The city was burning again.
Emberlight flickered off fractured marble towers as plumes of smoke clawed skyward, choking out the stars. Screams echoed through narrow alleys, swallowed quickly by the deafening roar of something unnatural — something ancient. Across the rooftops of the Outer Ring, a silhouette darted like a shadow come to life, cloak billowing behind him, steel glinting in his hands.
Seventeen-year-old Kael Arkan didn't look like a savior. Too scrawny. Too reckless. Eyes too full of rage.
But tonight, he was all that stood between the city of Seraphiel and the thing tearing through its heart.
His boots skidded across a moss-slick rooftop as he leapt the gap between buildings, breath coming in ragged gasps. The red moon hung low behind him, massive and watching — an omen, the elders had said. A bad one.
"Don't look back," Kael muttered to himself. "Don't think. Just move."
Behind him, the Veilspawn shrieked — a sound like metal rending flesh. The air warped in its wake, rippling with arcane energy. Buildings crumbled where it passed, time itself seeming to skip, like reality was a fraying film reel.
Kael's right hand clenched around the hilt of his blade. It wasn't much. Just steel, etched with faint runes — not nearly enough to stop a Veilspawn. Not unless he used it.
But using it meant giving in again.
And every time he did… the voices got louder.
He dropped into the alleyway below, landing hard, his knee buckling. Blood dripped from his mouth. No time to feel it. No time to think. The Veilspawn — nine feet tall, skeletal wings dragging behind it, a crown of bone protruding from its eyeless head — landed behind him with an earth-shaking crash.
"You've got to be kidding me," Kael groaned.
The creature's limbs extended like spears. Time slowed.
Kael whispered a single word.
"Unseal."
His left eye flared open — and changed.
The sclera turned black. The iris bled gold. Symbols spun in it like a broken clock trying to remember how to tick.
Power roared through his veins.
His blade moved on its own, guided by instinct older than him. Runes flared. The world exploded into color — blue trails of motion, red lines of death. He saw the strike before it came. Moved before it landed. Slashed before the creature even reacted.
His sword bit into the Veilspawn's torso — and screamed.
Not the blade. Not the creature. Him.
Kael dropped to his knees as fire lanced up his spine. His nose bled. His vision fractured.
He had seconds.
With a grunt, he drove his sword deeper and whispered a second word:
"Release."
Light engulfed them.
When it faded, the creature was gone. So was half the alley. So was Kael's strength. He collapsed, gasping, the power draining from him like a wound he couldn't close.
Footsteps approached. Fast. Urgent.
A girl's voice — breathless, furious. "Idiot! What did I tell you about using the Eye without backup?!"
Kael cracked one bloodied eye open. "Nice to see you too, Sera."
Seraphina Vale — seventeen, terrifying, top of her class at the Academy — crouched beside him. Her silver hair was pulled back, her glaive still glowing faintly with arcane heat.
"You're lucky I was tracking you," she snapped, pulling him up with ease. "You could've died. Again."
Kael smiled, half-conscious. "I missed you too."
"You've been missing for three weeks, Kael."
He blinked. That part he hadn't remembered. "Oh."
She looked at his eye — now dull, its power sealed once more — and her voice softened. "It's getting worse, isn't it?"
He didn't answer.
She didn't need him to.
Behind them, sirens began to wail. The sky churned. Somewhere deeper in the city, another shriek echoed — louder, more furious.
Sera stiffened.
"That wasn't the only one," she whispered.
Kael stood, shakily. "No. It never is."
The city didn't sleep.Not anymore.
Since the Veilspawn breach in Sector Six, Seraphiel had been locked down. Arcane floodlights bathed the shattered district in a ghostly blue hue. Patrols moved like clockwork — armored enforcers in veilsuits, their visors glowing faintly with runic tech. Drones buzzed overhead, scanning for anomalies. But none of them found Kael and Sera.
They were already beneath the city.
The catacombs were ancient — older than Seraphiel, older than the Veil itself. Dust fell like ash from the cracked ceiling. Roots, long dead, hung like veins from the walls. Faint glyphs pulsed along the floor, guiding the way forward — a path known only to those who had been marked by the Eye.
Kael leaned against a pillar, clutching his ribs.
"You fractured something again," Sera muttered, not even turning around.
Kael gave her a wry smile. "You always say that."
"Because you always do."
She stopped at a sealed stone door, tracing her gloved fingers over the etched surface. It shimmered beneath her touch, reacting to her presence. "We need to talk to the Archivist."
Kael's expression shifted — pain flickering into wariness.
"I thought he was dead."
Sera didn't answer. The door cracked open with a sound like splitting bone.
They stepped into a circular chamber lined with books, scrolls, and relics floating in suspended stasis. At the center, surrounded by chains and glowing scripts, sat a figure — not quite man, not quite machine.
The Archivist.
