The world returned in fragments.
Dripping water. The clink of iron. A dull pulse behind his eyes.
Gareth blinked against the dim light. Cold air pressed close — damp stone, rust, and earth filling his lungs.
Chains rattled as he moved. His wrists burned.
For a moment, he couldn't remember where he was — only the impact, the darkness that swallowed everything.
Then came a sound beside him. A breath.
"Ariela?"
She stirred, lashes fluttering. Pale skin, hair sticking to her cheek. Relief flickered in her eyes—then fear.
"Gareth… where—" Her voice cracked.
"I don't know." His throat was raw, each word scraping like gravel.
Silence settled between them. Drip. Drip. The cold breathing of stone.
Footsteps echoed beyond the bars — slow, deliberate, drawing closer.
Ariela shivered. "This isn't the forest, is it?"
He shook his head. "No… this feels worse."
Then the steps stopped.
Someone was there — watching from the dark.
The silence broke — a figure stepped forward.
Torchlight caught the man's skin: tanned, roughened by sun and sand, yet his eyes gleamed with quiet restraint.
Behind him stood three giants — broad, scarred, the kind of men who could break bone with a glance.
But this one was different. Still. Composed.
He stopped before the bars. "You're awake." His voice was calm — almost kind.
Then, after a beat, he added,
"I'm Toravon. Lord of the Outer March."
Gareth pushed himself upright, chains clinking. "Why bring us here bastard and how did you do it?"
Toravon didn't answer. His gaze lingered, unreadable — like a man measuring weight, not words.
Then his palm rose slightly.
The air rippled.
A hum rolled through the cell, low and deep — the Veil stirring.
Gareth felt it before he saw it — pressure folding in from every direction, crushing, burning.
He gasped, knees buckling. The world tilted, light cracking across his vision—
Then Toravon staggered too.
His breath hitched, eyes widening, as if struck by something unseen.
Both fell. The echo of the Veil snapped, and silence flooded back in.
Ariela cried out, rushing forward, trembling hands on Gareth's shoulder. "Gareth—! Wake up!"
She looked up through the bars, fear filling her voice. "What… what did you do to him?"
Toravon was already on his knees, a faint light bleeding from his eyes, jaw clenched in confusion — like he'd seen a ghost inside Gareth's Veil.
Toravon knelt, his breath ragged, eyes still fixed on the boy's still form.
"The cursed… liberator," he murmured.
The men behind him shifted uneasily, glancing at each other.
One of them spoke, voice low. "Warlord?"
Toravon didn't look back. "I saw it." His voice was quiet, almost reverent. "In his Veil — a mark burning through the dark. An Eclipse."
Silence. Even the air seemed to still.
"The Eclipse?" another whispered. "That symbol doesn't exist anymore. It was erased—"
Toravon rose slowly, gaze locked on Gareth. "Not erased. Forgotten. And now it's awake again… in him."
He stepped closer to the bars, shadows cutting across his scarred face.
"This one isn't from here. His soul doesn't belong to the veilward people. He carries light from beyond our walls — from the outside world."
The men exchanged looks — part fear, part disbelief.
Toravon's hand trembled slightly as he turned away. "Tell the High Circle… the boy we caught isn't a wanderer."
He looked back once more, voice barely above a whisper.
"He's the spark that should've never returned."
Toravon's gaze shifted.
To the girl.
Ariela froze as his shadow fell across her. "Stay back," she whispered, voice trembling.
But Toravon's eyes burned faintly now — gold threading into the dark. "If he bears the Eclipse, then what of you…?"
He lifted his hand again. The air pulsed.
The Veil shimmered, threads of light twisting from her skin — thin, trembling, like something trying to break free. For a heartbeat, Toravon saw into her soul—
—and the world struck back.
A hiss tore through the air.
A serpent of shadow coiled out from her Veil — black scales glinting, jaws wide, eyes like shards of dying suns. It lunged straight for him.
Toravon staggered back, teeth bared. The air split with pressure.
He snapped his fingers — a flare of light cracked the space apart, the serpent recoiling into smoke.
