The city was not supposed to look like this.
Silent. Breathless. Suspended in an uneasy stillness.
She walked down the empty street, the orange glow of streetlamps painting her shadow long across the pavement. A chill wind curled around her ankles, though the air itself felt heavy, too still, as if the night was waiting for something.
Then it appeared.
At first, she thought it was just her imagination, a ripple across the stars, a shimmer of silver light no wider than a thread. But the longer she stared, the wider it tore, splitting the sky open as though the heavens themselves had been wounded. Light poured through the crack, dazzling and otherworldly, too beautiful and too terrifying to look away from.
Her breath caught. Her heart hammered. Every part of her screamed to run. Yet her feet refused.
The light pulled her in.
The ground lurched violently. Her vision blurred, her lungs gasped for air, and the world dissolved into blackness.
When she woke, she was no longer home.
Cold marble pressed against her palms. The air was dense with the scent of burning incense and old stone, and above her stretched a ceiling carved with constellations that glowed faintly, as though alive. The stars were not the ones she knew. They were sharper, stranger, glittering in unfamiliar constellations that whispered of forgotten worlds.
"Who dares cross the Veil?"
The voice rang like thunder, echoing through the chamber.
She turned.
At the far end of the hall stood a man draped in robes as dark as midnight. His presence filled the space, commanding and unshakable. His eyes, luminous and silver, sharp as blades, fixed on her with a gaze that seemed to strip away every secret she had ever held.
The guards around him drew their weapons, steel flashing under the silver glow. But he lifted his hand, just a flick of his wrist, and the room fell into stillness.
"An outsider," he said softly, almost to himself. Then his tone shifted, laced with something heavier, something ancient.
"The prophecy has awakened."
Her lips parted, but no words came. Panic clawed at her chest, begging her to deny it, to say she wasn't anyone's prophecy, that she didn't belong here.
And yet, deep within her, something stirred.
Something old. Something powerful.
As though this place had been waiting for her.
As though she had crossed the Veil not by accident, but by destiny.