The world tilted.
Not physically—
but in a way that made Evin's stomach twist and his vision fracture into shards of light and shadow. As the Veil's counter-song echoed through the corridor, reality thinned like paper left out in rain.
The remnants steadied around him, their silhouettes locking into sharper lines. The Choir staggered, voices faltering, melody splintering. The Bishop lifted a hand, steadying her followers, her silver eyes narrowing with cold calculation.
But Evin didn't see her.
Because the Veil—
the true Veil, not the scraps clinging to him—
opened.
Not outward.
Inward.
A rip tore through Evin's consciousness and the corridor dissolved, swept away in a rush of cold wind and collapsing light. He tried to grab the wall, but his hand passed through it like smoke.
He was falling.
Not down.
Not up.
Back.
The Veil pulled him into itself.
He hit the ground.
Hard.
The breath tore from his lungs as he landed in a world made of half-light and rippling shadow. The sky was an endless swirl of grey and black, as though memory itself were pouring from the clouds.
Evin staggered upright.
He stood on a surface that wasn't stone, wasn't soil, wasn't water. It shifted under his feet—memory without form.
The remnants weren't behind him now.
They were within the world around him.
The Veil had swallowed him whole.
Evin's pulse hammered. "What… is this place?"
His voice seemed too loud, swallowed instantly by the air.
Then the world pulsed.
Not trembled.
Pulsed.
A heartbeat.
Not his.
The Veil's.
And with the pulse—
the first memory hit.
------ The First Witness ------
Evin wasn't himself.
He was someone else—
an old woman kneeling by a river of black glass.
She held a small child in her arms, whispering a lullaby. The child wasn't breathing. His skin was pale. His eyes were closed. A bundle of cloth stained dark with blood pressed against his side.
She wasn't grieving.
She was waiting.
Evin felt her dread, her acceptance, her fatigue. The Church bells tolled distantly, cold and mechanical. She lifted the child and placed him gently on the glass water.
He floated.
Light flickered beneath the surface— shadows taking shape— forming hands that reached up to cradle the child.
The old woman whispered:
"Remember him."
And the Veil did.
The shadow-hands pulled the child gently under the surface, leaving only ripples.
The old woman smiled through tears.
-------
Evin jerked back into himself, gasping.
"The Veil began as mercy," he whispered. "Someone begging the world not to forget."
But the world around him shifted, darkening—
and the next memory struck.
------ The Founding Doctrine ------
Evin stood in a dim chamber of stone, at the edge of someone else's vision again—
this time a robed Priest kneeling before a circle of scripture.
A younger Bishop—
the Bishop who would become the silver-eyed woman—
stood above him.
Her voice was sharp, cold, confident:
"The remnants cling. They linger. Their grief stains the living. Memory corrupts order."
The Priest trembled. "But… Mother Bishop… the remnants belong to people who suffered. Shouldn't—"
"Shouldn't what?" the Bishop asked calmly. "Shouldn't they remain? Shouldn't their pain shape the living?"
Her eyes narrowed.
"No," she said, voice like ice. "Pain must end. Weakness must be purged. Memory must be controlled."
She lifted a hand, and a remnant appeared—
flickering, childlike, clinging to the Priest's robe.
The Bishop touched it with two fingers.
The remnant went still.
Then dissolved.
The Priest sobbed.
"You have made something pure," the Bishop said softly.
------
Evin staggered as the memory expelled him like poison.
His throat burned.
"She was the one," Evin whispered. "She began the erasures."
His stomach knotted.
She wasn't destroying remnants out of fear.
She was destroying them out of doctrine.
------ The Origin of the Veil ------
The world darkened to pitch black.
Evin's breath caught.
Something massive stirred behind him—
something older than the Church, older than doctrine, older than any fire.
He turned slowly.
A rift hung in the air—
a jagged tear of absolute shadow.
Inside it swirled countless silhouettes—
faces, hands, shapes—
all overlapping, all whispering without sound.
The original Veil.
The first wound in reality.
And it wasn't created by magic.
It was created by grief.
Evin heard a voice—not spoken, but resonating through bone and memory.
We were the forgotten.
The rift pulsed.
We were the lost.
Another pulse.
We were the ones denied burial, denied names, denied mourning.
The silhouettes pressed against the edges of the rift, desperate, yearning.
We gathered here… because nowhere else would hold us.
Evin's breath hitched.
"You're not a power," he whispered. "You're not a curse. You're—"
We are the witness.
The rift shuddered violently.
And you are our bearer.
The Veil surged forward, enveloping Evin in a rush of frigid shadow—
and the memories became worse.
------ The First Erasure ------
He saw a woman screaming as her husband was torn from reality—
not killed—
deleted.
She reached for him, but her hands passed through empty air as though touching a memory already forgotten.
Her mind recoiled—
fractured—
collapsed.
She clawed at her own face until blood smeared down her cheeks, trying to pull the image of him back into existence.
Trying to remember.
The Church watched calmly.
A Bishop murmured:
"Release her. Suffering is temporary; obedience is eternal."
Evin felt the woman's mind snap.
He felt her soul tear.
He felt her collapse into the Veil—
a remnant born not of death, but of erasure.
------
Evin collapsed onto his hands and knees, gagging.
Tears streamed down his cheeks.
He whispered, broken:
"This… this is what you've been holding all this time."
The remnants that had flickered at his shoulders now stood clear and solid around him in the Veil's world—lines sharper, edges harder, shapes defined by shared agony.
They didn't approach.
They simply watched him.
The Veil pulsed again, more gently.
This is what remains.
Evin wiped his face with a trembling hand.
"I can't hold all of this," he whispered.
A remnant stepped forward—
tall, faceless, but steady.
It reached toward Evin.
Not touching, but offering.
Evin's chest tightened painfully.
"You're asking me to carry everything the Church destroyed."
The remnant tilted its head.
Not yes.
Not no.
Acceptance.
We remain.
If you remain.
Evin swallowed.
And then the Veil pushed him—
outward.
He gasped awake back in the corridor, choking on real air as the remnants surged around him like a shield.
The Choir stumbled back in shock.
The Bishop stared, her silver eyes narrowing.
"You saw it," she said quietly. "The Veil let you see its heart."
Evin looked up at her, trembling.
"It's not a curse," he whispered. "It's a graveyard you created."
The Bishop smiled faintly—sadly.
"No," she said. "It's a graveyard we inherited. And you are about to tear the world apart trying to unearth it."
The remnants solidified behind Evin.
Evin rose slowly to his feet.
The Veil stood with him.
"Then let it tear," he whispered.