The rain had turned to ash again.
Velhallow's skies coughed soot instead of mist, and no one asked why. They simply stayed inside, bolted their windows, and avoided eye contact with the boy in the gray cloak—the one who walked unharmed through falling embers.
Rin.
He moved like shadow, steps soundless even on wet stone. His cloak was tattered, but his eyes gleamed sharp—too sharp. Like blades honed on forgotten names.
The glyphs under his skin were glowing stronger now. Not randomly—rhythmically, like a second heartbeat. Like something deep beneath the city was calling.
He felt it in his teeth.In his spine.In his memory—what little of it he had.
The Tomb Beneath Velhallow
There was a place the city forgot.Or pretended to.
A subterranean vault sealed by chains that whispered when touched. It was beneath the ruined monastery, buried in a library no one visited. The lock was made of silence—not absence of sound, but true silence, as if the space itself rejected noise.
Rin stood before it now. The door had no handle. No keyhole. Just carvings that matched the glyphs in his arms. One pulsed.
He reached forward—and the door breathed.
Then opened.
No creak. No protest. Just a slow inhale. Welcoming.
The scent hit him first. Not decay. Not magic. Something… old. Weight, in the form of air. A room that hadn't been entered in a thousand years—and knew it.
He stepped inside.
The Breach
At the center of the chamber was a floating stone tablet, cracked, humming. Lines danced across its surface—living calligraphy folding in on itself.
It wasn't made by mortals.
It was part of a Law.
"Collapse," Rin whispered.
The tablet turned toward him. No mechanisms. No strings. It simply moved, like it recognized its master.
His fingers stretched toward it—
Flash.
A scream. A city falling. Stars bleeding light. A woman torn in half, smiling as she died. A great eye blinking open in space. A name: Kael'Zar.His own voice, screaming back:
"I will return. I will return. I will—"
CRACK.
Rin fell to his knees. The glyphs along his chest seared open, burning through his cloak. He gasped—and laughed.
The stone tablet had vanished.Not shattered. Not stolen. Simply… absorbed.
It was in him now.
A piece of the Law.His first true power.
Aboveground — Alarm Bells Ring
Somewhere in the noble district, a wardstone exploded. Scribes panicked. Seers collapsed. One vomited blood.
"A fragment's been claimed!""By whom?""The Veiled One. The Wordborn. The boy…""He found a Law.""No—the Law found him."
Rin — Leaving the Vault
He rose to his feet. His eyes had changed—grey-gold, swirling with script. His breath came out in clouds, though the air was warm.
Velhallow… felt smaller.
He walked back toward the city, slow, calm. And behind him, the vault sealed itself, never to open again.
But its power walked now.
And it wore a mortal's face.