The woman's words hung between them like a blade suspended by a single thread.
Your name.
Not gold, not steel, not blood—though Kael had given all three before—but something deeper.
The Sovereign Flame pulsed in his chest in sharp, rapid bursts, the way it did when it smelled danger. The warning was clear: names in this world were more than a sound; they were the spine of who you were. Without it, you could live, fight, even speak—but you would never be whole.
And yet, the Veil was tearing faster. Each day he delayed, the Crimson Concord would move closer to their goal, and the world itself would twist further toward ruin.
"I will pay," Kael said.
The Unbinding
The woman's smile curved beneath her veil, not cruel but knowing. She extended her hands, palms upward. They were not the hands of any mortal—too long in the fingers, too pale in the skin, as though bone and frost had shaped them.
"Speak it," she whispered. "The first sound you ever owned."
Kael hesitated. The river's black surface rippled without wind, as though waiting. In his mind, memories began to surge—his father calling to him across the training yard, his mother's voice whispering comfort during fevered nights, the way his own name felt in the mouth of those who had loved him and those who had cursed him.
It was more than a word. It was a map of everything he had been.
When he finally spoke it, the sound seemed to catch in the air like a hook snagging fabric. The woman's fingers closed slowly, as though plucking something unseen from the space between them.
And then—
The pain came. Not sharp, but deep, a pulling that started in his chest and reached into the marrow of his bones. He gasped, clutching at himself, feeling something essential being drawn out. The world around him dimmed, as though every color had been dulled by ash.
The woman withdrew her hands, now holding nothing—yet Kael knew the absence in his soul was real.
The Crossing
Without another word, she stepped backward into the river. The black water climbed her body without wetting her robes, swallowing her to the waist.
"Follow," she said, and her voice seemed to come from all directions.
Kael waded after her. The water was colder than death, but it did not splash; it clung, gripping his legs with the weight of chains. The deeper he went, the more the river rose—not in waves, but in smooth walls that folded over them like closing hands.
Then the surface closed entirely above his head, and the world went silent.
The Other Side
They emerged into light that was not sunlight. The sky here was pale and veined, like the inside of a creature's skin. The air shimmered faintly, and the ground was a patchwork of bone-white soil and black, glassy pools.
In the distance, towers leaned like broken spears, and creatures without faces moved in slow, unnatural patterns.
Kael's first breath tasted like metal and rain.
"This is the Veil's heart," the woman said. "Here, names are chains. Without one, you are harder to bind."
Kael felt the truth in her words. His steps were lighter, his mind clearer in a strange, dangerous way. But there was also a hollowness in him now, a place where his name had been—a gap that the Flame tried to fill, flaring brighter to keep him anchored.
The First Test
They had gone no more than a mile when the ground ahead split open. From the crack spilled black water, and from the water rose shapes—human in outline but wrong in every detail, their limbs too long, their mouths stretching from ear to ear.
They hissed, though they had no eyes to see him.
"Veil-keepers," the woman murmured. "They smell what you've lost. They will try to take the rest."
Kael drew the bone knife. The Flame surged, wrapping his hand in faint light. The creatures hesitated, but hunger won over fear.
They came at him in jerking, unnatural bursts of speed. Kael's blade moved in arcs of fire, severing limbs that bled no blood but black smoke. Each strike cost him—his vision blurred, the hollow inside him yawning wider—but he pushed on, until the last creature collapsed into a smear of shadow on the ground.
When it was over, the woman only said, "You bleed differently now. Be careful."
A Self Unmoored
As they walked on, Kael began to notice the strangeness: his own shadow lagged behind his steps, sometimes stretching in the wrong direction; the sound of his voice seemed unfamiliar, as if spoken by someone else; and in his mind, when he tried to recall his childhood, the memories came without the anchor of his name to hold them steady.
The Flame whispered in its wordless way, trying to steady him. But the truth was clear—he had crossed the Veil, and he had paid the price.
He was no longer Kael. Not fully.
By the time the broken towers loomed overhead, the woman stopped. "From here, you walk alone," she said. "The Veil-Breaker waits inside. But remember—without a name, you can take many shapes. And some shapes… may never let you return."
She stepped back into the black water and was gone.
Kael looked ahead, the towers leaning like the teeth of a giant beast. Somewhere inside was the thing that could either mend the Veil or tear it forever.
The Flame burned bright, but for the first time, he wondered if it would burn for him, or for the stranger he was becoming.