The Lines Beneath

The Citadel taught him to open himself to the storm. It never told him something was already inside, waiting.

THE LINES BENEATH
Book One of The Veilbound Trilogy

Elias has spent his whole life doing what the Citadel trained him to do: open himself to the storm, let it pass through him, and never ask what's on the other side.

Then something on the other side answers back.

It isn't supposed to be possible. Anchors channel the Veil - they don't feel it looking at them. But Elias does, and what looks back is old, and cold, and patient in a way nothing built by the Citadel has ever been. He starts seeing a symbol he's never been taught. Dreaming of a bell that isn't ringing yet. And the warden assigned to report on every twitch of his hands has just quietly decided not to write any of it down.

Corren was never supposed to care what happens to the person he's guarding. Somewhere between the chair and the chase, he did anyway.

What Elias and Corren find beneath the city isn't a monster. It's older roads than the ones the Citadel built, a scholar willing to falsify her own reports to protect them, a commander with more history in the lower streets than his uniform admits to, and a decision made years ago - quietly, reasonably, by people who thought they were doing their jobs - that's been costing lives ever since nobody was watching closely enough to notice.

The Citadel calls it containment.
The people living over it call it Tuesday.

Elias is done being anchored to either version of that story.

The Lines Beneath is a slow-burn, chase-turned-investigation fantasy for readers who want their found families a little bruised, their institutions a little guiltier than the villain they were expecting, and their quiet devotion to say everything by saying almost nothing at all.