The Veil Mark burned for days.
Not like fire. Not like heat.
It was worse than that. It called.
Even as Liora left the inner sanctum of the Pale Citadel and returned to the upper chambers where her allies waited, the mark pulsed beneath her skin, alive, like it had been stitched directly into her bones. At times it whispered Syreena's voice in the back of her mind. At others, it echoed with the cries of nameless spirits clawing to return.
"The Veil hungers."
She'd heard that in a dream the night before, and awoke with blood on her fingertips and no memory of what she'd done.
Still, she said nothing.
Not to Eryndor, not to Anya, not even to Callux, whose eyes had grown sharp lately—too sharp. He studied her like a scholar examines a dying star, beautiful and terrifying and almost out of reach.
But even he hadn't dared ask about the Mark.
She wore gloves now. She told them it was a minor curse.
That lie worked, for now.
But the Mark was more than a curse.
It was a contract.
And something had signed back.
They were three days into the northern crags when the dreams returned.
This time, not of Syreena or Alric.
But of her mother.
Liora stood in a field of lilies, black petals wilting beneath a moonless sky. Her mother—barefoot, pale, and wearing the same velvet cloak she'd been buried in—stood across from her. Except her eyes weren't the soft emerald Liora remembered.
They were white.
Empty.
Soulless.
"You were always meant to become this," the figure said.
Liora clenched her jaw. "You're not her."
"Aren't I?" The smile was too kind. Too perfect. "Maybe I'm what you need her to be. Maybe I'm what she always was. You just didn't want to see."
Liora turned to walk away.
But the lilies had become bone shards. The sky split open with a single eye made of bleeding runes.
And her mother whispered:
"He lied to you. The one who raised you. Kharon. He's not your teacher. He's your warden."
Liora woke with a scream, soaked in sweat, blood trailing from her nose.
Callux was already there.
He didn't say a word. Just handed her a cloth and sat beside her bedroll, staring into the cold firepit. In the silence, the crackling of distant spirits could be heard, prowling outside their wards.
"You're unraveling," he finally said.
She didn't deny it.
She just stared into the fire and whispered, "The dreams… they're not dreams anymore."
"I know."
Callux shifted. Something in him had changed recently. Less arrogance. More weight behind his words. He'd seen too much now to play the flirt. He looked at her hand—the one with the glove—and hesitated.
"When it comes… whatever it is… don't carry it alone."
Liora didn't answer. Couldn't. The silence between them was heavier than a confession.
But she reached over and gently touched his wrist. Just enough to acknowledge that the weight was there. And that, maybe, just maybe, she was glad he hadn't let her drown.
That night, Anya died.
It was quick.
Too quick.
The three of them were scouting ahead, toward the ruined spires of Olvenmoor—a town swallowed by Veil magic centuries ago. Liora felt the pulse before she heard the scream.
Then a shadow peeled off the cliffside.
It wasn't a beast.
It wasn't a man.
It was a wound in the world, wrapped in glass and bone. Eyes like jagged knives. A mouth that didn't open, but unzipped across its entire body.
By the time they reacted, it had already torn through the wards.
Anya screamed once. Only once.
Her head was torn from her body in a single bite. Her limbs shattered like porcelain. Blood sprayed across the rocks in a fan-shaped arc, painting glyphs in ancient, hungry tongues.
Callux roared and summoned fire—blue fire, hotter than hell.
Liora stood frozen.
Because the thing—the creature—it turned to her, and bowed.
Just once.
Then it vanished, melting into mist and hate, leaving nothing but gore and silence behind.
They burned Anya's body that night.
No words were said.
They just sat around the pyre, watching her ashes spiral into the air like ghost butterflies.
Callux wept.
Liora didn't.
She couldn't.
The mark on her palm pulsed faster now, almost excited.
"The Veil demands sacrifice," Syreena's voice whispered. "The dead are the toll."
Liora clenched her jaw until her teeth bled.
"No more."
Later that night, when Callux finally slept, she knelt in the ashes.
She dug her fingers into the earth where Anya's blood still steamed.
And she whispered a forbidden rite from Syreena's grimoire.
A calling.
An invitation.
A threat.
"To the White Circle," she said. "You took my blood. Now I will take yours. One by one. Piece by piece."
"You wanted the heir?"
"She's awake now."
The wind stilled.
The air turned cold.
Somewhere, deep beneath the earth, something ancient heard her.
And for the first time, it smiled.