The rain in Asael's Vigil had a way of muting everything. No matter how sharp the clang of steel or how ragged the screams of training knights, the water seemed to swallow sound and soften fury. Beneath the violet-gray sky, the cobblestones of the southern court were slick with water, streaked faintly with the shimmer of arcane residue—a common occurrence near the warding boundaries of the city.
Kael stood in the middle of the square, his dark cloak clinging to him like a second skin, soaked and heavy. His scythe was embedded in the ground beside him, the curved blade resting just inches from his hand. Drops of rain slithered along its red-hued edge, staining the puddles beneath with illusionary blood. But the scythe hadn't been used today. Not yet.
He stared across the courtyard at the two acolytes who knelt before him, their bodies trembling not from fear but from cold. They had failed him. Again.
"You let her pass," Kael said quietly, his voice barely rising above the patter of rain. His tone wasn't angry, but it was cold. Distant.
The two men looked up, one with desperation in his eyes, the other with defiance barely restrained.
"She used magic we couldn't counter, Lord Kael," the first stammered. "Mind-warping illusions—"
"You trained for that very spell last moon," Kael interrupted. "Three hours in the Spiral Chambers. Or was that time wasted?"
They flinched. Neither answered.
Kael turned away. He no longer needed to pass judgment. Their own silence was enough. The crowd that had begun to gather at the edge of the courtyard dispersed at the flick of his fingers, a silent command none dared ignore.
As he made his way toward the Hall of Glass, his boots echoing against stone and rain, the voice returned.
"One man army. That's all you've ever needed to be."
He paused only for a breath. The voice belonged to a fragment of himself—a personality birthed by necessity, sharpened through blood and solitude. He didn't respond aloud. He never did.
The Hall of Glass stood tall in the center of Asael's Vigil. Its crystalline dome reflected the stormclouds like a shattered mirror pieced together by divine hands. Arcane conduits ran through its structure like veins, pulsing faintly with amethyst light.
Inside, Kael met with Lysara—his second, his scribe, his confidante, and perhaps the only real person among the host of illusions he surrounded himself with. Whether she existed beyond his mind was a truth he avoided questioning. She was there when he needed her, and that was enough.
"The northern scouts returned. Word from Cassinthar: House Velorth is mobilizing. Aura-born, not mages," she said without looking up from the floating sigil-scroll before her.
"They seek the Blade of Memory," Kael replied.
"We suspected as much."
He nodded slowly, pacing. "Prepare the Whisper Veil. I will intercept them myself."
Lysara finally looked up. Her expression was blank, but he saw the protest hiding behind her mask. "You haven't rested in four days. Your mind is fraying."
"It has already unraveled. I'm merely braiding the strands into a noose."
Her lips tightened. "At this rate, you'll die before you find her. Or lose yourself before you realize she was never real."
He walked past her. "Then the fragments will carry on."
The journey to Cassinthar took half a day by the Ravenbound Gate, a teleportation conduit that only responded to blood sacrifices and precise incantations. Kael used neither. The scythe drank from his veins without permission, and the glyphs obeyed his unspoken will.
The Hollow Kingdom sprawled beneath him as he emerged from the gate. Towering stalactites framed the great caverns, and the scent of moss and memory filled the air. Kael had always hated the silence of Cassinthar. It reminded him too much of the things left unsaid.
He moved without sound, like a shade among shadows. The resistance had followers here. Mages stripped of power, knights stripped of purpose. He had promised them new purpose.
In the Lower Warrens, he found the remnants of Velorth's vanguard. Blood still steamed on the stones. A girl sat among the bodies, a dagger in her hand, her robes torn. Her face—
Familiar.
His heart staggered.
"You," he breathed.
But it wasn't her.
The girl looked up, eyes glassy, expression vacant. She was young—sixteen, maybe. The same age Kael had been when he carved his first rune into flesh.
"Who did this?" he asked.
She tilted her head. "You did."
The words chilled him.
He fell back a step. A shard of memory—or madness—pierced his mind. Faces. Screams. He remembered drawing the scythe's edge across throats that begged. Not enemies. Not soldiers. Witnesses.
"Lysara," he whispered. "Was this part of it? Did we... know?"
No answer came. No voice. No second presence. Nothing.
He was alone.
Later that night, Kael returned to the surface and stood beneath the dying moon. The girl had refused to follow, and he had not made her. Let the ruins of Cassinthar bury what he had done. Or what he imagined he had done.
He summoned the fragments again.
"Judgement," he called.
A voice answered: cold, precise. "You have failed our purpose. The resistance fragments. The girl no longer believes."
"I never believed."
"You did. As a child. You believed your pain had meaning."
"That was before I knew the world."
"Then you still do not know it."
Another voice joined. This one warmer. Feminine. "She loved you. You remember that, don't you? Even now."
Kael closed his eyes. "I remember a dream."
"Then chase it. If only to see where it leads."
He opened his eyes. The rain had stopped. The wind shifted. He felt the tug of a greater spell, something ancient, something reaching.
It came from Erythil.
The City of Floating Towers.
The City she once called home.
Kael raised his scythe and carved a sigil into the air. The Veil shimmered and parted. The fragments whispered together in unison.
"A spiral broken can still turn."
And so he walked forward—toward Erythil, toward memory, toward ruin—his name heavier with every step, his shadow longer than any man could bear.