The cathedral had not been touched in one hundred and twelve years.
That was what the brass plaque outside claimed, though time had eroded most of the lettering. Ivy strangled the stone walls. The bell tower leaned slightly to the left, as if exhausted from holding secrets too heavy for mortal architecture.
Ayla Rahman stood before the rusted iron gates and felt something shift inside her chest.
Not fear.
Recognition.
The sky above was bruised purple, dusk sinking into night. Wind moved through the overgrown courtyard, whispering through broken statues of saints whose faces had long since crumbled away. The world behind her—the town, the lights, the noise—felt distant already.
She had always been drawn to forgotten places.
Her grandmother used to say, "Ruins remember what people try to bury."
Ayla pushed the gates.
They screamed open.
The sound echoed across the empty grounds, sharp and metallic, but no one answered. No one ever came here anymore.
Stepping inside the cathedral felt like crossing an invisible threshold.
The air was colder.
Still.
Heavy with dust and something older than dust—like rain trapped inside stone for decades.
Moonlight filtered through shattered stained-glass windows, spilling fractured colors across the cracked marble floor. Reds and blues painted the darkness in broken halos.
Her boots echoed as she walked down the central aisle.
Every step felt louder than it should have.
She wasn't here on a dare. She wasn't chasing ghosts.
She was chasing a feeling.
For weeks now, she had been dreaming of symbols. Circles within circles. Lines intersecting in impossible geometries. A door that wasn't a door.
And every dream ended the same way.
With something watching her.
Near the altar, half-buried beneath fallen beams and collapsed stone, she saw it.
Her breath caught.
A circular engraving carved directly into the cathedral floor.
It was massive—at least ten feet across. Intricate runes spiraled inward toward a central sigil unlike anything she had seen before.
It was identical to the one in her dreams.
"That's not possible…" she whispered.
Her heart began pounding—not from fear, but from something electric. A hum beneath her skin.
She stepped closer.
Kneeled.
Ran her fingers across the stone.
The moment her skin touched the carving—
It pulsed.
Faint.
But real.
She jerked back.
The symbol dimmed.
Silence returned.
Her breathing echoed loudly in the cathedral's hollow belly.
"Okay," she muttered, forcing a shaky laugh. "Old buildings. Weird lighting. Imagination."
She reached forward again.
This time more carefully.
Her fingertip brushed the central sigil.
A sharp sting shot through her finger.
She gasped and pulled back.
A thin line of blood welled across her skin.
It must have been a splinter of stone.
A drop of blood fell.
It landed directly in the center of the engraving.
The world stopped.
The blood didn't soak into the cracks.
It spread outward—like ink in water.
The entire circle ignited.
Crimson light exploded across the floor, racing through the carved lines. The runes blazed alive, bright and furious.
Wind roared through the cathedral.
The doors slammed shut behind her.
The temperature plummeted.
"What did I do—?"
The air in front of her began to ripple.
Not like heat.
Like fabric being torn.
A vertical line of darkness split open in the space above the sigil.
It widened slowly.
Revealing nothing.
Not blackness.
Not shadow.
Absence.
Something inside that void moved.
Ayla stumbled backward.
Her pulse thundered in her ears.
"No. No, no, no…"
The darkness expanded.
Whispers filled the cathedral.
Hundreds of them.
Layered. Overlapping. Ancient.
Her name echoed among them.
"Ayla…"
Her stomach dropped.
She spun around.
No one stood behind her.
The whisper came from the tear in reality.
From the void.
The symbol on the floor flared brighter.
And then—
Chains burst from the darkness.
They weren't metal.
They weren't solid.
They were made of pure black light.
They wrapped around her wrists before she could move.
Cold.
Burning.
She screamed and pulled back, but the chains tightened.
The floor beneath her cracked.
Stone shattered.
The void widened.
The chains yanked.
The cathedral began collapsing inward—not outward, but toward the tear. Benches splintered and were dragged into darkness. Stained glass imploded silently, shards sucked into the growing rift.
She clawed at the ground.
Her nails scraped marble.
"Help! Someone—!"
No one could hear her.
The world folded.
Gravity disappeared.
And she fell.
Not down.
Through.
Wind tore past her, though there was no sky.
Colors she had no names for flashed around her. Fragments of landscapes—mountains made of glass, oceans suspended upside down, towers that reached endlessly into nothingness.
She was falling between worlds.
The chains dissolved.
But she did not stop falling.
Her body felt weightless.
Her mind felt like it was being peeled open.
Voices whispered around her again.
"Veilborn…"
"The marked one…"
"She returns…"
"I don't understand!" she cried into the endless void.
Something answered.
A presence.
Vast.
Ancient.
Watching.
Waiting.
Then—
Impact.
Stone.
Cold.
Real.
Air rushed into her lungs as she gasped awake.
Above her stretched a sky unlike any she had ever seen.
Two moons hung in the darkness.
Both red.
Clouds moved unnaturally fast, swirling like living storms.
She pushed herself upright slowly.
The ground beneath her was black stone.
Jagged.
Charred.
And surrounding her were towering spires carved from obsidian rock.
A fortress.
No.
A kingdom.
The air smelled of ash and iron.
Her wrist burned.
She looked down.
The symbol from the cathedral was no longer carved in stone.
It was etched into her skin.
Glowing faintly beneath the surface.
Footsteps echoed behind her.
Slow.
Deliberate.
She turned.
Figures emerged from the shadows.
Tall.
Armored.
Faces hidden behind dark metal masks.
Their eyes glowed faintly silver.
One stepped forward.
His voice was distorted behind the mask.
"The Veil has opened."
Another replied.
"She breathes."
The first one knelt slightly—not to her.
But toward the towering citadel behind her.
"To the Sovereign," he said.
Her heart pounded.
"What is this place?" she demanded, forcing strength into her voice.
The soldier's glowing gaze fixed on her.
"You stand in Noctryss."
The name felt wrong in her mouth.
Cold.
Ancient.
Impossible.
She took a step back.
"There's been a mistake. I'm not supposed to be here."
The soldier tilted his head slightly.
"On the contrary."
Behind them, high upon a balcony carved into the obsidian mountain, a figure stood in silhouette against the red moons.
Watching her.
Still.
Unmoving.
But aware.
Even at that distance, she felt it.
His gaze.
Like a blade pressed gently against her throat.
A whisper brushed against her thoughts.
You finally opened the door.
A chill ran through her spine.
She didn't know how.
But she knew.
Her life on Earth had just ended.
And something far darker had begun.