Chapter 14: The Child in the Veil
The Umbral Hollow had fallen into a tense hush.
Plans were drawn, blades sharpened, and the remnants of the order had gathered around the central stone slab, now turned into a war table. Ration maps. Guard rotations. Known patrols of the Flame Sect.
Kael stood at the far end, arms folded, hood drawn low, eyes flickering across the etched plan.
"He's likely here," Serran muttered, tapping a small mark on the eastern wing of the Flame Sect's inner compound. "Heavily guarded. We'll need a distraction—"
But Kael wasn't listening.
Something… pulsed inside him.
A heartbeat.
But not his.
It throbbed behind his ribs, between his temples. As if someone else was waking — someone long buried.
The Collapse
The world tipped.
Kael's hands slammed onto the table as pain lanced through his spine. Shadows recoiled from him instinctively. Gasps rang out behind him, but their voices were distant, muffled.
"Kael—?"
"Get him down—!"
He fell.
And the darkness claimed him.
The Trance
There was no ground.
No sky.
Just the echo of screams, and fire devouring everything.
Kael stood in a field of ash. Burned banners drifted from the windless void. Around him, broken bodies of the Umbral Order lay scattered — faces half-charred, armor melted into bone.
The war.
He recognized it now.
His final battle before everything fell.
Then he heard her voice.
"Kael! Don't move—!"
He turned.
Alira.
Running toward him, blade drawn — not in defense, but aimed at him.
"Wait—what are you—?"
She plunged the dagger beneath his ribs. It wasn't a killing blow.
It was meant to stop him.
He staggered back. Confused. Weak.
Behind her, his own people fell. Held back. Trapped in sigils.
The betrayal was no accident.
It was a plan. Her plan.
And just before darkness took him, he saw her look back — not with hatred.
But with resolve.
The Inner Veil
He opened his eyes in a new place — not the battlefield.
This realm was still. Cold.
He stood alone beneath a blackened sky, stars like dying embers above. Around him, a sea of shadows, unmoving — waiting.
And in the center stood a boy.
Small. Barefoot. His face was Kael's… but younger. Hollow.
His eyes, however, were not human.
They were pure, devouring darkness — ancient and bottomless.
"You're not me," Kael whispered.
"No," the child said. "I'm what's left of you."
"What do you mean?"
The boy walked closer.
"You fractured when she stabbed you. When the memory was sealed… part of you broke off."
He tapped Kael's chest.
"I am that fracture. The part you forgot. The truth you buried."
Kael stepped back. But the shadows around him rose like a tide.
"I watched as you trusted her. As she cut down your kin in silence. As she smiled and whispered your name while setting the trap."
The boy tilted his head.
"You thought the Seer was behind it. But he was just a veil. She wove the web. And you bled into it willingly."
Kael's breath caught.
"Why?"
"Because she made you believe she cared."
Silence.
Then Kael spoke, quieter now.
"What are you now?"
The boy smiled — a slow, eerie curve of lips.
"I'm your reminder. And your key."
Kael tried to reach for him — but the boy faded into mist, his voice echoing like wind in a cave.
"Wake up, Kael. It's time you stop surviving… and start becoming."
The Awakening
Kael jolted upright.
The Hollow flickered with dim light, his breath ragged. Sweat drenched his clothes, and the shadows around him writhed like serpents barely held at bay.
Serran stood nearby, staring at him in silence. He said nothing.
Kael's eyes were different now.
Not just older.
Sharpened.
Refocused.
"We rescue Orrin," Kael said, rising slowly. "But after…"
He looked toward the Flame Sect's direction.
"…we burn down every lie she's built."