The Veilwalkers' Crossing

The Veil did not open like a door.

It breathed.

A shimmer, a sigh, a folding of light into itself—and then, without warning, space rippled like disturbed water, and the path appeared.

Suspended in a corridor of silvery ether, the crossing hovered above nothing and led into everything. To step through was not merely to walk forward—it was to abandon the rules of time, of place, of even self.

Aldric stood at its threshold, the first of the chosen.

Behind him, Rowena adjusted her vambraces, gaze steady despite the tremble in her fingers. Kaelin, ever the soldier, scanned the veil-slick walls as if expecting arrows or fangs to burst through the folds. The rest—Maerlyn, Thorne, Elaria, the Seer twins—stood in loose formation, bound by purpose more than order.

Aldric turned to them. His voice was low, but clear.

"No titles beyond this point. No crowns. No past. Only truth."

He extended a hand.

"Walk with me."

And then he stepped through.

The Crossing

The Veil clung to them like breath on glass.

Inside, sound was memory, and light was language. Images flared and faded with each heartbeat—glimpses of other lives, other choices. A battlefield where Aldric had died instead of risen. A world where Rowena had never become a healer. A city like Virelya, but drowned in ash and silence.

Each vision whispered, This could have been.

Rowena stumbled once, caught by Kaelin.

"Stay focused," Kaelin murmured. "It's not real."

But Rowena's eyes widened. "It was real. For someone."

Aldric pressed forward, his fire bleeding from his skin in soft pulses—his presence the only anchor in the unmaking haze.

They crossed what seemed like days, or seconds.

And then, the Veil screamed.

Arrival

With a sound like thunder inhaling, the crossing collapsed behind them, and they fell—weightless and burning—into a world lost to time.

They landed not with force, but with understanding.

The Forgotten Realms had not died.

They had gone to sleep.

Now, stirred by the True Alpha's crossing, they awakened with wonder and wrath.

Around them stretched a landscape sculpted in dream logic—vast plains of glassy earth reflecting violet skies, mountains suspended upside down above glowing canyons, rivers that flowed backward and bled starlight.

The air hummed with intent.

Rowena breathed in and gasped. "This place is alive."

Kaelin's blade hissed half-free from its sheath. "It's watching us."

Aldric closed his eyes.

And the flame within him bowed to the realm, recognizing a kinship older than any war.

The First Trial: The Voice of the Stone

They had walked barely an hour across the strange terrain when the stone spoke.

Not with words, but with tone—a deep vibration rising from the bones of the earth. From the sand beneath their feet emerged a figure of obsidian and roots, a giant crowned with moss and meteors.

"You bear the Flame," it said, voice like avalanches. "But do you bear its burden?"

Aldric stepped forward, unflinching. "Test me."

The guardian raised a hand. "Not you. Her."

Rowena's breath caught.

Me?

The stone giant lowered its head. "You carry sorrow that burns deeper than fire. The Flame may blaze, but the healer bears the ashes. Show me."

Before Aldric could object, the ground pulled Rowena inward, into a sphere of memory.

Rowena's Trial

She stood in the ruins of her childhood home—ashes drifting from the ceiling, blood on the walls, voices echoing.

Her mother's final breath.

The wounded she couldn't save.

The wolves who called her weak because she chose to heal, not kill.

"Is this who you are?" came the giant's voice, distant now. "A vessel of regret?"

Rowena fell to her knees, hands in the ash.

"No."

She lifted her palms.

"I remember sorrow, but I am not ruled by it. I carry the dead—not as chains, but as a promise. I heal because I know the cost of being broken."

A warmth spread from her chest.

And in that moment, the moon tattoo on her shoulder ignited—not with fire, but with silver light.

The sphere collapsed.

And she emerged from the trial—shaken, but whole. Stronger.

Aldric met her with awe. "Rowena…"

But she smiled faintly. "You're not the only one with something ancient inside."

The Road Ahead

Beyond the trial ground rose the remnants of an ancient city—its towers made of crystal and bone, partially sunken into the earth like a forgotten crown. From its highest spire, a thin light glowed red and steady.

Kaelin squinted. "That's where we're being called."

Maerlyn nodded. "The Seat of the First Flame. Where the pact was made… and where it must be broken."

Elaria's glass owl whispered something inaudible to her.

She paled. "We are not the only ones walking this realm. Something else has crossed. Something… older than prophecy."

Aldric raised his gaze to the twilight sky.

In the distance, beneath the hanging mountains, a horn sounded.

Not of wolves.

Not of kin.

But of something that hunted gods before the world had names.

He turned to the others.

"Rest tonight. At first light, we enter the city."

Rowena touched his arm. "And if the city remembers us?"

Aldric looked toward the horizon, his eyes burning.

"Then we remind it why we came."