Kael had never feared silence before.
But now, seated in the cold echo of the mausoleum, surrounded by rows of hollow-eyed skulls, he began to understand the weight of silence—not as absence, but as presence. A watching, waiting presence. The kind that made you breathe slower, listen harder, and wonder if you were ever truly alone.
The Codex Veil sat shut before him, its thorn-chained cover twitching faintly like a sleeping animal. Whatever it had shown him—his brother's ghost, the voice in the shadows, the name Nyrrh—it had not been random. It was choosing what he saw.
Or who he remembered.
Across from him, Thorne crouched against the wall, sharpening a short blade that didn't glint in the candlelight. Veil-touched steel, Kael had come to suspect—like the thorns etched into their skin.
"You're too calm," Kael muttered, rubbing his eyes.
"I'm old," Thorne said. "And tired of being surprised."
"You said the Veil lies."
Thorne didn't look up. "It does. It also tells the truth. Trick is figuring out which is which before it kills you."
Kael frowned. "Was that really my brother?"
"No," Thorne said. "And yes. What you saw was a fragment. The Codex doesn't raise the dead—it echoes them. Pulls pieces from the Veil, where memory and spirit bleed together. If your brother's soul passed through the Veil when he died, some part of it remains."
"That thing… it knew things only he knew."
Thorne nodded slowly. "Echoes can be cruel like that. It doesn't mean he's trapped. Just… unfinished."
Kael looked down at the Codex. The chains had stopped moving. For now.
"Then what about the name it gave me?" he asked. "Nyrrh. What does it mean?"
Thorne's knife paused.
"I don't know," he said. "But the Codex doesn't waste words. If it gave you a name, it expects you to follow it."
"Follow how?"
Thorne stood, stretched, and blew out one of the candles. "That's what we'll find out next. There's someone who might know more—someone who once bore the mark like you. But we'll have to leave Greyhearth."
Kael tensed. "Leave? Why?"
"Because the Veil is thinning faster here," Thorne said. "Something's feeding it. Or drawing it. Either way, it's not safe for long."
Kael looked around the crypt again. Bones. Silence. Cold.
It already didn't feel safe.
"When do we leave?"
Thorne gave him a thin smile. "At dusk. We'll ride north. You've heard of the Scorchwaste?"
Kael blinked. "It's cursed land."
"All land is cursed. That one's just honest about it."
They left as the sun died behind Greyhearth's crooked skyline. Kael wore a travel cloak Thorne had stolen—or borrowed, as he claimed—from a sleeping merchant. The Codex Veil was wrapped in cloth and strapped tight to Kael's pack, though he felt it pulsing through the layers like a second heartbeat.
Thorne had two horses waiting in the dry reeds outside the city wall. Neither had names, only brands burned into their flanks—former military stock, long since deserted. They rode in silence for hours, the cobbled roads falling away into dirt paths and then into craggy terrain where nothing grew but wind-warped trees.
Night came heavy.
Stars glared overhead like silver scars. The further they rode, the more the world seemed to shed its skin. No birds. No insects. Only wind, whispering through broken stone.
It was near midnight when they stopped to rest beside an ancient standing stone. It jutted from the ground like a shattered blade, covered in runes Kael could almost read.
"Old tongue?" he asked.
"Veilscript," Thorne said. "Before the world forgot what it meant."
Kael ran his fingers along one carving. It burned cold.
"What does it say?"
Thorne crouched by the firepit he'd started building. "Roughly? 'Here lies the gate that drinks names.' They were poetic back then."
"Charming," Kael muttered.
He sat back, letting the flickering fire warm his hands. But as the flames danced, he noticed something strange—his branded arm had begun to throb again. Not painfully, but rhythmically. In time with the Codex.
Kael looked at Thorne. "Why does the mark burn?"
"It's not burning," Thorne said. "It's waking. It means we're close to something. A Veil-point."
Kael raised a brow. "A what?"
"A seam," Thorne explained. "Where the fabric between our world and the Veil is thinner than elsewhere. They exist all over, usually marked by something the old saints left behind."
He pointed at the standing stone. "This? This is one."
Kael felt his pulse quicken. "Then we should go. If it's dangerous—"
"All of it's dangerous," Thorne said. "But you want answers. You want to know what Nyrrh is? Then you go through."
Kael blinked. "Through? You mean—"
Thorne stood and unwrapped the Codex. The moment its cover touched the ground near the standing stone, the runes on the rock flared with ghostly blue light. A hum filled the air, high-pitched and bone-deep.
The fire went out.
Kael felt the mark on his arm twist.
And then—
The world changed.
It was like falling without moving.
One moment, Kael stood by the fire. The next, the night had turned inside out.
The sky was no longer black—it was white, vast and swirling, filled with shapes too large and too far to name. The trees were ash-colored, hollow. The ground beneath his feet wasn't earth, but bone dust.
Beside him, Thorne looked no different—but his shadow had grown long and wrong.
"This is the Veil?" Kael whispered.
"No," Thorne said. "This is a fracture. A glimpse. You've only dipped your toe."
Kael turned slowly.
Behind them stood a figure. Not a man. Not a ghost. Something in between.
Its skin was paper-pale, stretched thin over a body too tall for flesh. Its face had no mouth, but a spiral carved into its skull where a face should be. It did not breathe.
But Kael heard it speak anyway.
"Nyrrh is not a name. It is a debt."
Kael staggered back.
Thorne drew his blade but did not attack.
"You carry the mark of thorns," the thing said. "But you wear it blindly. The debt must be remembered. It must be paid."
Kael stepped forward. "What is Nyrrh?"
The creature tilted its head, cracking like dry wood.
"A sin older than stone. A bargain made before breath. The Codex remembers. And now, so must you."
Kael looked down. The Codex had opened again, its pages blank.
Until a single word bled into view—written in black ink like dried blood.
Avelrath.
Kael spoke it aloud.
The Veil screamed.
He woke by the standing stone, retching.
Thorne was already up, dousing him with cold water.
"You saw something," the Warden said. "What?"
Kael could barely breathe. "Avelrath."
Thorne went still. "That name…"
Kael looked at him. "You know it."
"I've heard it once," Thorne said slowly. "From a dying Warden. His eyes had turned to cinders. He said it with his last breath."
"What does it mean?"
"I don't know," Thorne admitted. "But I think we've just stepped onto a path no Warden has walked in generations."
Kael wiped his mouth. The Codex lay beside him, silent again.
But he could still feel the name—Avelrath—carved somewhere behind his eyes.