"Some lands bleed memory. Others scream it into the bones of the unworthy."
The Edge of the Forgotten
Beyond the moss-bound borders of Vaelcrest, the world stretched out like a breath long held. Forests gave way to fields, and rivers wound like silver veins through cracked earth. But what lay ahead was something altogether different—a grave in bloom.
Kaizen and Yvonne stood at the crest of a worn hillside, gazing down into a field of dead flowers that shimmered gray as smoke and silent as tombs. No breeze stirred. No insects sang. The world had gone still—not with peace, but with caution.
"This place…" Kaizen muttered, gripping the hilt of his greatstone blade, "feels like it's waiting."
Yvonne didn't answer. She knelt, brushing her fingers across the petals of a brittle blossom. The moment her skin touched it, the flower crumbled to dust—not decayed, but willingly disintegrated, as if it had held its breath for too long.
"It's not waiting," she said. Her voice was a whisper stretched thin by something deeper. "It's remembering."
The Bloomfields
They descended into the field, each step muffled as if the ground resisted sound. Tens of thousands of ghost-colored flowers stretched toward a sky the color of dull copper. Beneath the surface, root systems wrapped around bone, and the earth exhaled a metallic scent of rusted sorrow.
Yvonne's golden eyes flicked across the horizon, her senses tingling with a strange resonance. She felt no life here, yet… no death either.
It was a place outside time, a place that had chosen to forget itself.
"This wasn't always dead," she murmured. "These were mourning blossoms. Veilweavers used to plant them at sacred shrines. For memory. For forgiveness."
Kaizen shifted his weight, the runes etched into his armor humming faintly.
"Forgiveness for what?"
She paused, her gaze distant.
"For the sins of gods."
The Monument of Silence
At the center of the field, rising like a spine from the earth, stood a spiraled obelisk, formed of obsidian and streaked with living veins of crimson light. The air around it was heavier, thick with grief that had never been spoken aloud.
As they drew near, the runes along its surface began to glow faintly—not in welcome, but recognition.
Yvonne's knees buckled.
"This monument," she said, breathless, "it's for us."
Kaizen's brow furrowed.
"We've never been here."
"No. Not us… not like this."
She pressed her palm to the cold surface of the stone. The moment she made contact, the monument pulsed.
And it screamed.
Not aloud—but into the soul. A scream made of shattered memories, of burned cities, of crowds crying prayers to the Spiral and then begging those same gods for mercy when the skies rained fire.
The Veil Quivers
Yvonne staggered back, clutching her head.
A flicker—a burst of past-life memory:
Her voice echoing over a burning citadel.
Kael'Vorr's greatstone blade cleaving armies in two.
A council kneeling in chains.
Fire devouring mountains.
Their names chanted not with reverence—but with terror.
"Ashweaver…" she gasped. "This… this is what they buried. What we buried."
The Veil of Judgment, third of the Sixfold Veils, quivered inside her chest like a locked door rattling in a hurricane.
Flames burst around her feet, coiling up her legs, but not burning her—mourning her. Grieving for the divine judgment she once carried. The wind howled through the field as if the monument's grief had finally torn free.
Kaizen Anchors the World
Kaizen stepped forward, grabbing her shoulder. His gauntlet radiated raw strength, but his voice was gentler than stone had any right to be.
"Enough. Not here."
The ground beneath them pulsed, and for the first time, Kaizen could feel the stone remembering too.
He was a giant among cracked roots and whispers, yet for the first time, the weight of his body didn't strain the world—it balanced it.
He knelt beside Yvonne, pressing a palm to the spiral monument. The glowing threads of crimson light stilled.
"We weren't monsters," he said quietly. "We were protectors… who became too powerful to protect anything."
She met his eyes, and for a heartbeat, they both remembered the moment they chose the Veils—not out of fear, but out of love.
The Watcher in Gold
As the wind died, the field calmed. But they were not alone.
Across the field, amidst the sea of ash petals, a figure stood in perfect stillness—cloaked in black and gold, face hidden behind an ivory mask, adorned with the mark of the Spiral.
A Watcher.
It did not speak. It did not draw blade or sigil. It simply lifted one hand…
…and pointed.
Not at Yvonne.
Not at Kaizen.
But at the spiral monument.
Then it vanished—dissolved into spiraling smoke, swallowed by the field as if it had never been there at all.