The world was broken long before Kael Ardent was born.
From the edge of the Glass Wastes, he stared at the horizon where crystal plains swallowed the sky. Shards of transparent ice rose like spires, and beyond them, a waterfall of frozen mist fell endlessly into the void.
The silence was heavy. Too heavy.
Kael pressed his hand to the map case at his side, reminding himself of why he was here. His parents' unfinished charts, their life's work, were all that remained of them. He would finish the map—even if the world itself tried to lie about where its borders ended.
A faint hum stirred in his chest. At first, he thought it was the wind. But it wasn't outside—it was inside him. The Veil Chord. His resonance seed, his curse.
Most cultivators trained their resonance into strength, fire, or healing. His was different. It whispered. It bent. It distorted.
Kael blinked, and for a moment, the frozen spires around him… shifted. One was taller, then shorter, then broken in half—like the world couldn't decide what was true. His breath caught. He squeezed his eyes shut.
Illusion… or error?
When he opened them, the spire was whole again. He shivered.
A shriek tore through the air.
From above the mist curtain, a beast descended—scaled wings glistening with frost, claws sharp enough to rend steel. Its throat glowed faintly; resonance pulsed in its chest like a beating drum. A predator, and Kael was alone.
He drew his short blade. Useless. His heart hammered, not from courage, but from the hum inside him. The Veil stirred awake, hungry.
The beast dived.
Kael stepped back instinctively, raising his blade too slow—yet the strike never landed. Claws should have raked him open, but instead they scraped against empty air. For a heartbeat, the world forgot where he stood.
The error saved him.
The beast roared, confused, swiping again. Kael stumbled, mind reeling. His pulse matched the resonance hum, and illusions bled from his panic—a dozen Kaels flickered across the ice, scattering in every direction.
The monster faltered. For a moment, it didn't know which Kael was real.
Neither did Kael.
His hand shook around the blade. He hadn't meant to create those images. He hadn't meant for the world to misplace his body. Yet the Veil answered anyway, twisting truth and falsehood together.
The beast circled back, fury in its eyes. Kael swallowed hard, every muscle trembling.
He wasn't a warrior. He wasn't even a proper cultivator yet.
But the map could wait.
First, he had to survive the lie he had become.