Veil by Dylan Farrow

Author:Dylan Farrow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

It takes a minute for the gravity of her words to sink in. It’s a little like freezing to death. The cold creeps slowly over my skin, then beneath each layer of tissue until I’m coiled completely in its grip.

Several uniformed officers and soldiers suddenly file into the general’s office, snapping my attention to the door. Within seconds, the room is full of people. They ignore me and my companions as they silently form a line and stand rigidly at attention in the presence of their commander.

“Thanks to the help of my grandson and these refugees,” General Ravod says, pausing to nod toward me and my friends, “you are cleared to proceed with Operation Havoc. Prepare your squadrons for the strike on Montane.”

“You … You lied? This whole time you were planning to … wipe us off the map entirely?” I interrupt.

The general’s gaze becomes taciturn once more. “Hardly. My goal has always been the defense of Gondal. You never asked how I planned to achieve it, and as a mere civilian refugee, it’s none of your concern. Your part in this is over.”

“None of her concern?” Mads exclaims, his outrage overwhelming his trepidation about the general. “You just casually announced your plan to eradicate an entire country! I’d say this is a big concern for all of us!”

“Our families are in Montane!” Fiona adds, tears filling her eyes. “They have nothing to do with High House!”

Their anger thaws the shock that’s settled over me, harkening back to the last time this happened—when I trusted someone in power and that trust proved misplaced. Once again, I have been used to further an agenda that is not my own.

“You can’t do this!” My shout pulls the attention of everyone in the room. “Innocent people will be killed needlessly! I didn’t give you the Book of Days so you could exterminate my people!”

“Your reasons are irrelevant,” the general says through her teeth. “Erik, please escort your little friends from the premises.”

“No!” I don’t wait for Ravod to react to his grandmother’s command. I turn to face her across the desk, slamming my hands down on its surface so hard that the sting of the impact travels all the way up to my shoulders.

Something shackled deep inside me breaks loose. Like an unanticipated storm erupting on a clear day, I am seized by gale force winds and deafening thunder that are the feelings and memories I have tried to keep tethered to my self-control.

I scream, “I’ve had it with people like you! No amount of authority gives you the right to destroy someone else’s life! It definitely doesn’t give you the right to pretend that you’re protecting people to justify massacring an entire country! Montane may be a blighted wasteland, but it’s my home! I won’t stand by and let you annihilate what’s left of it!”

There’s a small part of me that whispers something about using caution, but I can barely hear it in the maelstrom. The only thought that I can hear properly is that I must set this right.

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