Outside the Celestial Weave, reality was thin.
Vesper moved through the endless blue not by flying or walking, but by transitioning. She would fix her gaze upon a distant point in the void, step into her own shadow, and emerge a thousand yards further on. It was a form of travel that required no effort, only intent. The spaces between places were now her royal road.
The oppressive silence of the void was absolute. There was no wind, no sound, not even the whisper of her own clothing. There was only the faint, background hiss of The Ble-ed—a constant reminder of the fundamental fragility of this... everything.
Rhys was right. The Unraveling didn't affect her. It slid past her concept like water past a greased stone. She was a secret, and the void had no power to reveal her. It could erase matter, time, and history, but it couldn't erase an absence. She had become a perfect paradox, the ultimate survivor at the end of all things.
Her gratitude towards The Progenitor deepened from a mere feeling into a law of her personal physics. He hadn't just saved her; he had given her the keys to oblivion itself.
How long she traveled, she couldn't say. Time, out here, was another frayed concept. It could have been minutes or centuries. Her mission was the only constant. Find something.
And then she saw it.
It was not a light or an object. It was a stain. A smudge of grey against the endless blue, like a cloud of ash from a forgotten fire.
She transitioned closer, her senses on high alert. The grey stain was vast, a swirling nebula of decay. And the hissing of The Bleed was louder here. Not louder for her, but she could perceive it as a pressure, an active force, like the heat radiating from a great pyre.
This was a place where something had recently been unmade.
She moved to the edge of the cloud of grey static. Peering into it, she could see echoes, after-images of things that no longer existed. The ghostly silhouette of a shattered castle tower. The impression of a coastline that was no longer attached to a continent. The memory of a great forest, now just a haze of disintegrating concepts.
This had been a kingdom. A vibrant, living piece of the world. Now, it was digestive gas in the gut of the void.
Vesper felt no pity. Pity was an emotion for those who remembered what was lost. She was simply an observer, a tool gathering data. This kingdom's fate was a warning, a piece of intelligence for her master.
Her mission was to find a sign of life, of people. This graveyard of a realm was not it. She was about to turn away when a flicker of movement at the very heart of the decay cloud caught her eye.
It was faint, and wrong.
Everything in this grey nebula was fading, losing its structure. But this single point of light was not fading. It was falling. Fast. And it was trailing a plume of the grey static, as if The Bleed itself was clinging to it, dragging it down.
Driven by the imperative of her mission, Vesper stepped into the decay cloud.
The sensation was bizarre. It felt like walking through a cloud of angry, buzzing memories. Whispers of forgotten kings and the cries of lost children brushed against her. The air was thick with the dust of annihilated history. To anyone else, it would have been an assault on the soul. To Vesper, it was just… noise.
She moved towards the falling light. As she got closer, she realized it was a person. A woman with wings of flesh and feather, just like the Knight of Starlight had once possessed. But these wings were in a far more advanced state of decay. They weren't just fraying at the edges; they were hemorrhaging existence, leaving a thick trail of corrupting static. The angelkin herself was barely conscious, her body limp as she plummeted through the heart of her dead kingdom.
A potential asset, Vesper's mind supplied, her logic cold and precise. The Progenitor found one like this before. He remade her. Perhaps he would wish to do so again.
Saving this person was not her mission. But bringing news of a potential new follower—a new Apostle, even—was well within its parameters. She needed to observe. To gather information.
She drew parallel to the falling angelkin, her silent, shadowy form completely unnoticed by the dying woman. Vesper analyzed the rate of decay, the failing life signs, the trajectory of the fall. The angelkin had minutes, perhaps, before the Unraveling claimed her heart. She was falling towards nothing, fated to be erased before she hit an imaginary ground.
Vesper's mission parameters were clear: Find a sign of other people and report back. This angelkin was a sign. The information had been gathered. Her duty was technically complete. She could return to the Sanctum now, her first command fulfilled.
But then, she thought of The Progenitor's words. "Deceit, intrigue... that's the good stuff!"
A simple report felt… unambitious. It lacked flair. It lacked the very secrecy and manipulation that was now her domain. She could do better than a simple report. She could deliver… a presentation. She could set a stage for her master's next grand act of creation.
A new, daring plan formed in her mind, a quiet and intricate gambit worthy of a Queen of Shadows.
She looked down at the falling, dying angelkin. Then she looked back in the direction of the distant, invisible Sanctum. She was not a savior. She was not a knight. She was a spymaster. And the best intelligence was always delivered with a flourish.
Her decision made, Vesper reached out, not with her hand, but with a tendril of pure shadow. It wasn't to save the angelkin. It was to attach a conceptual tether, a thread of darkness that only she could perceive. It would not stop the fall, nor would it slow the decay. But it would allow her to track its precise location in the void.
There, she thought. A living breadcrumb.
With her target tagged, Vesper turned her back on the falling angel and the dead kingdom. She took one step into the shadow that was her very nature and transitioned.
Her destination: The Argent Sanctum.
Her report: Not a story of what she found, but a prophecy of what was about to arrive.