The Fractured Hollow

The town was called Graveris Hollow, but locals had long since shortened it to just the Hollow—as though even the earth didn't want to remember what it had once been.

Set in a cleft between dying hills, the place clung to the edge of a shallow gorge thick with mist. Thirty years ago, it had been a mining hub. Now it was a scar, barely occupied, its streets choked with dust and abandoned shrines. Beneath it, the Duskveil pulsed—visible even in daylight, like veins of black glass threading the stone.

Kael stood on the overlook road and felt the tremor echo in his bones.

The Veil was thin here. Thinner than anywhere he'd yet been.

Tenebris stirred.

Not in warning.

In longing.

He turned slightly to glance at Eline, mounted beside him. She hadn't spoken since they left the Whisperer compound at dawn. Her profile was unreadable beneath the edge of her hood. Light leather armor, traveling cloak, no insignia. No sign of rank or bond.

They were to pose as merchants' wardens investigating thefts along the southern trade spine. A low-tier assignment on paper.

But the Hollow wasn't marked for theft.

It was marked for resonance.

"Do you feel it?" Kael asked at last, voice low.

Eline's gaze didn't shift. "Of course I do."

The silence after that held teeth.

They descended on foot.

The terrain was too unstable for horses closer to the basin. Cracked shale and brittle paths gave way to collapsed stairways and vein-riddled bridges. The Hollow's buildings leaned inward like conspirators. Windows were shuttered. Doors hung crooked.

"Locals?" Kael asked, eyes scanning.

"A few dozen," Eline murmured. "They stay indoors after dark. Not out of superstition. Out of experience."

He caught the edge in her tone.

As they passed an abandoned well, the wind shifted.

Something distant—low, wet, and gurgling—whimpered beneath the stone.

Kael paused. The air shivered.

Tenebris surged toward the sound.

Eline snapped out a warding sigil. "Not now."

Kael clenched his fists. Tenebris recoiled like a struck animal.

But the sound lingered in his skull. Not voice. Not word.

A whisper.

And he understood it.

"Welcome home."

They took shelter in what had once been a customs house—now half-rotted, its floorboards eaten by damp, its windows covered with veil-cloth.

Kael warded the perimeter. Eline unpacked the field records—scrolls, sigil charts, and something she didn't explain: a glimmering shard wrapped in null-cloth.

He didn't ask.

She didn't offer.

They barely spoke as night fell.

The Hollow changed in darkness.

Faint blue light seeped up through the floorboards in places, glowing in runic veins. Outside, the mist grew dense. And Kael—Kael felt the town watching.

That night, he didn't sleep.

Tenebris moved through him like breath.

It wasn't rage. It wasn't fear.

It was… awakening.

He stood at the threshold of the shack and watched the mist curl.

It whispered again.

"You are not alone."

And far below, in the gorge, a shadow moved—larger than a beast, smaller than a god. It turned toward him. Just slightly.

And bowed.

By dawn, Kael had barely moved.

When Eline emerged, she didn't greet him.

But she saw his eyes—blood-veined, pupils flickering with a ring of silver.

"You heard it, didn't you?" she asked quietly.

He nodded once.

She looked away.

Then, softer: "They told me you might."

Kael's voice scraped the air. "Who?"

Eline exhaled. "It doesn't matter. Not yet."

He stepped forward. "You knew. Even then. At the compound. In the chamber where I first saw the mark—"

"I didn't know everything," she cut in. Her voice didn't rise, but it trembled. "I knew you were a risk. That they feared what you might carry. But I didn't know it would answer you."

He stared at her. "Why are we really here?"

Eline's silence was answer enough.

That afternoon, they followed the echo of Kael's shadow sense into the remnants of the Hollow's chapel. Once sacred to some minor branch of the Eightfold Light, it now lay half-buried in earth. Its altar was shattered. Its floor was broken.

And beneath it, stairs.

Old. Spiral. Hidden behind rotted boards and wards meant to fade.

The descent took minutes. The air chilled with every step. Glyphs flickered in the stone—some Whisperer-made, some older.

Far older.

At the base, a vault.

A Veilbound vault.

It wasn't on any map.

Kael stepped into the chamber first, and the Veil breathed.

It felt like stepping into memory.

At the center, a black monolith—seven feet high, shaped like a blade sunk point-first into the earth. Around it: bones, veilstones, and half-buried sigils whispering in a tongue only his blood remembered.

Kael fell to one knee.

Tenebris didn't speak.

It knelt with him.

Eline moved slowly behind him, her eyes scanning, hands raised in caution. But her voice cracked when she said, "This wasn't meant to be found."

Kael's voice was hoarse. "Then why am I here?"

She looked at him.

And for the first time in days—she didn't hide her fear.

When Kael rose, the monolith pulsed once.

A wave of black light rolled over his body—not pain, not pleasure. Just recognition.

The mark on his wrist—long dormant—burned.

And then changed.

No longer a crescent alone.

But a ring. Complete. With a fracture of shadow running through its center.

Eline gasped.

"Veilheart…" she whispered.

Kael turned to her. "What does it mean?"

Her answer was raw.

"That the Veil doesn't want to be whole anymore."