The Prism’s Eye

The prism pulsed softly in Kael's hand—an ordinary fragment of crystal to the untrained eye, but inside it, the eye of the Whisperers lived.

They returned to Kael's quarters just before third bell, locking the door behind them. Eline immediately swept the room for veilmarks, planting silent counterwards against scrying. The lights dimmed automatically, and the room felt smaller than usual—as if the walls, too, waited to hear what the prism would say.

Kael placed it on the table and unwrapped the sigil-silk that bound it.

"Ready?" he asked.

"No," Eline said. "But do it anyway."

He pressed his palm to the crystal and murmured the veilphrase Merev had provided. The glyphs etched inside the prism flared with dull light, blooming like frost on glass.

Then the room blurred—

—and images formed.

Not pictures, but impressions. Surveillance rendered in spectral impressions—shadows of rooms, blurs of faces, floating symbols denoting presence, emotion, veilsignatures. The prism wasn't built to capture words—it recorded intent.

The first feed was of Kael's own quarters. Dozens of traces over the last few weeks. Nothing unexpected—handlers checking for instability, routine passes from Whisperer patrol.

Then the tone shifted.

Red glyphs bloomed across the screen. A different signature. Not one of the standard surveillance crew.

"Pause it," Eline said, stepping closer.

Kael isolated the glyph and hovered over it. The veil-tongue etched in the margin translated slowly:

"Applied Counter-Sigil: TS-XI. Unauthorized. Tracking only."

—Initiator: Handler Veledra.

Kael's brow furrowed. "I know the name."

"Senior researcher. Works under Vireth," Eline said. "She specializes in historical sigil reconstruction. Field record says she's tried veilbinding studies that were… ethically gray."

Kael scrolled further. Veledra's mark appeared again, this time tied to the containment chambers beneath the sanctum.

Eline went pale. "She's tracking your bond state. Outside of Whisperer consent."

"And corrupting the readings," Kael added. "Look—here. This mark's supposed to denote containment instability. But that glyph is inverted."

Eline's jaw clenched. "She's falsifying signs of loss of control."

Kael leaned back. "Which gives the Council grounds to isolate me. Or worse."

A long silence stretched between them. Then Kael asked what they were both thinking:

"Is Veledra working for Vireth—or for herself?"

Eline's response was barely audible. "Both. Or neither. That's the problem with zealots."

Eline didn't sleep that night.

She spent it composing a layered cipher-letter, embedding the surveillance footage with a rotating veilkey, and encoding it into the hollow spine of a sigil wand.

Kael watched her work in silence. Her movements were precise, practiced. Too practiced.

"You've done this before," he said.

"Not with a target this high."

Kael rose from the cot. "And what happens if this gets intercepted?"

Eline paused. "Then I disappear."

It wasn't bravado. It was a simple fact.

She turned, veilwand sealed in one hand. "We get this to Bran. Off-compound."

Kael blinked. "Bran's alive?"

"Was last I heard. Quiet mission near the shattered rim. I can't reach him directly—but someone will." She gave him a tight look. "And he'll believe it. He trusts you."

Kael hesitated. "He trusts you."

Eline didn't answer.

By midday, the corridors of the sanctum had shifted.

Not in structure—but in tone.

Whisperers passed Kael more warily now. Some avoided him entirely. One handler—Hessen, a dour man with a permanent sneer—paused mid-step when he saw Kael, as if reconsidering the route he'd planned to take. Others wore their veilmasks tighter. Their glances longer.

Kael felt the pressure mounting—not just in perception, but inside himself.

Tenebris was growing louder.

Not a voice exactly—but a pull. A current.

Every Veilbound glyph he passed hummed louder than before. Some recoiled from him. Others simply extinguished.

Like the world had begun to recognize him for what he might become.

At the library's edge, he passed by a sigilstone carved with the founding verse of the Whisperer code. As his fingers brushed it, the stone flared red—and cracked straight through the center.

Kael recoiled.

So did the nearby acolyte.

He didn't stay to explain.

At dusk, he found Eline in the walled garden again. She sat near the old duskleaf tree, the one Bran used to nap under, staring at a small flame orb spinning above her palm.

Kael approached silently.

"You left a mark," she said without looking. "Everyone's talking."

"Let them."

"They are. And not just about you." She turned, eyes sharp. "Liris has been moved to administrative detail. And Tovrin's already reported being shadowed."

Kael frowned. "You think they're targeting everyone who's stood near me?"

"No," she said. "Just the ones they think might choose your side."

Kael's gaze hardened. "Then they're preparing for a break."

"They think it's already begun."

The flame flickered out.

"They think you're the Veilheart reborn."