Author's POV:
Before there was fire and ruin, there was laughter in the streets of Darswich.
Children painted their cheeks with silver dust and chased paper beasts through alleyways lit by glass lanterns. Musicians played with fingers kissed by wine and memory. Traders spilled spices from a dozen lands into bowls carved from old moonstone, while the Festival of the Eye bled joy across every corner.
And just hours ago—before blood carved its name into cobblestone—there were only footsteps, questions, and a crooked door framed in whispering glyphs.
Clive had stood there, hand hovering near his blade, eyes narrowed with something like recognition and something like fear. Selvara was close behind, unreadable, her posture controlled but ready. And floating beside them, as always, was Grimpel—grinning like a skull with a secret.
They had come seeking a shard.
But Darswich did not forget.
And neither did Nylessa.
She stood at the threshold of the ruined shop like a memory given shape. Dressed in dusk-colored leathers stitched with sigils from a language most had never dared to speak, her smile was all teeth and mockery. But her eyes? Her eyes told the truth. They shimmered with things buried three hundred years ago—betrayals, broken vows, and the unspoken weight of all that had been lost.
"You're taller than I imagined," she'd said to Clive. "Shame about the scowl."
The words were light. But the air wasn't.
It pressed down on them like old guilt, like the breath of a tomb too proud to seal itself.
Grimpel recognized her instantly. Not by name. Not by title. But by what still lingered in her aura: the scent of the Veil, the echoes of blood rituals whispered under moons long since gone, the pain of a guardian who had outlived her purpose and stood vigil anyway.
"You brought the fire here," she had told him. "You cost this town something we can never get back."
And he hadn't denied it.
Because what was there to deny?
Clive didn't know the full story—not yet. Selvara was wary, but unaware. But Grimpel... Grimpel remembered Darswich the way a grave remembers its bones. And Nylessa? She had stayed behind to guard what remained.
Not the shard. Not the gate.
But the truth.
It was Nylessa who had let them pass. With a grin. With a challenge. With just enough venom to mask the sorrow buried underneath.
"Let me watch," she said. "That's all I ask."
So they entered.
The gate opened.
And the past stirred like dust in a long-forgotten crypt.
The path behind the shop twisted. Not in a physical sense, but magically, spatially—like walking into a place that refused to exist unless remembered first. The air was thicker, pulsing with latent echoes. Selvara had flinched at one point, catching the faint sound of distant laughter. Children's laughter, flickering like static.
Clive kept his hand close to his blade.
Grimpel, for once, was quiet.
Because this was not just another shard-hunt. This was the unburied heart of a tragedy that had cracked Darswich in half and stitched it together with lies.
The sigils on the walls—so old they no longer glowed—recognized something in Clive's soul. They pulsed once, a heartbeat of reluctant permission. The Wyrmstone around his neck throbbed in answer.
Thirteen shards in total. They had found four.
Nine remained.
But this one? This one would cost them more than they were ready to admit.
Above ground, the festival still sang. Lanterns swayed. Drunken laughter danced across rooftops. Young lovers kissed beneath veils of confetti, unaware of the old bones shifting far beneath them.
And the moon… the moon laughed louder than it had in centuries.
Because the gate had opened.
And history, once sealed, was now wide-eyed and awake.
The deeper they walked, the more the ground trembled—not with danger, but with memory.
And somewhere between the stone and the dark, the past finally broke free.
Time buckled.
The world inhaled.
And three hundred years ago, on the first night of the Festival of the Eye, when non-humans danced beneath painted stars and the Veil shimmered thin above the spires of Darswich—
That's where it truly began.
The story they never told. The night the Guardian wept. The night Grimpel was still whole. The night before betrayal.
Before the fire.
Before the silence.
Before the moon stopped laughing.