Darkness had weight.
It pressed into him with a slow, grinding patience, like a mountain learning how to breathe. Beneath the broken spine of a temple wall, wrapped in ash and scorched iron, a soldier opened his eyes to the colourless sky.
His mouth tasted of soot. His arm, folded beneath stone, throbbed with each heartbeat. He shifted.
Something cracked. Something inside.
He did not know how long he'd been buried. Time meant nothing when your ribs were splintered and your thoughts moved like tar.
With a soundless scream, he clawed at the weight pressing down on him. Brick dust coated his tongue. Nails tore on jagged edges. It was then he found he could not move his sword hand.
Then—light. Ashlight. A sliver of grey sky like a god's indifferent eye.
He dragged himself free, gasping. The air was thick with the perfume of roasted flesh and the stench of sorcery turned to rot.
His arm hung useless. Burned from shoulder to elbow, blistered and raw. Every breath was a gamble.
But he lived.
His father's words echoed in his ears, "You? A soldier? Don't jest. I would rather see you die from being poisoned by a wife than be stabbed by a sword. You're a noble."
He chuckled softly and tried to move his hand, "You must be happy, I cannot be a soldier now."
Dharuj was no more.
He limped through the ruins. Corpses greeted him at every turn—charred husks locked in their final prayers. A man held his lover, their silhouettes fused by fire. A child's hand clutched a doll, face turned away from a death that did not spare innocence.
Somewhere beneath the scorched cobbles, echoes stirred. Whispers flared and died. Visions flashed in periphery—smoke-made wraiths playing out their final moments, etched into the bones of the city, calling out to him. His brothers-in-arms, he could still recognize them even with their bodies mutilated charred beyond recognition. He felt hands grabbing his ankles and a call for help, but there was no one here.
He kept walking.
It had been so sudden. One moment he was fighting in chaos, trying to stay alive behind shields, and then….
Fire.
So bright it erased shadow, color, breath. He'd seen it all from beneath the shield-wall, right before it collapsed.
And the scream. Gods, he could still hear it—her voice stretched past the edges of pain, into
something darker.
Shaya.
She was their mage. The woman who burned the sky. He'd been their friend once, Calios and Shaya. The night before, he saw her laughing with Calios, her hands brushing his sword-belt as they argued about ghosts and sandstorms. Lovers. Fools.
The stench of ash triggered a memory—Shaya's face by the fire. Of their days spent together.
He remembered the campfire's glow trembling across Shaya's face: embers flickering in her darkened eyes, the Veil's mark webbing her wrists like living scars. Beneath a canopy of indifferent stars, she had sat against a fractured boulder, her posture loose. When he knelt beside her, she didn't look up—only extended one hand, tracing an intricate glyph in the air. The shape hovered between them: a spiral woven through a jagged rune, loops of intent that began to pulse with faint, blue-gold light.
Kaelen watched, breath caught. Sparks gathered above her palm—tiny torches that danced into a circle and then lifted, dissolving into the night sky. It was as though she had coaxed flame from still air. He would never forget the hiss of warmth against his face.
"Magic isn't a gift," she murmured, voice low and careful. He blinked at her, unsure whether he had heard correctly. She flexed her fingers, and the motes of fire winked out, leaving only the echo of heat. Her knuckles were bruised with ash, the flesh darkened and cracked. "It is a living thing—older than any kingdom. To speak to it, you give it a piece of yourself."
He swallowed against the taste of smoke. "What did you give?"
She paused, eyes distant. "Memory."
Her thumb brushed the runic pattern on the sand—four concentric curves around a single point—which gleamed faintly for a heartbeat. "Tonight, I asked the Ember Thread for fire. In exchange, I offered a night from my childhood: a single memory of laughter with my brother before the war stole him away." She stared at the sigil as if it held all her regrets. "I will never remember his voice again."
He closed his eyes, picturing his own brother, and felt a sharp ache. "Is the cost always so great?"
