The corridor was silent.
Not peaceful.
Not empty.
Stunned.
The Choir—creatures of holy erasure who feared nothing—stood frozen as Evin rose from the floor on shaking legs, sobbing so hard his breath tore itself apart.
His body trembled.
His throat was raw.
His mind was split down the middle.
The remnants were gone.
But they were not gone from him.
They were folding inward—pressing through the seams of his consciousness, through the cracks in his soul, through the places grief had hollowed open.
The Veil wasn't behind him anymore.
It was inside.
His vision blurred in pulses of black and white, like the world was flickering between two states—reality and the place beneath reality.
He felt it.
A second heartbeat.
Slow.
Heavy.
Rooted in something far beneath his ribs.
His chest rose—
—and the shadows rose with him.
Not as flickers.
Not as silhouettes.
Not as ghosts.
But as structure.
The corridor plunged into darkness as the shadows erupted outward—then snapped back like a breath drawn too sharply. The remnants didn't reappear as shapes. They reappeared as patterns.
Lines of darkness running up Evin's spine.
A crown of flickering shadow above his brow.
A ring of cold pressure around his ribs.
Marks like ink, dripping and shifting under his skin.
The Choir stumbled backward.
"What—" one whispered, voice shaking. "What is he becoming?"
The Bishop did not answer immediately.
Her silver eyes widened, just a fraction, before narrowing with something that was not fear but recognition.
She whispered the truth aloud:
"The Veil is no longer clinging to him."
She stepped closer, voice trembling not with fear—
but with awe.
"It is forming around him."
Evin felt his own body react—
his shadow stretching across the floor in unnatural ways,
splitting into dozens of smaller outlines,
each twitching like they remembered limbs they no longer had.
His breath hitched.
He felt them.
All of them.
Their last thoughts.
Their last pain.
Their last fear.
Their last love.
All rushing into his chest like a storm collapsing into a single point.
He choked on it.
He expected the weight to crush him.
To destroy him.
To rip him apart.
But it didn't.
It filled him.
It rooted him.
Like soil around a seed.
He lifted his head slowly.
A dozen voices whispered in his bones.
Not separate.
Not layered.
Merged.
The Veil spoke now as a collective through his pulse.
We remain.
The Choir hissed, drawing back as if scorched.
One of them whispered hoarsely, "He's—he's stabilizing! That should be impossible—"
The Bishop held up a hand.
"No," she murmured. "It is exactly as the doctrine predicted."
Her voice was calm.
Too calm.
It scraped against Evin's nerves like a blade.
"You are not their vessel anymore," she said.
Her eyes locked onto Evin's chest—where dark tendrils shifted beneath his skin, pulsing with each heartbeat.
"You are their anchor."
Evin opened his mouth—
but the words that came out were not his.
They were deeper.
Older.
Colder.
A chorus:
"We choose him."
The torches guttered.
The Choir cried out in fear, covering their ears as if the very sound burned them. One dropped to the floor, shaking violently. Another clawed at their veil, trying to tear it off in panic.
The Bishop remained still.
Only her eyes flickered—
a tremor of genuine dread.
The Veil spoke again, through Evin's mouth and bones and breath:
"He is the one who remembers."
The shadows around Evin thickened and rose—
forming the faint outline of a massive silhouette behind him.
Not human.
Not monstrous.
Not anything describable.
A shape built from countless lost lives.
The Choir tried to resume their hymn, but the sound died in their throats as if their voices were swallowed before they formed.
They backed away.
They were terrified.
The Bishop, however, stepped closer.
Her voice softened again—
that same gentle tone she used to break minds and guide souls to erasure.
"Evin," she whispered. "Look at what you are becoming."
He did.
He saw shadows move at the edge of his vision—
not attacking,
not rising,
simply existing around him like a living mantle.
He whispered, voice shaking:
"What… what am I?"
The Bishop answered without hesitation:
"You are proof."
Evin's heart stumbled.
"Proof?" he echoed.
"Yes," she breathed. "Proof that the Veil is not a curse, nor corruption, nor anomaly."
Her eyes glittered.
"Proof that it is alive."
The air seemed to compress around them.
"And it has chosen its bearer," she whispered. "You."
Evin shook his head, tears slipping down his cheeks again. "I never asked for this."
"No," she said gently. "You were simply the only one who could break enough to let it in."
The shadows behind Evin flared with fury—
but not at her.
At the truth.
At the realization that she was right.
He hadn't gained strength.
He'd lost enough of himself to become hollow—
hollow enough for the Veil to fill.
The Bishop's smile softened with pity.
"And now," she whispered, "you will do what you were born to do."
Evin's breath caught.
"Open the Veil."
The remnants—now threads within him—shuddered violently.
Pain shot through Evin's chest.
Light flickered.
Reality distorted.
He collapsed to one knee, clutching his ribs as the Veil surged upward—
not outward—
as if trying to tear reality from inside his body.
He gasped, choking on the pressure building behind his sternum.
The Bishop stepped back at last, voice steady:
"You cannot stop what you have already begun."
The Choir gathered behind her.
The corridor trembled.
The shadows swirled.
Evin's vision split into black and white, as though the world were tearing itself down the middle.
He forced himself upright again—
face pale,
breathing ragged,
eyes filled with terror and resolve.
His voice came out as a whisper:
"If you erase them…"
The Veil flared violently.
The shadows curled around him like armor.
Evin's voice grew steadier.
"…then I will remake them."
The Bishop inhaled sharply.
The torches overhead blew out in unison.
Darkness swallowed the hall.
And Evin—
Evin became the only source of light.
A cold, terrible light born from memory and grief.
The Veil had chosen.