Threads Beneath the Mask

The summons came in silence.

A folded note beneath Kael's door. No seal. No signature. Just three words etched in tight, precise hand:

"South Hall. Midnight."

No room number. No escort. Just direction and time.

Kael read it twice, then burned it in the basin. Tenebris curled slightly around his spine as the flame licked the last ash into air. The shadow in him had grown more alert in the past day—tensed not like a predator preparing to strike, but like something ancient caught mid-breath.

He'd felt eyes on him all day. Not just the usual glances from handlers or careful notes passed by students. Something more direct. More deliberate.

When he stepped out of his quarters at midnight, the corridor was empty.

No torches. No guards.

Even the veilstones embedded in the walls dimmed as he passed.

Tenebris whispered once—a low pulse of pressure against his ribs.

They're close.

Kael found the door half-open. No glyph locks. No sigils flaring at his arrival.

Inside, a single chair. A single figure.

Handler Draye.

Not in his usual robes of command, but a dark travel cloak, hood pulled low.

He didn't look up when Kael entered.

"You were told not to touch the old archive glyphs," Draye said, voice dry as parchment.

Kael didn't answer.

Draye looked up. His eyes were unreadable—gray, hard, ringed with the mark of sleep left long behind.

"You've grown bolder than most expected. Even the Veilbound used to move slower."

Kael tensed. "So you've decided to accuse me, then."

"No," Draye said. "Not yet."

He stood, and the air shifted. A barrier spell dropped into place around the room with a faint click—the kind of null-field that even Tenebris couldn't easily thread.

Kael's breath caught. Tenebris recoiled.

"You're bleeding between," Draye said, not cruelly—but not kindly either. "Your shadow reacts before you do. You flinch when near the sigil halls. And your dreams... reach."

Kael forced calm into his voice. "Then you've been watching me."

"We've been assigned to. From the first moment you woke with shadow-marked eyes." Draye's voice hardened. "But now… the signs are changing. And Eline's reports grow thinner."

Kael froze.

"What?"

Draye's gaze sharpened. "You thought she wasn't watching too?"

Something in Kael's chest folded inward.

Draye stepped closer. "She wasn't told everything. But she was told enough. Enough to keep her distant. To temper your bond."

Kael didn't move. His hands were fists now. Tenebris rippled beneath his skin—but he held it back.

Draye watched him a moment longer, then turned toward the wall. A faint glyph pulsed, and the air shimmered.

A projection unfolded.

Veilblood signatures. Arcane scans. Kael's shadowprint, layered across half a dozen recent assignments.

"You're changing," Draye said softly. "Becoming more than a Whisperer. More than just a carrier. The old records speak of only one other whose alignment shifted this fast."

Kael barely breathed. "The Veilheart."

Draye nodded once.

"Which means this isn't a question of discipline anymore. It's a question of what happens if you break."

He turned back to Kael.

"And who we lose when you do."

"You didn't bring me here to warn me," Kael said after a moment. "You brought me to see if I'd break now."

Draye didn't deny it.

"You passed," he said simply. "Barely. But know this: next time, you may not have the room to."

Kael looked toward the glyph wall. "Then stop watching me."

"We can't."

"Then stop lying about why you are."

Draye's silence was answer enough.

Kael stepped back into the corridor before the wards reset. The null-field shimmered closed behind him.

And Tenebris pulsed again—twice this time.

Not danger. Not memory.

Warning.

Eline stood in the observatory tower when the scroll arrived.

She'd been watching the eastern horizon—where the fractured stars bled soft light across the veilscar below. The place they'd found Kael's sigilstone weeks ago still hadn't healed.

The scroll bore no seal.

But the script was unmistakable.

From the High Circle.

It was brief:

Subject 19-A is to be kept near the Duskveil fractures. Maintain behavioral distance. Watch for signs of external manipulation. Do not engage beyond mission scope. Observe and report.

If shadow influence reaches Level IV, initiate fallback containment.

Eline's hand tightened on the scroll until the parchment creaked.

She didn't need to ask who Subject 19-A was.

Kael wasn't just a student anymore.

He was a threshold.

And they expected her to hold the door.

That night, Kael lay in his cot fully dressed, boots still on, cloak still wrapped.

Sleep didn't come.

Not at first.

When it did, it came fast and without mercy.

He stood again in the mirrored forest—but it was darker now. No stars above. No shimmer of light through trees.

Only black glass where sky should be.

And in front of him—her.

Not Eline.

A woman cloaked in shadow, her face veiled, her hands laced with burning ink.

"You're close," she said. "Too close."

Kael stepped toward her. "Who are you?"

"The memory of the Veil's wound. The thing that waits when all else burns."

She raised one hand. A mark bloomed in the air—his mark.

The crescent eclipse.

"Choose," she said. "Or the Veil will choose for you."

Behind her, hundreds of shadowed figures stirred.

And at their center—Eline.

Bound in threads of light.

Calling his name.

Kael reached for her—

And woke gasping, the sheets soaked through with frost.