The veil of rain had lifted by morning, leaving the training grounds soaked in silence. In the distance, Whisperers moved like phantoms—sparing with shadows, reciting oaths, repeating motions carved into them by months of pain. But Kael did not join them.
Instead, he sat in the Archives.
Not the public one—where recruits flipped through lesson scrolls and whispered rumors—but the sublevel where dust thickened between forgotten shelves. This far below the compound, the air hummed with quiet things.
He wasn't meant to be here.
The pass he'd found tucked in a discarded report had clearly been dropped—or forgotten—by a senior. Still, no one stopped him. Whether it was his shadow's chill or the way his presence unsettled people now, Kael couldn't say. But alone, he hunted through the shelves.
The coin remained tucked against his palm, wrapped in cloth.
His eyes traced a faded title burned into leather: Veilbound Fragments: Testimonies and Consequences. The binding cracked as he opened it, the scent of old ink stinging his nose. The words on the first page were scratched and jagged, written as if in haste:
"Those who bear the mark are not always chosen willingly. The veil bends, but does not break. We only inherit what was left behind…"
Kael frowned.
Every text he'd read on the Veilbound until now had been laced with scorn, crafted to demonize the bond. Tainted blood. Dangerous impulse. It always ended the same—surveillance, confinement, eventual culling.
But this voice—whoever wrote these notes—sounded afraid.
Not of the Veilbound.
Of what made them necessary.
He flipped deeper into the book. Passages swam past—references to Tenebris, glimpses of the Duskveil's origin, names that had long since been struck from records.
One stopped him cold:
"To control shadow is to tempt the soul. But one once resisted. His name was erased. But the Gloamkin still whisper it. The child who stood against the fall. They call him 'Veilblood.'"
Kael sat back. That name had risen before—spoken once in a cultist's last breath. But the word hadn't meant anything then.
Now… it rang.
Veilblood.
It echoed like something sealed in his bones.
He felt the coin grow warm in his palm.
Before he could dwell, the door creaked open.
Kael straightened, instinctively sliding the book closed. Eline stood in the archway.
Her face was unreadable—pale and sharp in the torchlight. "This section isn't for second-tier initiates."
"You knew I'd be here," Kael said.
Her silence was confirmation enough.
"I saw the match," she added. "You didn't hurt him. That's good."
Kael looked back down at the book, flipping it closed. "But I could have. And I almost did."
"I know."
He turned to her. "Why did you come?"
"I don't know," she said after a long moment. "You're changing. The others feel it. So do I."
He laughed—quiet, bitter. "Everyone's afraid I'll become something dangerous. You included."
Eline didn't deny it. "I was trained to recognize patterns. Power doesn't come without cost."
"I didn't ask for it."
"Neither did I," she said quietly. Then added, "But that doesn't change what we are."
That struck him. Her voice was different now—less aloof, more tired. Worn.
"What are you, Eline?" he asked.
She stiffened.
Kael pushed, voice quieter: "You've known things—since the start. You watch the way someone who's not just curious watches. You knew about the Veilbloods before I did, didn't you?"
Eline looked away.
Something between them shifted—closer and more distant in the same breath.
"Answer me."
"I can't."
"You won't."
"I can't," she snapped. "Because if I do, everything changes. And you're not ready for that."
Kael stood now. He stepped closer, until only inches separated them. His shadow flickered at the edges of the torchlight—soft, but watching.
"I'm more ready than you think."
Her eyes met his—stormy, full of things unsaid. But she didn't move.
Kael could smell the damp wool of her cloak, see the way one strand of hair clung to her cheek. For a moment, he forgot the Archives, the shadows, the whispers.
He remembered the night she stood at his door.
And said nothing.
He wondered what would've happened if she had.
Instead, she stepped back.
"If you want to know more," she said, voice brittle, "don't ask me. Follow the relics."
Then she turned and left, the door closing behind her.
Kael stared at the empty frame.
Then at the book in his hands.
⋅•⋅
That night, the dream changed.
No storm. No corridors. No coins.
Just the Duskveil.
It rippled around him like an ocean of mist—black and silver and endless. He stood at its edge, barefoot, shadow stretching behind him like a living thing.
Across the void, a shape emerged.
Not Eline.
Not a monster.
Not quite human.
It wore his face.
But older. Sharper. Eyes too bright. Veins pulsing with silver.
"I was called many things," it said. "But you… you will have to choose."
"Choose what?" Kael asked.
"To remain… or become."
He reached toward it—and the water rose between them like a wall.
Then the whispers began.
A thousand voices murmuring through mist and blood.
Veilblood. Veilheart. Brokenborn. Inheritor. Betrayer. Hope.
When he awoke, the coin was no longer on the table.
It sat in his hand.
Warmed.
Waiting.
And Kael knew—
The name that had once been erased…
Was his.