The road to Hollow Pass was older than the kingdom's memory.
Kael followed it through windswept hills and abandoned hamlets, where doorways sagged under moss and the air smelled of damp stone.
He moved quickly, sleeping in shallow caves, always with his back to rock and his sword within reach.
The closer he came to the Pass, the more the world seemed… tilted.
Birdsong grew fainter until it vanished entirely.
The wind carried whispers that weren't in his language.
And twice, he saw the same hunched figure watching him from far off—once on a ridge, once between dead trees—only to vanish when he blinked.
The Approach
On the third night, clouds smothered the stars, leaving the land in a restless dark.
Kael crested a hill and saw it: Hollow Pass.
A valley carved by time and violence, its sides jagged like torn parchment.
Mist pooled within, glowing faintly in colors no mist should hold—violet, green, something like molten silver.
The Flame in Kael's chest throbbed, urging him forward.
The Watcher's warning echoed in his mind: Bring no steel. Bring no allies.
He had left his sword buried under a cairn of stones two miles back, though the act felt like cutting off his own hand.
All he carried now was a knife of bone—more a talisman than a weapon—and a pouch of salt.
The Ruins
Hollow Pass had once held a fortress, but now it was nothing more than broken walls jutting from the earth like ribs.
Kael stepped through an archway where moss had swallowed the stone.
The air inside was heavy, the kind that clung to your lungs and made each breath an effort.
At the center of the ruins, a circle of black rock had been laid into the ground.
It was perfectly smooth, untouched by moss or dirt, and warm under his fingers despite the night chill.
The voices in the Flame hissed together now, no longer individuals but a chorus. It is near.
Then the mist shifted, and the world tilted again.
The First Breach
The circle's surface rippled like water.
A hairline crack appeared in the air above it—not in the stone, but in reality itself.
Through that sliver, Kael glimpsed somewhere else: a city of obsidian towers under a sky torn by lightning that didn't fade but froze in place like fractures in glass.
The crack widened, and the smell hit him—cold metal, burning tar, and something sweeter, almost like rotting flowers.
Shapes began to emerge through the breach.
Not fully formed, but wrong in ways his mind couldn't track—limbs bending twice where they should bend once, eyes in places no eyes should be.
Their movements were slow, almost curious.
The Voice Beyond
Then it spoke.
Not with words in the air, but directly in his skull.
Kael of Ardrath. You bear the Flame, yet you stand alone. Why?
Kael clenched his jaw. "I'm here to stop you."
A low, terrible sound rolled through his head—a laugh that wasn't laughter.
Stop us? We are already here. The Veil is not a wall, Flamebearer. It is a skin, and skins tear.
The breach swelled, colors spilling into the night.
The ruins groaned as though the stone itself felt the strain.
The shapes pressed forward.
The Watcher Returns
A crack of staff on stone broke the moment.
The Watcher stood beside the circle, mask gleaming in the unnatural light.
"You came too soon," it said, voice flat.
"This breach is not the Veil-Breaker's doing—it is only a wound. If you step through now, you will not return."
Kael's fists clenched. "Then tell me where—"
"Silence," the Watcher hissed, staff sweeping in a wide arc.
Symbols flared in the black stone, burning white, and the breach began to collapse in on itself.
The shapes screamed—not in air, but in the marrow of Kael's bones—and were sucked back into that other sky before the wound sealed.
Aftermath
The mist thinned, the air lightened, but Kael's hands were still trembling.
He had seen enough to know that when the Veil truly broke, there would be no Watcher to close it, no circle to hold the edges together.
The Watcher turned to leave, but paused.
"If you wish to find the Veil-Breaker, follow the river east until it ends in black water.
There, you will meet the one who has already crossed once."
Then it was gone.
Kael stood in the ruins until the sky began to pale, the last echo of the breach still humming in his bones.