The road to the veil's heart was not marked on any map. No stars guided it. No path welcomed travelers. It wound through dreams, through memory, and through the edges of what magic could comprehend.
They began the journey under a bleeding moon.
It wasn't red, not exactly—just cracked, like something ancient had clawed at its surface and left it half-lit. The sky above them churned with smoky clouds, and time moved strangely here. One moment a second. The next a lifetime.
Lyra felt it first.
The pressure in the air. Like being watched by something that had never been born and would never die.
"The veil doesn't like us approaching," she murmured.
Raven, walking beside her with sword sheathed and magic thrumming low around him, didn't respond at first. His eyes were fixed ahead, dark and quiet.
"It remembers," he finally said. "What you are. What I am."
She glanced at him. "And what are we?"
He looked at her then. "A mistake. Or a miracle. Depending on who wins."
They were not alone.
Behind them, a small convoy had formed—witches riding on wind-beasts, vampires gliding through the shadows like living mist. A few humans had joined too, mages and scholars who had studied the veil all their lives and never dared approach it.
The landscape twisted the closer they drew.
Trees bled black sap. The ground cracked open in veins that pulsed with colorless light. Time folded—some saw visions of their past; others heard voices calling them from the dark.
Lyra heard her mother's voice.
Soft. Sweet. Begging her to come home.
But her mother had died when she was nine.
Raven reached out, touched her arm. "Don't listen."
"I'm not," she whispered, though her hands trembled.
Ahead, the veil thickened.
No longer just a shimmer in the distance—it became a wall. Towering. Shifting. Living. A vast curtain of spiraling magic, ink-black and veined with blue lightning, rising into the sky with no end in sight.
"We're here," one of the witches said, awed.
"No," Lyra replied. "We're still outside."
They stopped at the threshold. Everyone.
Silence spread.
Raven stepped forward, reaching for the relic at Lyra's side. Together, they held it—hands overlapping. The moment they did, the veil sang.
Not with music, but with memory.
It showed flashes. A boy born of shadow. A girl lit with flame. Hands touching across dimensions. Magic that was never supposed to meet—and a world that cracked because of it.
The prophecy wasn't a warning.
It was a recording.
Lyra gasped. "We were never meant to break the veil. We are the veil. Pieces of it. Split apart and now returning."
"Then what happens if we go in?" Raven asked.
"No idea."
But they had to.
The others began to chant softly behind them—binding runes, protective incantations, oaths whispered to the winds. Lyra closed her eyes and stepped forward with Raven.
The veil swallowed them whole.
Inside was not darkness. Not entirely.
It was everything.
Light, shadow, color that didn't exist, sounds that could only be felt. They weren't walking anymore. They were floating. Or falling. Or being dragged.
Lyra felt her bones vibrate, her magic unravel. Raven groaned beside her, his form flickering like he was being rewritten with every breath.
"I can't hold—" he choked out.
She gripped his hand tighter. "Don't let go."
They landed.
Hard.
Not on ground, but on something solid enough to bruise. The air inside the heart of the veil was thick, electric. Around them stood ruins—buildings twisted like they'd been bent by time itself. And in the center…
A throne.
Not empty.
Something sat upon it.
Not human. Not demon. Not even alive, not really.
It looked like a sculpture carved from the cosmos itself—stars in its veins, void in its eyes, skin like obsidian wrapped in starlight. It didn't move. Didn't breathe.
Yet it watched them.
"It's… waiting," Lyra said.
"For what?" Raven asked, though he already knew.
"For us to prove we deserve to be here."
The ground shifted. Magic erupted. And suddenly, illusions stormed around them—visions crafted from fear.
Lyra saw Raven bleeding out, alone. Saw herself bound to a pyre, burning for crimes she didn't understand. Saw her magic turning on her. Saw him turning on her.
Raven saw her leaving him.
Choosing the world over their bond. Choosing the prophecy's demands over his soul.
The creature on the throne said nothing.
But the illusions whispered.
You'll destroy each other.
Love is a lie. The bond will betray you.
Lyra dropped to her knees, clutching her head. "It's not real," she hissed. "It's not real."
Raven knelt beside her. His hands framed her face. "Look at me."
"I can't—"
"You can. We're not breaking. We're bending. That's how bonds are made."
She met his eyes.
And the visions broke.
The silence afterward was deafening.
The throne pulsed once, a heartbeat echoing through the chamber.
Then the creature spoke.
"You have entered the Hollow Sky. Few survive here. Even fewer leave unchanged."
Raven stood. "We're not here to leave. We're here to end the war."
"And what price will you pay?" it asked.
Lyra stood beside him. "Whatever it demands. As long as we do it together."
The creature smiled.
The chamber began to shift again, revealing a staircase made of stars, leading deeper into the core.
And the next trial waited below.