In the broken places of the world, where gods have turned blind and kings have fallen to dust, two shadows rise.
One carries vengeance.
One carries the weight of unseen worlds.
Their blades will carve the fate of Atherion.
---
The dream still clung to him.
A child's laughter.
The warmth of a forgotten hearth.
A hand in his, small and trusting—vanishing with the sound of her name: Irielle.
The smell of ink and fire. Caelith's laugh echoing in some far-off corridor. And the brief, fleeting moment when trust had been extended like a lifeline.
The Veilwalker stood at the temple's threshold, moonlight slanting through broken glass. The Harmonized Loop beneath his glove had long since dimmed, but its echo lingered. Caelith's voice drifted through his memory:
> "If you're going to keep walking into runes like that, I'm coming with you."
He allowed a rare smile to tug at the corner of his lips. She was relentless, bright—like lightning in human form. But he couldn't bring her where he was going. Not yet. The path ahead demanded solitude… and blood.
He passed from shadow to storm.
He didn't look back, but he felt the ache of leaving her behind—of severing the fragile thread of something new. Not out of mistrust, but protection. She was flame, and he was walking into a storm of ruin.
---
The plains stretched like a scar across the face of Atherion—wounded, raw, and breathing ash. Dead towers hunched like broken spines on the horizon, the skeletal remains of once-mighty sanctuaries. The wind tore through them, dragging with it whispers too old for names.
He walked alone.
His steps left faint glyphs in the dust—sigils that shimmered then vanished. The Veil, ever-present, shifted in his wake like a cloak of dreams. It whispered:
> "You've been here before."
No. Not him. But someone like him. A flicker of memory not his own. The scent of lavender and stormstone. A lullaby murmured by a fading voice. A child's smile wrapped in sorrow.
He crested a ridge.
And the air snapped tight like a drawn bowstring.
A blade cut through the silence.
He moved on instinct—ducking, twisting, his own sword drawn in a flash of silver. Steel shrieked against steel, the impact sending sparks flaring like fireflies in the dusk.
The attacker pressed close, each strike precise, fueled by a hatred that felt ancient.
Eyes met through the clash.
Burning grey. Piercing. Human—but hollowed by grief.
"You wear the mark of the Veil," the man hissed, voice like gravel. "You don't deserve it."
The Veilwalker steadied himself. "Who are you to decide?"
The figure stepped forward. Crimson runes blazed on his battered armor, glowing like open wounds. A tattered cloak, torn by storms and war, flared behind him.
"I am Thorne Varix. The blade cast aside by kings. The exile who remembers."
He attacked again.
Steel screamed.
Thorne moved like a tempest, swinging a greatsword etched in forgotten scripts. But more terrifying was the way time bent around him. The air warped with each strike—moments twisted, bent backward, fractured. A ghost of his attack always arrived a breath too early or too late.
Time Slashes, the Veilwalker realized. He's wielding history itself.
The Veilwalker adjusted. He matched chaos with rhythm, the glow from his own blade pulsing in tune with the unseen song of the Veil. Each parry sang with light, each step choreographed by instinct born of something older than memory.
"You serve them," Thorne spat. "The ones who built this poisoned world. The gods who left it to rot."
"I serve no throne," the Veilwalker answered through clenched teeth. "Only the echoes that remain."
Their blades locked again. Sparks flared between them, illuminating expressions carved in loss and rage. Inches apart, their breath mingled in the freezing air.
Thorne's voice dipped low. "Hope is a slow death, Veilwalker. You'll kneel. Sooner or later, we all do."
The Veilwalker's answer was a whisper carried by wind. "Better to burn and fall… than rot in the dark."
Something shifted.
The Veil trembled.
And the world… blinked.
The Veilwalker staggered, momentarily disoriented. A memory not his own slammed into him—a sanctum. A crown shattered. A child screaming for justice.
That was Thorne's memory, he realized. His pain. His fall.
Thorne faltered too, blinking rapidly as if the Veil had momentarily lifted the mask between them.
Rain began to fall.
Soft, almost apologetic.
It dotted the ash-covered ground and hissed against their blades. The world exhaled. Mist rose, curling around ruined statues and forgotten glyphs.
Thorne stepped back, breath ragged, lowering his sword. "You have strength. But strength without purpose is a curse."
The Veilwalker said nothing. He watched the way the rain clung to Thorne's armor, running in rivulets through the glowing runes. Behind the mask, a thought surfaced:
How many like him were abandoned? How many scars has the Veil hidden from me?
"What do you fight for?" Thorne asked.
The Veilwalker's answer came not in words, but in thought: For memory. For the ones lost to silence. For the names carved into stone and never spoken aloud. For her. For Irielle.
"For the ones no one remembers," Thorne answered himself. "For the promises no one kept."
He turned away.
"The next time we meet," he said, fading into fog, "only one of us will walk away."
Then he was gone.
Only the rain remained, whispering across the broken plains.
The Veilwalker stood there, blade in hand, heavy with more than steel.
He thought of Caelith, of her smirk and stubbornness. Of the spark she brought to ruin.
Above him, lightning cracked open the sky, and something deep within the Veil stirred.
Watching.
Waiting.
---
> Hope is a slow death, Thorne had said.
Better to burn and fall… the Veilwalker had answered, …than rot in the dark.
---