The empire, Luntheris, stood as a monument to hubris on a cosmic scale—a bejeweled tyrant sprawled across the stars, drunk on its own magnificence. If you believed the hymns sung in its cathedrals of glass and steel, Luntheris was the eternal custodian of order, the divine answer to chaos. If you believed the silence of its forgotten corners, Luntheris was the abyss in a velvet cloak, a colossus with feet of crumbling clay.

Its cities, those crystalline marvels reaching for the heavens, were like expensive toys in the hands of a spoiled child. The empire prided itself on perfection, but what was perfection if not an insult to possibility? It clung to the illusion of control even as its great spires hummed with the dread vibration of inevitable collapse. Beneath their glowing facades, the machinery of Luntheris churned ceaselessly, a symphony of gears and gasps, driven by the sacrifices of the unseen and the unremembered.

The empire called its forgetting “The Veil of Oblivion,” as if branding their doom with a poetic name might make it less embarrassing. Empires, after all, could never admit fault; they could only describe their destruction as destiny. The Veil was no natural calamity, no cruel twist of cosmic fate. It was, quite obviously, the empire’s own legacy, a monument to its success in gnawing away at the foundations of reality itself. If the stars vanished, it was only because Luntheris had squeezed them dry, leaving the universe no choice but to erase the evidence.

And yet, for all their might, the empire’s architects—the scholars, priests, and generals who had once pronounced themselves masters of destiny—were dumbfounded. Machines that could turn moons to dust could not explain a single vanished star. Oracles who claimed to see the tendrils of time stretching infinitely forward now stared blankly into the void, their visions smothered in static. Naturally, the empire’s ruling class responded to this catastrophe with the dignity and restraint for which they were known: they doubled down on pomp and pretension, hosting galas under skies that were rapidly running out of stars.

Meanwhile, at the edges of this illustrious decay, the unwashed masses—those quaint beings who had the misfortune of existing without sufficient titles or family crests—were left to stew in the fallout. In the Outer Rings, where the empire’s light barely flickered, the Veil wasn’t a philosophical dilemma; it was a daily nuisance. One day, your neighbor vanished. The next, you found you couldn’t remember if you’d ever had a neighbor to begin with. It was the kind of existential crisis that went splendidly with the empire’s chronic indifference.

Enter Ceyla Arathen, a woman who had failed spectacularly at being important. Once a scholar, she had been expelled from the hallowed halls of the Aetherium Archives for the unforgivable sin of noticing things. Now she dwelled in the gutters of a dying world, where noticing things was less a choice and more a survival skill. If Luntheris had a sense of humor—and the Veil suggested it did—it would have found it amusing that a woman so utterly dismissed by history might be the one to defy it.

Ceyla had gathered a group of similarly insignificant souls—misfits, outcasts, and the sort of people whose absence was felt only by the debts they left behind. They called themselves the Veilborn, a name that screamed we know something you don’t, though the truth was they barely knew anything at all. What they did know was this: the forgetting wasn’t just happening to them; it was happening through them. Every star that vanished, every memory erased—it was like a thread being plucked from the empire’s grand tapestry. And they, the frayed edges, felt it most keenly.

“We’re going to die, aren’t we?” said one of her companions, a wiry man named Karv who looked like he’d been assembled from spare parts. He was staring at the night sky, which had the distinct look of something thinking about leaving.

“Probably,” Ceyla replied, not unkindly. She had learned that honesty was the only currency left in a world where even memories had started to evaporate.

The group stood at the edge of what Luntheris called the Boundary—a poetic term for the line beyond which everything became someone else’s problem. No ships patrolled this stretch of space, no satellites mapped its contours. Here, the Veil wasn’t an abstraction; it was a presence, thick and oppressive, like a creditor you couldn’t outrun.

Ceyla looked at her companions, a motley assortment of the forgotten and the foolish. “If the empire had a spine,” she said, “it would be here. But it doesn’t. So here we are.”

The younger woman, Taran, crossed her arms. “And what exactly do we expect to find out there? A big, glowing ‘off’ switch? A manual titled How Not to Erase Your Own Existence?”