When the echo faded, his chest was heaving.
"By the gods…" Toravon breathed.
Toravon's eyes narrowed. His arm bore a faint burn — shaped like a serpent wrapped around a broken sun.
He didn't name it. He didn't need to. The mark itself seemed to crawl beneath his skin, alive and furious.
He turned toward his soldiers, voice low and grim.
"These two… are not ordinary."
He looked once more at the unconscious boy, then at the terrified girl.
"They're dangerous. More than they know."
Ariela's breath came quick and shallow. The serpent's shadow still lingered in her eyes, the air humming with its echo.
Toravon steadied himself, raising a hand again — not in anger this time, but control. "Sleep," he whispered.
The Veil stirred.
A pulse of soundless force swept through the cell. Ariela gasped, stumbling backward as the world blurred.
Her vision filled with light — then darkness rushing in to swallow it whole.
Her knees buckled.
She collapsed forward, falling into Gareth's unconscious form. Her fingers brushed his wrist before everything went silent.
The torches dimmed.
"Lock the cell," he said quietly. "No one goes near them until I say so."
The soldiers obeyed, their heavy steps fading into the corridor.
Toravon lingered once more — staring at the two unconscious figures lying together on the cold stone.
"The world stirs again," he murmured, voice heavy. "And I fear what it's waking to."
Toravon walked in silence through the carved tunnels, torchlight sliding across black stone walls veined with gold.
The air deepened — colder, older — as he descended into the Hall.
It wasn't built. It was hollowed, like the mountain itself had knelt to let something greater dwell within.
At its heart stretched a vast chamber — pillars of onyx rising into endless shadow, the ground etched with spiraling runes that pulsed faintly with crimson light.
Toravon stepped forward, his broad frame half-swallowed by the dark.
His hair, black as coal, hung loosely over his temples, his eyes — plain, mortal black — glinting with restrained weight.
His muscles moved like coiled steel beneath the scars of war.
He dropped to one knee. His voice, deep but steady, carried through the silence.
"I've found them… the boy and the girl. Their Veils are unlike anything we've seen. The boy bears the Eclipse — the cursed mark spoken of in the forbidden dawn scrolls."
For a long moment, only silence. Then, from the far end of the hall, the darkness itself shifted.
Something vast stirred — no form, only depth, as if the void exhaled.
A voice emerged from it, not loud, but resonant — a whisper that filled the bones.
"So… the Cursed Liberator walks again. The sun breaks where it was never meant to rise again."
Toravon bowed deeper, jaw tightening.
"Then the prophecy holds?"
The darkness pulsed faintly, like slow, breathing night.
"Hold… or fall — it matters little. What stirs in him is not light, but consequence. Watch him, Warlord. And when his shadow grows too long… cut it down."
Toravon lifted his head slightly. "Understood."
The darkness stilled, folding once more into silence.
He rose, grim-faced, turning toward the exit — the weight of command and prophecy pressing against his shoulders.
Gareth woke to silence.
The cell was dim again — a gray, stagnant light bleeding through cracks in the stone.
His head throbbed, and for a long moment, he lay still, staring at the dripping ceiling above him.
Beside him, Ariela slept — her breathing slow, her face streaked with faint dust.
He almost reached to wake her… but stopped. She looked peaceful, and after everything, peace was rare.
So he just sat there, back against the cold wall, eyes half-lidded.
The memory hit like a blade.
That man — the tanned warlord — hadn't even spoken. Just lifted a hand, and the Veil itself had answered. Power, silent and absolute. Then—nothing. Blackness.
Gareth clenched his fists. The thought burned deeper than the bruises.
He exhaled slowly, raising a hand. His palm trembled as he reached into the air — into that thin veil between breath and the unseen.
The world shifted. A faint hum, like the pull of a storm. His vision darkened around the edges.
But this time… something was wrong.
Instead of clarity, a pressure gripped his chest — cold, suffocating.
His veins stung. The hum twisted into a low, guttural noise.
Then—
Cough!
A splatter of black blood hit the stone.
It shimmered faintly, almost alive, before soaking into the cracks.
