Chapter 10: A Nightmare that Never Ends

The dream comes like it always does. Not sudden, not sharp but creeping. Seeping through the cracks of her mind like ink bleeding through old parchment, curling into the spaces she cannot shut off.

She is not in Noxport anymore. Not in the ruined place she calls home, nor in the dim candlelight of her underground refuge.

She is back there.

The forest stretches around her, vast and endless, obsidian trees twisting upward, their branches clawing at a sky that does not exist. A place that is both real and not, a memory wrapped in something deeper.

The air is thick with damp earth, stale and wrong, laced with something rotting beneath the surface. A scent that curls in her lungs, sharp and familiar. She knows what comes next.

She always does.

The first scream cuts through the silence like a blade through soft flesh.

Her brother's voice.

"No—wait—!"

Aldia is desperate, running through the trees. She falls once, then twice. But she gets up.

The shadows move too quickly, flickering in and out of sight, the way firelight makes shapes dance on a wall.

The ground beneath her isn't solid, shifting like something alive. The air presses against her ribs, curling around her limbs.

She knows she is too late.

She always is.

The Wraithkins unfold from the void.

Not stepping forward, not appearing—but unraveling. Their forms are shifting, liquid and solid all at once, not quite human, not quite shadow, something in between.

Their eyes are nothing.

No color. No shape. Just hunger.

They are not predators. They are inevitability.

Their fingers stretch like unraveling threads, weaving through the air, reaching.

Her brother is frozen. Not screaming now. Not moving. Just standing, staring into the abyss that stares back.

Aldia lunges.

Her heart hammers against her ribs, every muscle screaming for her to move faster.

But the dark reaches him first.

It does not attack.

It claims.

It coils around him, pulling him in, not with force, but with purpose.

Like something that was always meant to be.

"No—!"

Aldia screams over her lungs.

His eyes meet hers.

And then he vanishes.

Aldia jerks awake, gasping.

Her body is drenched in cold sweat, her breath coming in uneven, ragged bursts.

The room is too dark. The candle beside her has long since burned out, leaving only the vague glow of dying embers in the hearth.

The walls feel too close.

She has fallen asleep in the same room she was brought be Liora but she sees no one at the moment.

For a moment, she swears she can still hear the voice of her brother.

Echoing.

Distant.

She drags a trembling hand through her hair, forcing air back into her lungs.

"Just a dream." She whispers to herself.

But it never is.

Her hands are still shaking.

And then, the sting.

A sharp, pulsing heat, crawling up her arm, alive beneath her skin. She cannot see. In a hurry, she rummages around, finding a source of light.

And when she looks down at her hands, she freezes.

Her skin is burned, or it appears to be.

Not from fire. Not from anything she can understand.

The markings spiral across her forearm, twisting and curling like ink seared into flesh. Not haphazard, not random—deliberate. Each line precise, etched in a pattern too intricate to be meaningless.

They pulse.

Faintly.

Not like blood beneath skin, but like something beneath that.

Something old. Something waiting.

Her stomach churns, her feet going cold.

This is not normal. Not just another nightmare bleeding into wakefulness. This is something else.

And a thought crosses her mind.

This is the Veil.

And it has touched her.

Aldia presses her fingers against the markings, half-expecting them to sear, to bite, to reject her touch.

But instead, they answer.

A pulse, deep beneath her skin, curling up her arm like a second heartbeat.

A whisper, silent but felt.

A presence, not hers.

"What did you do to me?" She whispers, her voice shaking.

The room is too silent.

The candle beside her flickers.

But there is no wind. She is not alone.

A sound. Soft and amused.

"Well. That's new." Nyxie emerges from the shadow lazily.

Aldia whips around, breath still unsteady, body still thrumming with the wrongness crawling beneath her skin.

Nyxie is perched on the shelf, silver eyes gleaming like molten moonlight.

Its expression is unbothered, amused, but beneath the mischief, something else lurks.

Something knowing.

Aldia's fingers twitch. Her dagger is there. Something she does when she feels fear, or...threat.

"What do you know?" She demands answers.

Nyxie stretches.

Unhurried. Lazy.

But its tail flicks too sharply.

"You think you're the only one the Veil whispers to?" It mocks innocence.

Aldia's jaw tightens.

Not in anger but in fear. A fear she refuses to name.

"Nyxie." Her voice is demanding, pressing Nyxie for any information, anything.

The creature's expression flickers. Just for a moment. Then, its ears tilt back slightly. The way they do when it's about to say something it knows she won't like.

"You know all the answers Aldia," Nyxie says softly, "It doesn't give without taking." Nyxie whispers, its shape distoring as it fades in the shadows, dragging its voice with it. But its still here. It hasn't gone. Its eyes are staring suspiciously at Aldia.

The words land heavier than they should.

Aldia stiffens.

Aldia already knew this about the Veil but she didn't realize it earlier.

The Veil is not merciful. It's not kind.

It takes. It always takes.

But—

She does not know what it took.

And that is what terrifies her most

Aldia presses her palm against the markings again, harder this time.

As if she can force them to give her an answer.

As if she can make sense of what has already been written into her skin.

"What did I lose?" She mutters to herself.

Nyxie does not answer.

But the silence that follows is worse than any truth it could have spoken.

Aldia's breath comes slow, uneven.

She presses her other hand against her chest, where her heartbeat feels—off.

Slower. Too steady, too controlled.

Like something else is listening.

She clenches her teeth.

"The Veil never lets you cross for free." She forces steadiness.

Nyxie tilts its head, studying her.

"No, it doesn't."

"Then what did it take?" Aldia's breath is sharp.

Nyxie's gaze flickers, unreadable.

And then—it looks away.

Not at her.

At the space behind her.

Aldia spins, But there is nothing. Only the dark.

Only the whisper of something not yet spoken.

The candlelight shudders.

Aldia says nothing.

Because she feels it now.

The weight of something still lingering in the air.

Something unseen.

A breath, barely there, whisper, curls at the edges of her mind

"You belong to us now." It is soft, distant, unreadable. But it send shivers down her spine.

The flame dies.

And Aldia is left in the dark.