Fog clung to Kaelen's skin in a damp, unshakable layer, as if the air itself were trying to claim him. Every step along the pitted causeway felt like moving deeper into a place that did not care whether he emerged again.
Some called the Shrouded Vale the end of the known world. The place where even memory could be swallowed, if you let the mists too far into your thoughts.
He stopped beside a weathered milestone. Someone had chiseled a warning in the old dialect of the Vale, just visible beneath moss and lichen:
Remember what is yours. Forget what must be lost.
He touched the cold stone, wondering how many initiates had paused here before him. How many had vanished before they ever reached the gates of Nullhaven.
His thumb strayed to the pendant beneath his tunic—a polished fragment of mirrored glass etched with a crescent sigil. The same mark glowed, faint and pale, between his brows: the sign of the Mirror-Touched. His only inheritance, aside from the unanswered questions that trailed him like a second shadow.
When his mother had pressed the pendant into his hand, her fingers trembling, he had been too young to understand why her eyes looked so empty.
If you ever feel yourself slipping, Kael, she had whispered, look into the glass. Remember who you are.
He wondered if she had known even then that he would end up here, following a road no map bothered to name.
A bell sounded somewhere beyond the fog—low, sonorous, vibrating in his ribs. Nullhaven's gates, announcing the hour of registration. He should have felt relief to be so close. Instead, a chill threaded through his spine, coiling behind his ribs.
He forced himself onward.
The causeway dipped between gnarled blackwood trees, their skeletal branches grasping overhead like the ribs of something ancient and long-dead. Lanterns hung from iron brackets, each one filled with witchfire that burned cold blue. The flames made the fog shimmer in uneasy waves, revealing glimpses of shapes that might have been statues—or watchers waiting in silence.
When the road finally leveled, he saw the first outlying walls of Nullhaven rising from the mists.
The city was older than any history he'd ever read. Entire generations of Mirror-Touched had trained here, learning to bind perception to their will. Some said the original architects had hollowed the place straight from the bones of the earth itself. The result was a city built in layers—broad terraces carved from black basalt, spiraling inward toward the great bastion of the Silent Dominion.
Kaelen had studied grainy etchings in archive scrolls, but none had prepared him for the reality: towers of smooth dark stone that climbed higher than he could see, each bristling with iron wards and runes that pulsed in the damp air. Bridges arched across chasms so deep the witchlight barely reached the bottom.
Even at this hour, figures moved along the battlements and walkways—hooded, silent, their faces hidden behind veils or masks. Not only initiates. Some would be wardens, whose duty it was to ensure that what was learned here never escaped uncontrolled.
He drew his cloak tighter around his shoulders. The Mirror-Touched were respected, yes—but they were also feared. A single Brand could twist memory and perception until a man could not tell truth from fantasy. The Church had entire treatises on how to detect illusions—though even those doctrines admitted no test was foolproof.
Kaelen had heard enough cautionary tales to last a lifetime. The Church's brandmasters would not hesitate to erase any initiate who strayed beyond sanctioned practice. And the Silent Dominion, the Pillar that rose unseen above this place, watched everything in its reach.
Remember what is yours.
He pressed the pendant harder to his chest and crossed the threshold.
The outer courtyard swallowed him in cold silence. The paving stones were a patchwork of black glass and ancient basalt, each tile etched with sigils he could not name. He paused before a statue at the courtyard's center: a robed figure twice the height of any man, its face hidden behind a mask of polished obsidian. One hand was lifted in a gesture that could have been warning or blessing.
At the statue's feet, another inscription in the old tongue:
In silence, truth endures.
Kaelen swallowed and looked away.
"First time in Nullhaven?"
The voice came from behind him—quiet but precise, carrying even through the fog. He turned to find a man standing no more than a pace away. He wore a long coat the color of a thundercloud and a half-mask that concealed everything but a single pale eye. A thin silver chain bound the mask to a clasp at his collar.
Kaelen dipped his head. "Yes, sir."
The man's eye flicked to the sigil glowing between Kaelen's brows. "Mirror-Touched?"
"Yes."
"You'll find it less forgiving here than in your border settlements."
"I understand."
"I doubt you do."
Kaelen hesitated. There was no threat in the man's voice—only certainty. Before he could muster a reply, the instructor turned away and vanished into the drifting crowds as silently as he had appeared.
He let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Remember what is yours.
He started forward again, weaving between other initiates who moved with the same cautious urgency. He glimpsed more Masks among them—some shaped like smooth porcelain, others black iron. Each was marked with a different rune denoting rank and specialization.
Past the statue, a corridor sloped down into the registration hall. Dim witchfire lanterns burned along the walls. He followed the line of initiates ahead of him until he emerged into a chamber so vast the ceiling disappeared into darkness.
Rows of desks waited beneath hanging banners: the Mirror, the Veil, the Flame. Each bearing the sigil of a Pillar. The only Pillars acknowledged by the Church, the only ones any sane person claimed to believe in.
Kaelen joined the line beneath the Mirror's banner. He tried not to stare at the others. Some wore travel-stained cloaks like his, their Brands glowing softly. A few were clad in the dark uniforms of the Collegium's sponsored scions—children of noble houses who would expect deference from everyone else.
The line crept forward, one measured step at a time.
When at last it was his turn, he stepped to the desk where a registrar waited behind a lattice of iron filigree. Only her eyes were visible, dark and unreadable.
"Name," she intoned.
"Kaelen Miris."
"Origin?"
"Greywater Crossing."
"Family?"
He hesitated. "None."
Her gaze flickered briefly to the crescent sigil between his brows. "Brand confirmed." She reached for a small slab of polished stone, engraved with the Mirror's rune. "Place your hand here."
Kaelen pressed his palm flat. Cold light flared up his arm, sinking into his bones. For an instant, he felt the Mirror watching him—not the Pillar itself, but something older that hummed beneath the surface of his thoughts.
You are not only this.
The words were not spoken aloud, but they settled in his mind like a shard of glass. He clenched his teeth against a sudden wave of nausea.
When the light faded, the registrar was already writing. "Initiate rank assigned," she said without inflection. "You will report to the lower hall before dawn for orientation."
"Yes, ma'am."
She did not look up again.
Kaelen stepped back, the iron lattice closing off any sense of connection. He moved aside to let the next initiate forward and tried to steady his breathing.
You are not only this.
The phrase repeated itself, softer each time, until he wasn't sure if he'd imagined it.
Beyond the registration chamber, a ramp led to a long gallery lined with etched glass panels. Each depicted a moment in the history of the Mirror-Touched: the founding of the Collegium, the first formal binding of a Brand, the forging of the doctrines the Church still enforced.
In one panel, a lone figure knelt before a towering obelisk of dark crystal. Above it, seven indistinct shapes hovered—too worn to recognize. Kaelen lingered, studying the faded outlines.
Some said the Mirror's earliest archivists believed in more Pillars, older than any Church record dared admit. But if that was true, no one had proven it. And those who looked too hard were rumored to disappear.
He reached up and touched his brow. The sigil felt like a brand—warm even when it shouldn't be. He had always wondered if his mother had known more than she ever dared to say.
A bell tolled again, echoing through the hall.
Kaelen drew his cloak close around him and turned away from the ancient glass.
Tomorrow, his training would begin.
And if the stories were true, it would be the first step toward mastery—or obliteration.