Grimpel's POV
The sky above Darswich was smeared in bruised violet, the moon swollen with promise, its gaze a silent witness to the stirrings below. Festival lanterns still danced like lazy fireflies over the rooftops, though the streets had quieted. Somewhere, laughter echoed in the distance, hollow and too bright. A false joy clinging to the skin of a city that didn't yet realize it was already bleeding.
I sat cross-legged on the cold floor of the abandoned observatory, ink smudging my fingers, sweat bleeding into the parchment spread out before me. The old telescope creaked in the wind. The runes around the ritual circle pulsed in dull blue, breathing slowly, like a sleeping beast just beginning to stir.
I should have been nervous.
Instead, I felt... hope.
It was dangerous, I knew. Hope had teeth. Hope had led me into ruin before. But tonight, tonight felt different.
Tonight, I would fix what had been broken.
"Just a bit more chalk," I muttered, crawling across the stone and redrawing a sigil that had cracked. "Don't want a misfire. No wild gods accidentally waking up this time."
My voice echoed back at me, hollow and brittle. I hated the silence. Hated the weight of it. It was in the silence that I heard her voice.
A voice that wasn't there.
A voice I had tried to forget.
"Grimpel," she had said once, sitting beside me at the cliff's edge, feet dangling over mist. "If you ever break the world trying to save me, I'll haunt you."
I smiled bitterly.
"I know. That's the point."
The Veil. The Shards. The Ley-lines.
Everything was connected. Everything fed into everything else. And somehow, in the long nights of research, desperation, and guilt, I had found the thread that tied them together.
I hadn't learned all this on my own, of course. Years ago, I studied beyond Darswich—in the obsidian towers of the Kastridon Academy, where arcane scholars carved equations into starlight. That's where I met her—Master Ilyra Vaen. A woman with storm-colored eyes and a voice like wet parchment. She taught me that magic was never about power, but balance. That the veil between worlds wasn't a thing to pierce—but to understand. She would've hated this ritual. Which probably meant I was doing something unforgivable.
The Veil was never meant to be so thin in Darswich.
The ley-lines under the city were old, tangled with soul-blood and ancient bargains. I knew this. Everyone in the Arcanum Academy had whispered of it in hush and wine. But no one had dared test it.
No one until me.
The soul shards—thirteen of them—were fragments of something older than gods, scattered when the Divine broke itself apart to prevent madness from swallowing the world. Each shard could open a door. Each shard could tempt a mortal into becoming something... more, or less.
And one of them, I believed, was buried here. Beneath the city. Beneath the Veil. It called to me in dreams. In memory. In guilt.
So I designed the ritual not to seize the shard—no, that would be foolish—but to stabilize it. To suppress its hunger and close the breach forming under the Wyrmgate. To heal the city. To keep everyone, human and not, safe.
It was a two-edged spell. That much was true.
The first edge: restoration.
The second edge: revelation.
I had warned the council. Eldric, Orien, Vessla—they had listened with eyes too calm, too understanding. I thought they admired my dedication. I thought they trusted me.
Gods help me, I trusted them.
I lit the last incense bowl and rose, bones creaking.
"Three hours until the moon crests," I murmured.
A clock ticked softly in my mind, woven from ritual math and ley-line readings. I had accounted for lunar pull, spirit pressure, tether variables, and Veil tension. This would work. This had to work.
I pulled out the silver locket from my pocket. Opened it.
Her face stared back.
I had never told anyone who she was. Not really. Some guessed a lover. Some, a sister. Others thought she had been a mentor. Let them guess. Let them make up stories. The truth was mine, jagged and sharp, hidden behind a smirk and a sarcastic shrug.
"It'll be better soon," I whispered. "I promise. No more cracks. No more ghosts. Just... peace."
The observatory door creaked open.
Eldric stepped in, all dark cloak and quiet steps. He looked like a priest attending a funeral.
"You ready?" he asked.
"Almost. Thirty more minutes. Then we begin."
"You look tired."
I laughed. "I haven't slept in four days. But who needs sleep when you're elbow-deep in divine mathematics?"
He offered a tight smile. "You're doing good work, Grimpel. History will remember you."
"If it doesn't kill me first."
He left after that, claiming he needed to prepare the conduits. I didn't think much of it.
Should I have?
Probably.
But I didn't.
Because grief makes you stupid. Hope makes you blind.
And I was full of both.
I sat again and watched the runes glow brighter. The ley-lines were responding now, humming in my ears, tickling the soles of my feet. I could feel the shard beneath the city, thrumming like a heartbeat behind a locked door.
The moon had almost reached its apex.
Just a little more time.
I reached for my journal. Opened it. Scribbled down the last few thoughts.
Ritual Sequence:
Ignite Ley Binding Circle.
Open Veil Runes.
Anchor with Conduit (living, non-lethal binding).
Stabilize shard with blood sigil.
Close Veil using mirrored chant.
Warnings:
If conduit breaks, the Veil opens fully.
If the shard feeds too fast, backlash may ripple.
If spell interrupted, fragments may scatter again.
Outcome Predictions:
65% chance of peaceful stabilization.
25% chance of partial veil thinning.
10% unknown.
I stared at that last line.
Ten percent.
Ten percent was what nightmares were made of.
I closed the journal.
The moonlight poured through the broken glass dome above me, painting the runes in silver fire. My hands trembled. Not with fear.
With readiness.
I stood, pulled my robes around my shoulders, and stepped into the circle.
It was time.
Thirty minutes to the ritual.
And just beyond the veil... something stirred.
Something that had been waiting for this moment.
Something I had mistaken for salvation.
And as the clock ticked down, I whispered one last word:
"Please."