Darkness swallows her whole.
Not empty darkness—
crowded darkness.
Alive, shifting, breathing.
May gasps, but there's no air.
No ground beneath her.
Only a weightless, endless space that presses against her skin like cold fingers.
She tries to scream.
The sound disappears instantly.
The Veil doesn't allow sound.
It only allows feeling.
A pulse ripples through the void—
low, thunderous, ancient.
Not a heartbeat.
A summon.
Her body jerks toward it involuntarily, like she's a magnet being dragged across a field of gravity.
"No—" she tries to whisper, but the Veil eats the word before it forms.
Her chest tightens.
Her ribs vibrate.
The bond inside her—
the tether that always thumped softly when Nathel's name brushed her thoughts—
now burns like a wire pulled too tight.
She clutches her sternum, curling forward, trembling.
Something is calling her by her soul.
A second pulse hits.
Hard.
Her vision flickers—
shadows swirling, stretching, weaving into distorted figures that vanish when she blinks.
She's not alone.
Something is here.
Watching.
Waiting.
The air shifts behind her—
a ripple like a cold breath on her neck.
She spins instinctively—
And the shadows pull apart.
Not melting—
clearing.
Revealing a vast, cracked plain.
Silver sand shifts under her feet, glowing faintly.
Above her, a sky made of shattered mirrors reflects hundreds of versions of her face—
Some scared.
Some crying.
Some not her at all.
May's stomach twists.
This place feels wrong.
Like every thought she has is being heard by something with too many ears.
"May!"
She whips around.
A voice—
faint, desperate—
echoes through the void.
"May! Hold on!"
Nathel.
His voice pierces the Veil for only a second before being ripped away.
But that second is enough.
The bond flares bright under her ribs.
Alive.
Burning.
Reaching.
She steps toward the sound instinctively—
Only for the ground to split open beneath her feet.
She jumps back as a thin crack spreads across the silver plain, glowing with a black-purple light.
From within the crack…
A shape rises.
Slowly.
Fluidly.
Horribly.
A humanoid form—
tall, long-limbed, its skin like shifting ink.
Its face—if it has one—shimmers in and out of focus.
May's breath stops.
She recognizes it.
The creature from the forest.
The one Zara scattered.
Except here—
here, in the Veil—
it is whole.
Its voice drifts toward her without sound, sliding directly into her mind like ice water.
"Welcome home, Half-Heart."
May staggers backward.
"No—stay away from me—"
It doesn't move closer.
It doesn't need to.
Its presence fills the air.
The shadows bend toward it like worshippers.
"You were never meant for the mortal world," it whispers into her bones.
"Your soul was forged for this realm.
For him."
"Him?" May rasps internally. "Nathel?"
The creature tilts its head.
Then—
it laughs.
Not with cruelty.
With certainty.
"Nathel was only the first piece."
Its form ripples, expanding.
"You are the second."
May shakes her head violently.
"No. I don't belong here."
The creature's eyes—or the suggestion of eyes—narrow.
"You feel the pull, child. Do not lie to yourself."
The bond pulses again in her chest—painful, demanding.
Stronger here.
Too strong.
Like the Veil is feeding on it.
May presses her hand hard against her heart.
"What do you want from me?"
The creature lifts one long, shadowed hand.
The ground behind it ripples—
a vision forming in the air.
Nathel—
on his knees beside the cracked shrine, screaming her name.
Desperate.
Breaking.
May's breath catches.
Her legs weaken.
The creature's voice slides into her mind again.
"He cannot reach you."
Another pulse of the bond—
sharp, tearing.
May winces.
The creature continues:
"He is incomplete without you.
And you are incomplete without him."
Her eyes burn.
"Then let me go to him!"
The creature's form tightens.
"No."
Its voice deepens—
the space trembling around them.
"The bond belongs here.
Not in the mortal world."
A cold wave crashes through her.
"You want to keep me," she realizes.
"You want to trap us both here."
The creature steps closer, finally moving.
"Not trap."
Its voice softens—terrifyingly gentle.
"Restore."
The sky fractures overhead.
Reality groans.
A dark wind tears through the Veil.
The creature lifts both arms.
"Give in to the bond, Half-Heart."
A pause.
"And I will show you what you truly are."
The ground erupts with shadow.
The bond twists violently inside her.
May screams—
And a burst of golden light explodes beside her, ripping through the Veil like a blade.
The creature staggers backward, hissing.
May shields her eyes as the light intensifies—
and a familiar voice shouts her name:
"MAY!"
She turns—
And through the torn veil of darkness—
Nathel stands there.
Breathing hard.
Glowing with the same mark that once burned in Zara's eyes.
But brighter.
Stronger.
Alive.
He reaches for her, hand outstretched.
"Come to me," he pleads. "Before it seals itself!"
The creature lunges between them—
"SHE IS MINE!"
Nathel roars back—
"SHE WAS NEVER YOURS!"
The light surges.
The shadows collapse.
The Veil closes in.
May has only one heartbeat to choose—
Shadow.
Or Nathel.