THE WHISPER OF THE VEIL

CHAPTER ONE — CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT SKIES

The rain in Alverine City didn’t fall so much as whisper.

It slid down glass towers and marble courtyards like secrets afraid of being overheard.

Inside a grand estate at the city’s edge, Taylors Tate sat by a window, her fingers tracing invisible lines against the glass. She was seven, small, and already learning that silence was safer than speech.

Her father, Lord Raymond Tate, believed in order—rigid, perfect order.

He measured respect in bowed heads and loved his reputation more than his wife.

At dinner, he spoke about investments and politics; her mother, Elora, smiled faintly but never finished her sentences.

Her voice, once the pride of the city’s theaters, now trembled whenever he looked her way.

Her cough came in whispers too, hidden behind lace handkerchiefs that bloomed with faint red stains.

Tays loved her mother fiercely but feared her father’s quiet power.

He had never raised his hand at her—but she had seen how silence could bruise just as deep.

When the world inside the house felt too sharp, she fled to the garden.

The garden was her mother’s rebellion—untamed, fragrant, defying her father’s obsession with control.

Tays would sit beneath the rose arch, watching the sky fade into evening. There, the world seemed kinder.

It was in that garden she first met Evans.

He came with his father—Lord Tate’s partner in business, a man just as commanding. Evans was older by two years, already confident, already curious in ways that made Tays uneasy.

He plucked one of her mother’s roses without asking and handed it to her.

 “You like pretty things,” he said with a grin.

Tays frowned. “You shouldn’t take them. They’re not yours.”

“Everything’s mine when I want it to be,” he said.

Her mother watched from the veranda and said nothing. Her father smiled approvingly.

That was the first time Tays learned that sometimes people applauded what felt wrong.

🌾 Across the mountains, another sky.

The kingdom of Astraea woke to birdsong and the smell of river dew.

Here, the wind carried laughter instead of orders, and the castle stood not as a fortress, but as a promise.

Prince Taj Tucker, son of King Caelum and Queen Mireya, was loved by all—from courtiers to stable boys.

He had the kind of charm that made people forgive his mischief and the kind of smile that made trouble worth following.

In the village of Verdance, just below the palace hill, people spoke of him fondly.

  “The prince walks like one of us,” said the baker.

“He greets every child,” said the midwife.

“He’s his mother’s heart and his father’s hope,” said the old blacksmith.

And they were right. Taj’s mother, Queen Mireya, had longed for a child through years of heartbreak. When he was born, she wept as if she had birthed sunlight itself.

But the years were unkind.

Her beauty dimmed with illness, and her laughter turned fragile.

On quiet days, she and Taj sat in the palace gardens beneath the white lilies.

 “Promise me, Taj,” she’d whisper, “no matter what happens, you’ll live with kindness. The world will try to take it from you—don’t let it.”

He nodded, too young to know how heavy such a promise would one day become.

Back in Alverine, Evans became a constant presence in Tays’ life.

By the time they turned twelve, he shadowed her everywhere—less a friend, more a watchman she never asked for.

Once, when a classmate handed her a book on astronomy, Evans snatched it away.

 “He shouldn’t be giving you things,” he muttered. “People talk.”

Tays crossed her arms. “Let them talk.”

He smirked. “Your father won’t like that.”

Her father didn’t like many things—her curiosity, her laughter, her growing beauty.

He called them distractions.

That night, she overheard him speaking to her mother through the wall:

 “The girl’s future is secured. Evans’ family will ensure it.”

And her mother’s faint, trembling reply:

“She’s just a child, Raymond.”

“She’s my legacy,” he said. “Not a child.”

Tays pressed her palms to her ears, but it didn’t stop the ache.

Meanwhile, in Astraea, Taj was also learning what it meant to be an heir.

His father’s patience thinned with each passing season.

The king began taking him to the council chambers, where ministers debated taxes and war routes.

Taj preferred the open fields and the laughter of his two friends: Ethan, the son of the palace guard, and Elena, the tutor’s daughter whose smile hid too many thoughts.

The three of them roamed freely—barefoot through the meadows, riding horses into the dusk.

In the village, they’d help children fly kites, race along the riverbank, and return late enough to earn mild scolding.

It was the kind of childhood the world rarely allows princes to have.

But even in joy, shadows gather quietly.

When Taj turned fourteen, his father began to see softness as weakness.

 “A king doesn’t need everyone’s love, Taj,” he told him one morning. “He needs their loyalty. Remember that.”

Taj looked away. “But love earns loyalty.”

“Love,” the king said, “is a poor soldier.”

From that day, Taj began to understand his father’s loneliness—and his own.

By fifteen, their worlds were both tightening.

In Alverine, Tays’ mother’s illness worsened. Her coughs grew harsher, her silences longer.

Lord Tate arranged more dinners with the Westons—Evans’ family.

Evans began referring to Tays as “mine” without shame.

Gina, her fiery friend, once snapped at him,

 “You talk like you own her.”

Evans’ smile was smooth as glass.

“One day, I will.”

That night, Tays hid in her mother’s garden again, tears sliding silently down her cheek.

From the window, Evans watched.

In Astraea, the Queen’s health too was fading.

The healers whispered of no cure.

On her fifteenth birthday, Taj kissed her hand and swore to bring her something rare and beautiful.

Ethan and Elena exchanged a glance but said nothing.

Later that evening, Ethan whispered, “There’s a gem said to heal any illness—deep within the forest. We could bring it to her, Taj.”

Elena’s voice trembled. “The forest kills, Ethan. You’ve heard the stories.”

Taj looked toward the dark line of trees beyond the fields, unaware that his next step would change everything.

Two hearts.

Two homes.

Two kinds of cages.

One bound by silence, the other by duty.

Each beneath a different sky,

both walking toward the same sorrow.

✨ Follow blastserial.com for new episodes