"Always," she said. She rose slowly, leaning on a staff carved with similar glyphs—each one bound to a different Thread. "There are other Aspects in the Veil. Stone to shape walls and bind flesh. Gale to carry your voice and reshape memory. Threnody to bind the dead or call them home. Each Aspect demands its own Tithe: sometimes sight, sometimes years of your life, sometimes the lightness of your heart." She touched his chest lightly, where a faint scorch mark still throbbed from her earlier demonstration. "A minor weaver pays a pinch of memory to coax a candle's spark. A master weaver can shape a wall of stone for a single lost year. But if a weaver ever attempts the Eclipse—that final, world-shattering weave—without first becoming Ascendant, the Veil simply devours them."
He looked down at his own hands, remembering how her glyph had burned him. "Would it kill you?"
The wind rose, erasing her runes before Kaelen could trace their meaning. Shaya's eyes closed as if she were drifting into sleep, but Kaelen sensed the fire still flickering behind her lids—an ocean of cinders waiting to be unleashed.
"Remember," she whispered, "to bargain with the Veil is to bargain with fate. What are you willing to lose?"
He stayed there long after she vanished into the tent, the weight of her words burning hotter than any flame.
He left them behind with the city. The dead. Past the breached gate—now a yawning crater—the dunes swallowed the world in silence.
And there, in the blackened sand, sat a figure.
Bent. Wrapped in rags that whispered in the wind. Humming tunelessly. Surrounded by nothing and speaking to no one.
The soldier approached slowly, every step dragging pain from his bones.
"You….no one could have survived." he rasped.
The old man did not look up. "Ah. The soldier survives. How rare. How loud the silence must be for you now."
"You know me?"
"I knew all of you," the old man said. "Before the walls fell. Before the skies cleared."
His eyes were milky, his spine hunched, but something in his voice was unbroken—like obsidian beneath the sand.
"Who are you?" Kaelen asked, warily.
"I am but a beggar in the wind. A madman left behind by time. Or…" He smiled crookedly, teeth sharp as daggers. "...perhaps something else entirely."
"You speak to no one."
"Oh, I speak to gods. They answer in crows and winds and in the shattering of cities. They've always spoken."
The soldier said nothing.
"You're not human."
"Funny observation. Want a reward?" Horus cackled.
"I….I just want to know why….all this…." He hesitated, his face showing immense grief.
There was no sound but the coming and going of winds for a while.
"Have you ever heard of the Shattered Marches?" The old man suddenly said.
Kaelen shook his head.
"A place where the earth split open years ago, when the three sisters of Va'morath drew upon Threnody to bind a dying god. The land cracked—walls of obsidian spines rose from the soil, and rivers ran with night itself." Horus's gaze flicked to the distance as if he saw those black spires still rising.
He paused, letting the memory settle. Sand gusted around them, carrying ash in tiny whirlwinds.
Kaelen pressed a hand against his ribs. "And Dharuj?"
"Dharuj rose from that same fracture. They built their city on stone hollowed by those same events. Old stones in the southern ramparts still glow faintly with the aftertaste of sorrow. When Caladan thundered his Pyke over these walls, the echoes of that old fracture sang in the wind."
A gust of wind scattered ash around them. Kaelen closed his eyes, taking a deep breath and opening them again.
"What of the Southern Isles?" he asked. "What about my home?"
Horus tilted his head, voice softening.
"Ah, the Southern Isles. Emerald spires rising from jade seas. A thousand reef-castles, each governed by a hungry lord or lady. Your father's keep—Olaris—that was once a beacon. Mariners spoke of its lantern-tower guiding them through maelstroms. Yet even there, Stoneweavers carved reefs to trap invaders, and Stormcallers tried to bargain with Gale for calmer tides. But tides always break—especially when the Crown's greed beckons."
Kaelen felt bile rise. He coughed, black spittle flecking the sand.
"Were we ever truly safe?"
