. It was not there. Not even as she grew into a gangly girl of nine and the men who visited Granston House started watching her with hunger in their eyes.

On she walked, taking in the pictures that breezed by of her time spent with Victoria, playing in the gardens. Sneaking out at night to stare at the full moon. Older and older, she grew until she was a young woman. In one image she thought she saw a flash of the shadow. It was a memory of the day when she was fourteen and one of the garden boys made an advance on her. Nothing too malicious, but he had grabbed her wrist to try and stop her when she refused his offer, and it was then the darkness festered at the corner like ink smudging a page.

But in the next image it was gone again and she continued to admire her life unfolding before her. She smiled at times, seeing her old friend Rosalind and more days and nights spent with Victoria in relative happiness. The shadow did not return until the night she met Xander. There, it exploded across the image, wild like the emotions she had felt that first night. It spread out of control, eating it's way over the lantern light.

She watched it follow her closely after that, roaring to life whenever she felt a particularly strong feeling, be it lust for her dragon king or hate towards the people who wronged her. The Duke, the sea captain, the queen. It was a long list. In horror, she watched the darkness overtake her whole body the day they met her mother in the backwater town on their way from Kirth. She thought perhaps the black tendrils would suffocate her.

What does it mean? She wondered to herself as she continued to walk and study the memories. She was no longer focused on the man lingering in the corners of her vision, too fixated on the pictures of herself and Alexander making love under the stars, and because of it she slammed into him before she could look up.

She gasped, almost stumbling before he reached out to steady her. He was of ivory skin, tall and striking with raven hair that curled around his ears and swept over his forehead.

"Alexander?" She breathed, flooded with momentary relief, but she peered up at him through the smoking air and noted the one big difference in him. Instead of obsidian orbs she could recognize anywhere, she found her own shade of mint green staring back at her.

He smiled slightly. The hint of a graceful curve which mirrored Alexander's so closely she almost gasped again. "No, mother. But close."

Lucy was unsure if it was possible to faint in purgatory, but her body certainly tried. She swayed again, stumbling so hard that the ripples cascaded out all around them.

"Caspian," she whispered as he reached out to steady her.

His smile stretched wide.