The fall was not a quick, merciful plummet, but an endless, sickening unraveling. It was less a drop through space and more a surrender to gravity without end, a crushing weight of realization that this was not the sweet oblivion of the grave. This was damnation.
Auren Duskbane had died with a gasp of betrayal still fresh on his lips, a sword-thrust finding the soft place beneath his breastbone. Now, the pain of that injury was a phantom limb—present and throbbing, yet incapable of killing him again. He was consciousness divorced from comfort, a soul tumbling through a vacuum of black dust and silent screams.
He knew he was meant for the fire. He had done enough in his life—enough violence, enough ambition, enough neglect of the kindness offered to him—to earn the endless burn.
But then the fall stopped.
It ceased not with an impact, but with a horrifying suction, as if the vacuum had coughed him out into something solid and viscous. He found himself sprawled not on brimstone, but on cold, uneven cobblestones slicked with a permanent, unsettling dampness.
Auren pushed himself up, every muscle protesting with a fatigue that transcended the physical. He drew a breath, and the air itself felt heavy, thick with the scent of ozone, damp earth, and something metallic, like ancient rust mixed with spilled blood. It settled in his lungs with a crushing pressure, a profound weight that whispered: Every breath here is borrowed.
Above, the sky was the color of old bruises—a pale, mottled gray that transitioned near the horizon into deep stains of crimson, as though the heavens had suffered a mortal wound and were slowly bleeding out. No sun, no moon, only the ceaseless, oppressive twilight.
This was Dreadveil. A realm perpetually steeped in twilight.
He was on a broad, winding path—one of the Hollow Roads—cobbled paths that stretched into the mist, and he was not alone. In the perpetual gloom, shapes moved, silent and sluggish. They were the dying, or perhaps the perpetually almost-dead. Gaunt figures wrapped in tattered cloth, shuffling along, their faces empty of expression, eyes glazed over with ancient, unspent regret. They were sustenance for whatever hunted here. A low, scraping sound from the mist to his left confirmed it; the whispers in the air were not just atmosphere; they were the sounds of the world itself, hungry and vast.
Auren, stripped of armor and weapon, felt the chill of true, paralyzing fear for the first time since his execution. This was not the quick death he earned, but a slow, endless consumption. He stumbled to his feet, driven forward by the primal need to escape the silent, shuffling congregation of the damned. He needed a place to hide, a fortress against the overwhelming dread.
In the distance, piercing the bruised sky like broken, petrified teeth, stood the Cathedral Spires. Their architecture spoke of immense, ancient faith, but their broken, skeletal forms promised nothing but the nesting places of things that had once been men of faith.
He took three steps towards the spire, his shadow long and distorted in the gloom, when the air immediately behind him changed. The oppressive weight lifted, replaced by a momentary sensation of cool, clean water.
He froze, unable to move. Evil here was the natural state of things, but whatever had appeared behind him was neither evil nor mortal. It was an anomaly.
A light.
It was faint but utterly undeniable—a soft, golden incandescence that cut through the gray mist without dispersing it. A figure stood there: the Ghostly Woman, Seraphyne. She was tall, draped in flowing, spectral cloth that moved like smoke in a breeze that did not exist. Her face was obscured by a thick, heavy veil, yet her presence spoke of a profound, heartbreaking sorrow.
The light originated from within her chest. A small, perfect, glowing sphere, pulsating gently behind the shifting white fabric of her robes. It was her heart, luminous and terrifyingly fragile, the only source of warmth in this entire frozen realm of sin.
She spoke, and her voice was a chime, clear and cold, resonating directly in the hollow space where Auren's fear was lodged.
"You fell too close to the boundary, man of regret. You are not yet claimed by the void."
Auren turned fully, clutching his empty hands, ready to fight, plead, or fall on his knees. "Who are you? What is this place?"
"I am the one who halted your fall, Duskbane," she replied, stepping closer, the air around her carrying the faint, clean scent of crushed, petrified roses. "And this… this is where souls come to be forgotten. I offer you a chance to reclaim your end. To trade fire for purpose."
Her light pulsed, drawing his eyes to the glowing sphere. "You may return to Dreadveil. Not as the damned, but as my chosen. My knight. My hunter. You will claim the corrupted souls that feed this realm. And in return, I will grant you the power to endure this place, and perhaps, the chance for salvation."
She extended a pale, translucent hand. "Take the pact, Auren. Be the Wraith's Consort."