Vael Duskwind

Veilrend 27: The Cracking Sky Vael had seen war. She had seen horrors—the madness Seris wrought told through generations, through Kaelen’s nightmares, through burned-out ruins half-swallowed by the wilds. But this… this was different. It began with stillness. Eryndra collapsed mid-scream, limbs twitching, eyes white with something ancient. Rhen stood frozen, unmoving, locked in place not by fear but by something else—his mouth slightly parted, whispering words too old for human tongues. And then… the air changed. Vael staggered back, clutching the edge of the stone table. The room bent at its corners, angles warping, shadows slithering like they were trying to escape the light. A low, humming pressure built in her chest—a thrumming weight that made her teeth ache and her thoughts bleed. She couldn’t see it, but she knew—two powers were tearing at each other, just beyond her perception. Ith’rael, cold and infinite, coiling through the shard like a song with no end. And something else, something older and quieter, waking inside Eryndra like a second heartbeat, slow and terrifyingly calm. Their conflict rippled across the room in tremors of unreality. A window cracked. The walls wept dark sap. And outside, the Veil screamed. The city of Dars-Myel groaned as the sky split. Not visibly, not like a wound—but the world above shivered, its reflection seen in every puddle, every glass surface. Something behind the veil pressed too close, too soon. She saw spires bending where none existed. Streets reshaping into spirals. People screaming as lesser horrors slipped through fissures in the air—jagged, insectile things with mouths in the wrong places, blind and furious. She turned back. Rhen was still frozen, eyes glowing faintly. Eryndra convulsed, her breath ragged. The shard pulsed on the altar—like a heart trying to escape its cage. Vael didn’t hesitate. She grabbed it, the shard, searing heat lancing up her arm.