Chapter Six: The Night World's Veil, The Unwavering Line
Kelna lay submerged in the vast, claw-foot bathtub, the scented water warm and comforting. Two housemaids, Elara and Pia, busied themselves with washing her hair and arranging the silks for her drying. Kelna's legs, now strong and straight beneath the water, felt like foreign, wonderful appendages. She kept them perfectly still, focused on maintaining the charade.
"The jasmine soap is perfect, thank you, Pia," Kelna said brightly. She was fully invested in the pretending.
Pia, a stout woman with kind eyes, smiled. "We are happy to serve, Lady Kelna. You seem much lighter this morning. More rested."
"I am," Kelna replied, forcing a soft sigh. "Urca was so attentive last night. He tried to tell me a story about his childhood—all these strange herbal baths his family insisted on—to take my mind off things. Silly, perhaps, but very sweet." She offered a tentative, genuine smile. "It's… it's been a long time since I felt like talking to anyone outside this room. Tell me, Elara, are the new roses in the south garden truly red as a cardinal?"
Elara, a younger maid, hesitated, surprised by the direct, friendly question. "They are, my Lady. The deepest red I've ever seen. You should try to see them when the sun is highest."
Kelna listened, nodding with genuine curiosity. She asked about the mundane details of the estate—the weather, the kitchen staff, the latest gossip—trying to inhabit a social life that had been denied to her since her accident. The maids, initially wary, began to relax, finding the woman they pitied less demanding and more human than they expected. Kelna was relieved; they had noticed nothing amiss. Her lie was safe.
Or so she thought. She didn't know that even if her mouth slipped, no one would notice.
⸻
Miles away, in the chill, suffocating silence of the Cult Domain, the shattered mind of Lena was the sole focus of its master. The silence was so complete that a single pin dropping would have echoed like a scream.
Urca leaned in, his smile cold and final. "Now, let's try this again." His voice echoed in the vast cavern. "What are you?"
Lena, broken but with the crystal-clear memories of a year's torment blazing in her mind, had no choice but to comply. The fear was too great, the power too absolute.
"I… I am Lena Vance. I belong to the Silent Watch," she whispered, her voice hoarse. "We are a paranormal group. One of the many humans who discovered the Night World."
Urca stepped back, genuinely intrigued. He knew about the Totem, about his rebirth, about the necessity of sin. But the world outside the cave, the world he died in, had felt utterly mundane.
"Paranormal group?" he pressed, his tone lazy. "Explain. What is this 'Night World'? In the life I remember, there were no groups outside the police and the corrupt, just ordinary men."
Lena, confused by his ignorance but too terrified to question it, complied instantly. "The general public—they are veiled. But there are creatures in this world, Ma-master. They are disguised, blending in. Night Creatures: Werewolves, Vampires, certain types of Elves, and others. They live by one rule: Never break the veil. Never be seen by the general public."
Urca walked toward the Throne, slowly running his hand over the rough stone face of the Prison. "And your 'Silent Watch'—you are human. How do you fit in with creatures of the night?"
"We are just a group of humans who stumbled into the supernatural and took the opportunity, Master. Humans who discovered the truth and chose to adapt. We use training and wit to survive and keep the balance. We deal in the cracks," she explained. "But there are stronger human factions. The Church draws strength from divine beings of the Outer Verse—they call them Holy Gods. The Dark Cults serve demons and entities from the same origin as the Holy Gods. Then there are the Enhanced—special humans born with gifts and bloodlines, or those who use dark science to alter their biology."
Urca paused, turning. This was a complex, multi-layered reality. A world of progression, of power, of easy targets for the Totem's hunger.
"If the world is hidden, how do these creatures and cults interact? How do they trade and communicate?"
"They use the Night Net, Master," Lena explained quickly, fearing her silence might be mistaken for hesitation. "It's a separate frequency, a hidden internet run on special, shielded phones. Trading rare herbs, contracting assassinations, selling information—it's all there, locked off from the regular world." She pointed to her pocket. "I have one, a basic model. It's what I use to gather intel for my… my own business."
"Your business," Urca repeated, a cold smirk touching his lips. He used the brief lapse in tension to probe her history. "Tell me about the Rurns. Why were you watching them?"
Lena's fear momentarily warred with her deep-seated rage. "I joined the Silent Watch to learn how to hurt them. They drove my parents to ruin, Master. They framed them, took everything. I've been spying here for six months, plotting my revenge—a small, private sin to fuel the fire."
Urca gave a slow, measured nod. Sin. Exactly what the Totem required.
"Good," he said, not as a compliment but as a pronouncement. He used his power, and the sleek, black Night Net Phone instantly phased out of Lena's uniform pocket, floating into his hand. He turned it over, studying the strange, minimalist runes etched onto the case.
"You are not my slave, Lena. You are not my agent. You are merely a terrified woman who knows that crossing me means a million years of torment," Urca stated simply, dismissing her potential utility to him. "But you have two things I need: a source of information and an urgent desire for wickedness. I will not interfere with your revenge against the Rurns, provided it remains wicked and secret."
He held up the phone. "This is your new task: Get me an equivalent device. I don't need the original Urca's social contacts; I need the Night Net."
He fixed her with a gaze of chilling clarity. "You have one rule that is not negotiable, one bottom line. You will never, ever cross my wife, Kelna. Do you understand? You are a maid, and I am the new son-in-law. You will be invisible to me, but if a hair on her head is harmed, or if she suspects your true nature, your punishment will be eternal. My wife is off limits."
Lena, relieved she was not forced into explicit servitude, could only nod, her mind still numb from the illusion. "Y-yes, Master. I understand."
Urca offered her no further words of comfort or instruction. With a final wave of his hand, he tore open a small portal, depositing her back into her tiny, sterile maid's room.
Lena stumbled, landing hard on the carpet. She was back. The horror was over.
Urca materialized beside her, but this time, he let the Mask fall completely, returning to his true form. The skin and muscle morphed, dropped away, revealing his original, 19-year-old body. But he didn't restore it to life; he purposefully kept the wounds of his death—a hideous, zombified horror of broken bones, decaying flesh, and a face ravaged by the mob. He let the sight settle on her, a perfect demonstration of the power now inhabiting him.
"Tell me, Lena," he whispered, his voice rattling in the ruined form. "Do I look good?"
Lena, pressing herself against the wall, eyes wide with fresh, absolute terror, could only manage a choked sound. "Y-yes… you look… good, M-master."
Urca smiled, a ghastly, stretched rictus of death. "Good. I have people to scare."
He dissolved into a coil of shadow, utterly vanishing from the room, leaving Lena alone, shattered—and utterly committed to her simple, impossible task.
She lost all strength and simply passed out.