The veil enveloped them like cold smoke, and for a breathless moment, the world disappeared.
No sound.
No wind.
No light.
Only the sensation of falling without moving—
as if the earth beneath their feet had forgotten what ground was supposed to do.
Rafi clutched Naren's sleeve so tightly his knuckles whitened. "Are we—are we dead?"
"No," Naren replied calmly. "Death is louder."
The world rebuilt itself with a quiet sigh.
The air cleared. The ridge reappeared.
But it was not the ridge they had climbed.
A Place Out of Step with the World
They stood on a narrow path carved into the side of a high cliff. Below them lay a valley drowned in thick fog, shifting like restless spirits. The sky above was still evening—yet the sun hung frozen at the same point on the horizon, neither rising nor setting.
Rafi blinked. "This… isn't possible."
"It isn't," Naren agreed.
"Then how—"
"Some places exist beside the world," Naren murmured. "Not in it."
Rafi stared at him. "How do you know all this?"
Naren didn't answer.
Because the truth was simple and terrible:
He knew this place.
Not personally, but from stories whispered to him long ago, before fate had carved sorrow into his bones.
Stories told by a voice he remembered too well.
His mother's.
His throat tightened, but he kept walking.
The shadow-being waited ahead, its form flickering like a dying flame in reverse—light collapsing inward instead of burning outward.
Naren followed.
Rafi followed Naren.
The Echoing Path
The cliff path narrowed.
Every sound—footsteps, breaths, the rustle of their cloaks—seemed to echo back with a delay, as though the air were uncertain whether to keep or return them.
Rafi stepped closer. "This echo… why does it sound like—"
"—a whisper," Naren finished. "Because it isn't our echo."
Rafi froze. "Then whose—"
A whisper drifted through the wind.
…turn back…
Rafi stumbled. "I—I didn't imagine that, did I?"
"No."
"Should we listen?"
"No."
"Then why—"
"Because if this place wanted us dead," Naren said quietly, "we would already be dead."
Rafi swallowed hard. "I hate that answer."
"I know."
The First Sign
Halfway along the cliff, the shadow-being stopped. It pointed with its dusk-formed limb toward a patch of rock on the cliff wall.
Naren approached.
It wasn't rock.
It was an inscription—ancient, worn, carved in a script that blended curves and angles like water trapped inside crystal.
He brushed his fingers lightly over the symbols.
Rafi watched. "Can you read it?"
"Only parts," Naren said.
"What does it say?"
Naren hesitated.
Then he read softly, voice colder than the air:
"When the sun stands still,
seek not the light behind you
but the shadow before you.
For only in the darkness is truth revealed."
Rafi stared. "That… sounds like your mother's letter."
"Yes," Naren said.
Too quickly.
Too sharply.
Rafi's eyes softened with understanding. "She told you this place would find you, didn't she?"
Naren said nothing.
He touched the inscription again—
the stone warm, as though engraved by hands that still lingered.
His heartbeat echoed strangely in his ears.
His mother hadn't been a sorceress.
She wasn't part of any Order.
She wasn't someone the world noticed.
Yet she had left him a letter older than her death, written with knowledge she shouldn't have had.
How?
Why?
Behind them, the whisper returned.
…follow the shadow…
Naren's jaw tightened. "We keep moving."
The Guardian
As they neared the end of the cliff path, the fog below began to rise, curling up the rock face like fingers groping for warmth.
Rafi shivered. "I don't like this. I really don't like this."
"You shouldn't," Naren said.
"That doesn't help."
"It's not meant to."
The shadow-being stopped again—this time at a wide ledge where the cliff widened into a flat platform. The fog swallowed the edge, obscuring the drop.
Rafi whispered, "Where do we go now? I don't see—"
The fog moved.
No—
something in the fog moved.
The shape grew clearer as it stepped onto the ledge—tall, armored, its form forged entirely from shadow and steel. Two faint lines of pale blue light glowed where eyes should have been.
Rafi choked on his breath. "W-what is that?"
Naren's hand drifted to his sword.
His pulse slowed.
Pain—or fear—almost brought a laugh to his lips.
"A Guardian," he said.
"Of what?"
"Of whatever we're walking toward."
The Guardian raised a blade the length of its own body.
Fog curled around its armor like living cloth.
Rafi backed away. "Naren… Naren… can we not do this? Please?"
"This has to happen," Naren said quietly.
"Why?"
"Because the shadow led us here."
"That's not a reason!"
"It's the only one I have."
The Guardian stepped forward with the weight of inevitability.
The shadow-being beside them dimmed, as if bowing.
Naren drew his sword.
Rafi's voice trembled. "Are we fighting it?"
"No," Naren whispered.
Rafi blinked. "…No?"
The Guardian stopped a few steps away.
Its blade lowered.
And then—
It knelt.
Rafi's jaw dropped. "It… bowed to you."
Naren didn't move.
He didn't breathe.
The Guardian lifted a hand and pointed—not at him, but at the letter inside his cloak.
Rafi whispered, "Naren… what did your mother know?"
Naren's voice was barely a breath.
"Too much."
The Guardian rose, turned, and slashed its blade through the fog.
The fog parted, revealing a hidden passage cut into the cliff—narrow, descending into dim blue light.
The Guardian stepped aside, allowing them to pass.
Rafi looked at Naren.
Naren looked at the darkness ahead.
He exhaled.
"Stay close," he said.
Rafi nodded shakily. "Always."
Together, they stepped into the passage.
Behind them, the sun outside remained frozen—watching.
Waiting.
And far ahead, in the deep blue glow, something ancient stirred.
Something that knew Naren's name long before he was born.