Chapter 6: The Watcher in the Veil
The sun had not yet risen above the Spine of Dareth, but the stars were beginning to fade. High in the crags, where the wind howled like the voices of lost kings, a lone figure stood, cloaked in midnight blue and shadow.
She had been watching for days.
Beneath her hood, her eyes reflected the lingering starlight, not in the way of a reflection, but with a depth that hinted at something ancient. Something that had seen the first flame lit in the Hollow Temple and watched it sputter in darkness when the Crown shattered.
The woman was known to few as Seraeth. To most, she did not exist. Her name had been buried with the last of the Moonbinders, her kin lost in the Burning Rebellion when the Emberlords fell.
Yet she lived.
And she had seen the boy.
Kael.
He moved like a storm, barely aware of the winds he summoned. The Ember shard and now the Wind shard pulsed around him like twin stars on a collision course. Dangerous. Unstable. Necessary.
She stepped to the edge of the cliff and raised her hand.
The mist parted.
Below, Skyreach lay cracked and groaning beneath the storm the boy had awakened. Her lips tightened. Vaelen had not exaggerated the risk. With two shards, Kael would be like a flame in a cave of old air—every step he took could ignite something ancient.
"And they will come for him," she murmured.
As if summoned, her vision wavered. The world before her rippled like heat over stone, and in its place came shadow. She saw the Queen of Glass rising from her lilies, sending out her agents. She saw the Spire of Thorns trembling in anticipation, its master waking after a century of sleep. She saw the Hollowed King stirring beneath the Ashlands, chains rusted, mouth open in silent scream.
And she saw the boy—Kael—at the center of it all.
Seraeth blinked. The vision passed. The Veil quieted.
She turned back into the rocks where a small campfire glowed low. Around it stood five stones, each carved with an ancient sigil: Star, Flame, Wind, Root, and Echo.
She knelt before the last—the Echo sigil.
"Guide me," she whispered. "Let me walk beside him without altering the song."
The stone pulsed once, faintly.
That would have to be enough.
---
The path to Kael was not a straight one.
Already, the Seers of Calren had set watchers on the roads. The Nightwardens had risen from their crypts. Even the old forests had begun to shift—the Whisperwood now hummed with restless energy, as if the trees remembered old battles.
But Seraeth moved unseen. Her presence, masked by the Veil.
She traveled by forgotten trails, across the ravines known only to the dead and the mad. She walked through stone as one might walk through fog. The world parted for her not because it feared her, but because it remembered her.
Her journey took three days.
On the morning of the fourth, she saw the smoke.
Kael and Vaelen had camped in a hollow below a cliff near the Shardmere Ridge. Their fire was small, but it burned with a telltale shimmer. Shardlight. Both shards were active. Seraeth crouched among the rocks and watched.
Kael was not what she expected.
He was younger. Less guarded. There was fire in him, yes, but not the kind bred for conquest. He sat with his head bowed, listening as Vaelen traced lines in the dirt. They were speaking of the Sea Shard—the third.
Seraeth frowned.
They would go east.
To the drowned city of Meridien.
She had hoped they would wait. Three shards would awaken more than just visions. Meridien was not a place of rest. It was a city cursed to echo the day it fell.
Seraeth stood. She would have to act.
---
That night, when Kael stood watch and the moon rose cold and bright above the cliffs, she stepped into the firelight.
He rose instantly, blade drawn, fire coiling at his wrist.
She did not flinch.
Vaelen stirred but did not rise. His eyes opened, then closed again. "Let her speak, Kael."
Kael's eyes darted between them. "You know her?"
Vaelen smiled faintly. "I know of her."
Kael lowered the blade, but only slightly. "Who are you?"
Seraeth pulled back her hood.
Kael stared.
She looked young, her features calm and sharp, but her eyes told the truth. They were eyes that had watched the world change too many times.
"I am Seraeth," she said. "Once of the Moonbinders. Now, a Watcher."
Kael's jaw tightened. "What do you want?"
"To help you."
He laughed, bitter. "Everyone wants something."
"Then I want this: to stop the Hollowed from rising. To keep the Crown from falling into hands that would destroy what little balance remains."
Kael glanced at Vaelen.
"She speaks truth," the old man said. "More than most."
Kael exhaled slowly. "Then say what you came to say."
Seraeth stepped closer.
"The Sea Shard is hidden beneath Meridien, but it is not unguarded. The city remembers the day it drowned. It replays it. Anyone who enters will be caught in its echo. Time will bend. Memory will betray you. You need an anchor."
Kael frowned. "An anchor?"
"Someone who can walk between echoes. Someone who sees what is and what was."
Vaelen stirred again. "A Moonbinder."
Seraeth nodded.
"Take me with you."
Kael studied her. His hands still curled into fists, but the fire had dimmed.
"And if you betray us?"
"Then let the shards burn me."
Silence fell.
At last, Kael nodded.
"Then we leave at dawn."
And far beneath the cliffs, in the depths of the drowned city, something stirred.
Waiting.
---
End of Chapter 6