His body was part obsidian, part flesh, part something else. A forgotten blend of tech and magic — arcane engineering lost to time. One glowing eye turned slowly toward them as his mechanical jaw clicked open.
"Kael Arkan," the Archivist rasped. "You were supposed to be dust."
Kael flinched.
"Nice to see you too," he muttered.
The Archivist's chains groaned as he leaned forward. "The Eye is active again. That... is dangerous."
"Tell us something we don't know," Sera said, arms crossed.
Kael's voice dropped. "What is it?"
The Archivist regarded him for a long moment. "A prison. A curse. A god's broken promise. It's called The Eye of Eltarion. One of five."
Kael's breath caught. "There are... more?"
"Five Eyes. Five Anchors. Five Seals," the Archivist intoned. "Each placed within a vessel. You are one."
Kael's world tilted. He staggered back, gripping the wall.
Sera moved toward him, her anger melting into concern. "Kael…"
But Kael's mind was spinning — memories not his own flashing across his vision. A temple swallowed by flame. A woman with golden eyes weeping over a dying child. A name carved into stone, then erased by time.
He clutched his head. "Why me?"
The Archivist's voice echoed like a verdict:"Because you burned, and yet did not die. The Veil marked you. And now it hunts you."
Outside, the sirens changed pitch.
A new alert.
The Archivist's remaining eye narrowed. "You brought it here."
Kael blinked. "Brought what—?"
The chamber shook. Dust rained down. Something massive slammed into the surface above them.
Then came the sound they dreaded:A shriek.Not just one.
Multiple Veilspawn.
"They're tunneling," Sera hissed, glaive snapping into her hands. "They've never done that before."
Kael looked to the Archivist. "Can you fight?"
The old machine laughed — a dry, crackling noise. "Fight? No. But I can give you this."
From the shadows, he produced a gauntlet — blackened steel, inscribed with burning runes that pulsed in time with Kael's Eye.
"It's a limiter," the Archivist said. "And a key."
Kael didn't ask questions. He strapped it to his arm. The metal sizzled against his skin.
Sera's eyes widened. "Are you sure about this?"
Kael's voice was quiet. Cold."No."
The ceiling above them cracked. Dust poured in.
The Veilspawn were coming.
Kael's Eye ignited again — golden fire behind obsidian sclera.
"Let them."
The ceiling shattered.
Stone and dust exploded as something massive slammed into the catacomb chamber, sending chunks of ancient masonry crashing down. Kael tackled Sera out of the way as a pillar crumbled where she'd been standing.
A Veilspawn dropped through the breach — long-limbed and faceless, cloaked in smoke and silence. It didn't roar. It clicked, like bones grinding together, and then it split, birthing two smaller forms from its ribcage, each twitching with unnatural speed.
"New variant," Sera muttered, already spinning her glaive into a defensive stance. "Fantastic."
"They're learning," Kael breathed, watching the creatures scatter across the walls like insects. "They're adapting."
Another one landed behind them.
Kael didn't wait.
He moved on instinct — the Eye burning hot in its socket, the gauntlet on his arm flaring with symbols. Time didn't slow like before — it fractured. For a heartbeat, he saw five outcomes of the same second.
All of them ended in blood.
His blade clashed with the creature's claws, steel screaming against unnatural bone. Sparks flew. He twisted, pivoted low, drove his sword up through its chest. It howled, split apart — and reformed behind him.
Sera was faster. Her glaive cut a clean arc through the second spawn, its body disintegrating in a flash of arcane heat. "They're phasing! Physical hits won't keep them down!"
Kael gritted his teeth. "Then we burn them from reality."
The gauntlet clicked. His body resisted. Power surged.
His Eye widened — and the world bent.
Symbols uncoiled in the air around him, spinning like a summoning circle. Heat rushed in. Gravity twisted. The Archivist shouted something — a warning, maybe — but it was drowned by the shriek of the Veilspawn as Kael let go.
"Release Protocol: Second Seal."
A pulse erupted from his chest. The creatures disintegrated mid-lunge, their forms sucked into the Eye's burning light like ash in a vacuum. The chamber walls warped, old glyphs igniting as ancient wards kicked in to suppress the backlash.
Kael collapsed.
Blood streamed from his nose, ears, mouth. He could barely see. Couldn't hear. The world swam.
Sera caught him before he hit the floor.
"Kael—!" Her voice was sharp, afraid. "You weren't supposed to be able to access a second seal! Not without training, not without—"
"I didn't choose to," Kael rasped. "It opened on its own."
Sera stared at him, then at the Eye — now smoldering faintly, its symbols flickering between gold and black.
The Archivist stepped forward, chains dragging behind him. "It's waking up faster than expected."
"'It'?" Sera demanded.
The Archivist looked down at Kael. "The Eye is not just a power. It's a lock. A memory. A will. You are the host... but not the master."
Kael looked up, trembling. "Then what am I?"
The old machine regarded him with something almost like pity.
"A warning."