"The Isles have known peace only in lull—an ebb before the next crash. You remember the War of a Hundred Thrones? When King Merek of Rhaenor marched across the Golden Plains toward the Crescent Keep, he thought the Isles would bow. Instead, the Reefstone held. Stoneweavers on both sides shaped walls of living rock—then the Galeweavers turned the storm upon them. The ocean rose, the walls drowned, and entire legions vanished beneath green waves. Each side blamed the other for Salmar's Flood, but the Veil had its own plan."
He paused and let out a short, mirthless laugh.
"And you ran away to become a soldier. A noble's son chasing honor among corpses. Funny how pride blinds us all."
Kaelen winced but said nothing.
Horus leaned forward, pain sharpening his eyes.
"And now you find yourself—stumbling through the ruins of Dharuj. A fortress born from hope made stone, now broken like fragile memory. They called Dharuj the Jewel of the Red Dunes, for its walls gleamed under two suns. Merchants spoke of water from the Well of Ten Winds—a spring that never ran dry. But water is a lie if you sever its source."
A rumble stirred in the distance, as if the earth itself remembered.
"You've felt that? The tremor?" Horus asked quietly. "That is the last shudder of a kingdom's
heartbeat. The Well sealed itself when Shaya offered her soul. The stone cracked, and only ash remains. Soldiers died thirsting for scraps of hope that never came."
The soldier swallowed, gaze drifting to the empty slopes where once glassy aqueducts poured life.
Horus brushed his fingertips across the sand, drawing a half-erased sigil.
"Further north," he continued, "lies the Iron Marshes—where the Emberclaw clans war over volcanic forges. Their Flameweavers once toasted emblems in molten lava, forging swords that sang with fire's hunger. Now, they send death-lances of ember-steel across borders, hoping to conquer kingdoms with a single blow. They think steel conquers all, but steel breaks like stone when it meets will."
He let the air hang heavy before speaking again.
"And to the east, the Thornwood Empire flies its banners beneath a canopy of black-glass trees. Nightbirds nest in its branches, whispering omens to any Galeweaver brave enough to listen. They say the tomb-kings of Lentarath dream still beneath those roots—slumbering, until someone calls them with Threnody's tongue."
A crow cawed, as if in answer.
He swallowed, voice rough: "And the Pyke?"
"Caladan's Pyke reached these shores because the world is fracturing. Old pacts broken. Ascendants stirring. And now, with Dharuj's fall, we see veils torn so wide that no city—no keep—can hold back the tide."
The soldier's chest tightened. "What do I do?"
Horus looked directly at him, voice low, certain.
"The north calls with sword and vengeance. Storm-screaming warfields where men kill for glory or memory. There, you might find redemption, or you might drown in blood. The south offers sanctuary—the toast of Olaris, where your father's banners still fly. But know this: even in peace, the Veil remembers. One day, the Reefstone walls will crumble, and the ocean will reclaim the isles."
He leaned back, humming again, as if finished.
"Go, then. Choose your path. But remember—no land is safe when gods walk in mortal rags."
Kaelen turned, the wind clawing at his back.
"So you've chosen," Horus said.
Kaelen adjusted the burnt strap on his shoulder. "There was no choice."
"You'll find nothing there but graves," Horus called after him.
Kaelen didn't stop. "Then I'll dig carefully."
Horus smiled. "Be sure to mark your own."
Kaelen stopped and spoke with steel in his voice. "I will not die."
Horus laughed, a dry, hollow sound. "That's what the gods said—right before they bled."
"Do you believe in gods, old man?"
Horus smiled faintly. "I used to."
Kaelen hesitated, "What are you?"
Horus stared at the sand. "Once, I answered prayers."
Kaelen stilled. His breath caught, just once, like a misstep in the chest—then relaxed.
"You said you used to believe in gods. But you are one."
"So you see the problem."
A silence stretched between them.
"Do gods forget?" Kaelen asked.
Horus did not look up.
"No. That's the curse."
"Even when no one remembers you?"
Horus's eyes gleamed, old as bone. "Especially then."
Kaelen paused, just once, to look back.
There was no old man.
Only a spiral drawn in ash.
And the sound of wings.