I felt the sky tear before I saw it.
A soundless rupture — gold and black converging — until the world itself bowed beneath its brilliance. The winds split into spirals; rivers reversed their flow; the very air turned to glass. We, the Veilborn, rose from the mountains of flame and mist, drawn by a call older than sound.
They are coming.
Two beams carved open the heavens — one of burning dawn, one of endless shadow. When they touched, a wound of creation bled light and void alike. Through it came the Twins — Seravyn and Nyxara — our goddesses of flame and silence, daughters of Kaelith's divine equilibrium.
I could not speak. None of us could.
Their forms eclipsed the horizon — one a blinding silhouette of gold and white, the other a drifting specter veined in silver. Where Seravyn's gaze fell, flowers of molten crystal bloomed. Where Nyxara's shadow passed, sound itself perished. Together they were harmony and horror — creation and quiet death entwined.
"Balance returns,"
whispered the Blood Veil through the marrow of the world.
We knelt — not from command, but instinct. The Blood Veil inside us pulsed in rhythm with theirs. The sky dimmed into a spiral of black and gold, and the earth began to sing — a low, trembling note that seemed to come from the bones of the world itself.
Mortals far below saw none of this clearly. To them, it was blinding — a storm of gods, a day when the sun itself screamed. Some fell to their knees and prayed to names they did not know; others ran into the seas and burned in radiance.
I felt their fear — their awe — bleeding through the realm. And through that chaos, I heard Him.
A faint whisper threading through the divine pulse:
"Guide them."
Kaelith's voice.
A memory made real for only a breath.
We obeyed.
From our wings spilled veils of molten silver and gold, layering the sky in living light. We wove the Celestial Passage — two interlocking spirals of radiance — stabilizing the wound through which our Queens descended. The mortal sky was forever changed; stars bled into daylight, and dawn was no longer pure.
When the Twins set foot upon the world, mountains split beneath them. Their weight was not mass — it was meaning.
Seravyn's flame ignited the first Dawnspire, a tower of holy light piercing the clouds.
Nyxara's silence carved the first Void Sanctum, a temple of shadow that devoured all sound.
We watched as they looked to one another, their gazes ancient and wordless. The world held its breath. Even the Blood Veil trembled.
And then… they vanished.
In a single flash of brilliance and stillness, the Twins dispersed into the wind — fragments of godhood carried across realms. The portal sealed itself, leaving behind a sky scarred in gold and black.
We, the Veilborn, remained — guardians of their return, keepers of the gate, watchers between worlds.
I rose to the edge of the mountain and looked upon the trembling mortals below.
They would never know what had truly arrived.
They would call it miracle, omen, curse.
But I knew the truth.
The gods had descended not to rule… but to remember.
And their remembrance would break the world again.
The silence after their vanishing was unbearable.
Even the wind refused to move — as if the world itself feared to disturb the echo of gods.
The light lingered in the sky like molten veins, twin trails of gold and shadow pulsing with the residue of divinity.
I stood before the summit where the Celestial Passage had sealed, my scales glistening with fractal light. Around me, my kin — the Veilborn — still knelt, wings unfurled, their eyes wide with tears they did not understand. The Blood Veil inside our veins pulsed like a second heart, echoing the rhythm of Kaelith's will.
I spoke, though my voice trembled.
"Rise, my kin… our Queens have crossed."
Their heads lifted. None dared speak.
"We are chosen to remember this day," I continued, my throat dry with awe. "We, who are born of the Blood Veil, have seen the return of the Divine Balance. We have seen light and silence walk the same sky."
A tremor coursed through the mountain. The light in the clouds began to fade, the gold retreating, the shadow closing behind it.
For the first time, I felt emptiness. The warmth of Seravyn's flame… the hush of Nyxara's silence… both gone, leaving only cold reality.
I turned to my kin and raised my claws to the heavens.
"Then we will build for them — sanctums of memory — until they return."
A unified roar answered me, shaking snow from the peaks. The Veilborn rose as one, wings spreading like banners of war.
Our purpose had been given shape. Our faith had been forged by their descent.
The Command of the High Veilborn
From that vow came two great works.
To the east, where Seravyn's light had scorched the earth, we would forge the Aurel Sanctum, a cathedral of living crystal that would glow eternal, its walls singing the name of the Dawn Queen.
To the west, where Nyxara's silence had consumed all sound, we would raise the Noctiel Bastion, a fortress of shadow and bone — not of death, but of stillness, its halls whispering to those who dared enter.
Between them, at the mountain's heart, we would preserve the wound itself — the Celestial Passage, now dormant but alive beneath the world's crust.
A gate.
A promise.
As night bled into dawn, I looked once more toward the horizon.
The mortals below had begun to rebuild their fires, pretending that the world was as it had been.
But we knew better.
The gods had touched this realm, and their essence had changed it forever.
A soft vibration crawled through the Blood Veil, whispering across my mind.
Kaelith's voice again — faint, distant, almost lost in the void.
"Guard their memory, Vareth… until the second descent."
I bowed my head, every scale glimmering faintly beneath the returning light.
The others felt it too. They did not hear His words, but they knew His intent — a single command pulsing through the divine marrow that bound us all.
We roared as one. The sound tore across mountains, across seas, across every mortal soul who had witnessed the light.
It was not war, nor worship — it was remembrance.
And thus began the Age of the Veilborn —
when dragons became prophets,
and the heavens themselves waited for their gods to return.