Gareth gasped, wiping his mouth, anger flashing in his eyes.
"Not again," he muttered, voice hoarse. "Come on… work."
He clenched his hand tighter, willing the corruption to fade, but it only pulsed darker, coiling like smoke beneath his skin.
He slammed his fist against the wall, breathing hard. "Why can't I control it…?"
The air trembled faintly around him, like the Veil itself was whispering back — distant, unsteady, and wrong.
Gareth sat still for a moment, chest rising and falling unevenly. The ache in his lungs felt sharp, almost metallic.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand — black streaks smearing across his skin.
Then he looked at his palm. Trembling. Weak. Defiant.
"No," he whispered.
He steadied his breath and reached again.
The air shimmered faintly — the world thinning at the edges, that same hum returning, low and violent.
The Veil flickered to life—then slipped away.
He tried again. And again.
Each attempt slower, heavier.
Hours blurred together in silence — the cell filling with the faint sound of his coughing, the wet thud of blood hitting stone.
Once. Twice. Fifty. A hundred. Two hundred.
By the time his voice had gone hoarse and his veins burned like fire, Gareth had lost count.
His vision swam, his fingers numb.
He fell to his knees, gasping, every inhale pulling against the weight of something unseen.
Dark blood smeared the wall beside him, pooled in thin streaks across the floor — hundreds of failed attempts, each one proof of his persistence or his curse.
He stared at it for a long time — chest heaving, face pale.
The Veil had always answered him once.
Now it refused to obey.
He leaned his head back against the wall, eyes flicking toward Ariela still asleep beside him.
"Three hundred times," he rasped. "And still nothing…"
His voice broke into a tired laugh, hollow and bitter.
"Some anomaly, huh?"
The cell stayed silent — except for the faint sound of dripping water and the quiet hiss of something dark still stirring beneath his skin.
Footsteps echoed faintly beyond the corridor — light, uncertain ones, not the heavy rhythm of guards.
Gareth didn't move. He just sat there, slumped against the wall, the stone cold against his back.
The door creaked.
A flicker of warm lantern light spilled in — and a girl's voice followed, soft, curious.
"Hello…?"
Gareth lifted his head slowly. The girl stepped closer, peering through the bars.
Tanned skin, bright eyes that almost glowed amber in the dim — and a faint tremor in her voice.
She blinked. "You're awake."
Her gaze drifted past him — to Ariela, lying motionless on the ground. Then lower.
Her breath hitched.
The light trembled in her hands as she stared at the dark streaks staining the floor — thick, glistening, scattered in violent trails.
"Is… that—"
Gareth's voice came out low, worn. "Don't step closer."
But she already had. The moment her eyes registered the color — the unnatural black shimmer beneath the lantern glow — her entire body froze.
A faint whisper escaped her lips, barely a word.
"Veil… blood…"
The lantern fell from her hands, clattering to the ground.
Then she turned and ran.
Her footsteps echoed through the stone halls, fading fast — her frightened gasps carrying behind her until only silence remained.
Gareth exhaled slowly, shutting his eyes.
"…Great. Another one."
He leaned his head back against the wall, the faint smell of blood thick in the air.
The cell was quiet except for the sound of slow, tired breathing.
Gareth sat against the cold wall, head bowed, his fingers faintly trembling.
The air reeked of iron and something worse — Veil rot.
Black stains marked the stone around him, smeared in arcs and splatters.
He exhaled slowly. His veins still burned.
Three hundred times… and it still refused him.
The corrupted Veil had eaten every spark he'd tried to summon.
Ariela stirred on the ground beside him, still asleep, her face pale beneath the dim light seeping through the bars.
Gareth didn't move. He didn't want to wake her. Not like this.
He looked down at his hands — scarred, shaking, streaked with black veins that pulsed faintly, then faded.
Ariela's hand twitched a little. Her lips moved slightly, barely a whisper.
Her eyes stayed closed, but her voice was low, steady.
"…Mission's not going as planned," she murmured.
The faint shimmer of an invisible ring on her finger pulsed once — like something unseen was listening.
And then, stillness.