By the time they crossed back into the Whisperers' compound, Kael's clothes still stank of smoke and blood. Eline walked half a step ahead, posture too perfect, face set like marble. Not once during the ride back had she looked at him.
The guards at the gates didn't ask questions.
Inside, the air shifted. Sharper. Hushed. The stone corridors swallowed sound like a cathedral under siege. Kael felt Tenebris coil tighter beneath his skin—as if even the shadow feared what came next.
A gray-robed aide waited by the entrance to the inner sanctum. He didn't speak, only gestured for them to follow. Downward. Always downward.
They were taken to a small chamber lined with slate and copper piping. Not a cell. Worse. A debrief room.
Eline sat first, hands laced neatly in her lap. Kael stood.
A single Whisperer entered—Agent Alren, his breath scented faintly of mint and ink. His face, like most senior agents, was half-covered with a veil etched in faint shimmer sigils.
He sat opposite them with a thin ledger and three blank sheets.
"You may begin," Alren said to Eline, without looking up.
She recited events with surgical precision. No embellishment. No hesitation. Just enough truth to sound convincing—and enough omission to keep Kael from interrupting.
Kael bristled. "That's not—"
Alren raised a hand.
"You will speak second, initiate Veyne. When instructed."
Eline's mouth didn't twitch, but her eyes slid toward Kael—brief, unreadable.
When she finished, Alren nodded. "Acceptable. Slightly stylized. Remove any reference to the villager's dream. No mention of fog forming faces. We don't verify hallucinations."
Kael laughed under his breath. "It wasn't a hallucination."
Alren's head turned slowly. "Would you like that in your record? That you see things no one else does?"
Kael swallowed the next word.
Alren offered him a blank page. "Your version. I suggest clarity over poetry."
Kael sat and wrote. Simple phrases. The truth as he saw it. How the cult had recognized him. The way the Duskveil seemed to wait for him, part for him. He wrote about the whisper in the mist. The way the cult leader had called him Little Kin.
Alren read silently, quill twitching. He paused at certain phrases. Crossed them out.
"These observations are... suggestive," he said at last. "And dangerous. Keep the language tactical. Avoid metaphysical implications. You're not a prophet, Veyne. You're a knife."
Kael looked up. "What if the knife is starting to think?"
Alren smiled. "Then it gets dulled. Or replaced."
He rose. "You're dismissed, Initiate Mora. Remain, Veyne."
Eline hesitated—just long enough to mean something—then left.
When the door shut, Alren leaned closer. "You made a strong impression. Some within the Tower think your bond makes you an asset. Others believe it makes you unstable. I remain undecided."
"Glad to be a topic of debate," Kael muttered.
"You should be," Alren said coolly. "The cult leader's use of the phrase Little Kin is being flagged. You've had... contact with the Duskveil before?"
Kael hesitated. "Once. When I was young. Before the bond."
Alren watched him. "And it didn't harm you."
"No."
A beat.
Alren marked something with ink that shimmered briefly—coded notation, invisible to anyone untrained.
Then: "You'll be placed on restricted missions going forward. No solo work. No borderland postings."
Kael raised an eyebrow. "Punishment?"
"Containment," Alren said. "Until we understand what you are."
Later That Night
Kael sat outside the dormitories, boots kicked off, staring at a half-burned training dummy in the courtyard. His fingers toyed with a coin—ordinary copper—but worn smooth from years of anxious handling.
Tenebris stirred faintly.
They see too much. Or too little.
Kael closed his eyes. "What do they think I am?"
Not yet what you will be.
Footsteps broke the quiet. Bran appeared, carrying two mugs.
"Rumour says you walked into mist and came out sane. That makes you either blessed or broken." He handed Kael one of the mugs.
Kael sipped. Bitter. Warm.
"I think they're going to bury this," Kael said quietly. "The cult, the fog, the name."
Bran shrugged. "They bury everything."
Kael looked at the coin again. "Eline covered for me. Sort of."
"Don't mistake survival for kindness," Bran said. "She's sharp. Sharp things don't bend—they cut."
Kael's fingers tightened on the coin. "She didn't have to lie."
"No," Bran agreed. "But maybe she doesn't like being watched either."
A moment passed. Then:
"They'll send you out again," Bran said. "Maybe not now. But they will."
Kael looked up. "And what do I do when the cult calls me Little Kin again?"
Bran's smile was bitter. "Smile and pretend it's your code name."
Kael returns to his bunk later that night. The shadows ripple unnaturally—Tenebris coiled tighter than usual.
He reaches into his coat pocket and finds something new:
A sliver of a veil-sigil coin, split cleanly in half.
Not his.
Not possible.
He looks toward the window, where a line of mist curls just outside the glass.
And for a moment—just a moment—he thinks it's smiling.