"Eureka!!!…..his Highness Atlas would be pleased…" The mad mage voiced.
Veil, who had been lurking beneath the cackling shadow of the deranged mage, flinched. A tremor ran through his incorporeal form. One eye snapped open—slitted and red. The world blurred for a heartbeat. Something inside him snapped like a thread pulled too tight.
Atlas's shadow… it was gone.
No, not faded. Not suppressed.
Severed.
Cleanly. Entirely. A void where life once echoed.
A crack of panic widened within him. He jolted out from beneath the mage's feet, phasing through the underbelly of the camp's flickering torches, sliding between cracks of light like oil between teeth. The night swallowed him, but even in its womb, something in Veil's movements faltered—jittered. His domain, yes, but even the shadows recoiled when one of their own was extinguished.
As he passed through flickering walls and muttering soldiers, a distant voice made him pause.
"Father! FATHER!" The girl's voice rang—raw, desperate.