Ceyla smirked. “If we’re lucky. If not, I’ll settle for a decent view before we vanish.”

The truth, of course, was far less romantic. Ceyla didn’t know what lay beyond the Boundary, but she knew the empire wouldn’t save them. Luntheris had built itself on the premise that it was invincible. To admit otherwise would be unthinkable. So, it fell to the unthinkable people to do the work.

And so, under a sky that seemed more like a threat than a promise, they set out into the void, armed with little more than defiance and a few shoddy star-charts. The empire wouldn’t miss them; it didn’t even know they existed. But the Veil knew. It always knew.

It watched, silent and amused, as these scraps of humanity ventured into its maw. After all, what was the Veil of Oblivion, if not the universe’s most elaborate joke? An empire too vast to fail had undone itself, and now a handful of nobodies thought they could rewrite the punchline.

The empire of Luntheris, vast and resplendent, was dying—but don’t expect it to admit that. Empires rarely confess their own decline. Instead, they polish their monuments, issue proclamations about destiny, and double the size of their banquets. Luntheris had been no exception. Its rulers still proclaimed their dominion eternal, even as the stars winked out one by one, and the very memories of their existence slipped from the minds of its people.

This erasure wasn’t loud or dramatic—no wars, no cataclysmic explosions. It came instead as a soft unraveling, an unspooling thread that left the mighty empire’s tapestry full of invisible holes. They called it the Veil of Oblivion, a name as poetic as it was unhelpful. It had the air of mysticism, the kind of phrase that allowed senators and scholars to debate its meaning while ignoring the obvious: that Luntheris was choking on its own hubris, and the Veil was merely the slow tightening of the noose.

The elite of Luntheris, naturally, treated this as a branding issue. When memories began fading and stars disappeared from the heavens, they commissioned new hymns about resilience and ordered grander festivals to celebrate the empire’s infinite reach. They were too busy admiring their own genius to consider that the Veil might be more than an inconvenience. After all, Luntheris had already conquered planets, rewritten the laws of physics, and declared itself master of reality. Surely this was just another problem to be solved with committees and colossal, impractical machines.

Meanwhile, in the Outer Rings—those dim and dusty fringes of the empire that functioned mostly as a trash heap for inconvenient truths—the Veil wasn’t an abstract philosophical crisis. It was a nightmare come to life. People disappeared without a trace, leaving behind only a vague sense that something was missing. Memories dissolved, turning loved ones into strangers and homes into hollow shells. Entire worlds went dark, and no one could remember if they’d ever existed at all.

It was here, in these neglected outskirts, that Ceyla Arathen lived—or survived, depending on how charitable you felt about the word. Once, she’d been a scholar, a promising mind in the hallowed Aetherium Archives. But promising minds often came to grief in Luntheris, especially those foolish enough to ask uncomfortable questions. Now, she scraped by on the edges of civilization, part of a growing community of those who had been erased in all but body.

The Veilborn, as they called themselves, were the leftovers of the empire’s glory—people who had lost too much to ignore the truth. They were the kind of rabble the elite dismissed with a shrug and a sneer, yet they understood the Veil better than any senator or oracle ever could. It wasn’t some cosmic anomaly or divine punishment. It was Luntheris’s shadow, a consequence of its insatiable hunger to dominate and define. They knew this because they lived its effects every day.

“Do you feel that?” asked Karv, a wiry man whose nerves seemed permanently on edge. He gestured to the night sky, where the stars pulsed faintly, as if caught in the act of forgetting themselves. “It’s worse tonight. Like it’s closer.”

“It’s always close,” Ceyla replied, her voice dry but not unkind. She had long ago learned that there was no point in reassuring anyone. The Veil didn’t leave room for comfort.

Still, it was true that things were growing worse. Each passing day brought new absences: a vanished star, a missing fragment of history, a hollow ache where once there had been certainty. The empire’s great machines, its storied wisdom, could do nothing to stop it. And so, Ceyla and her companions faced the only option left to them—the unthinkable.

“There’s a place,” Ceyla said one night, her voice cutting through the low murmurs of her companions. They sat huddled around a dim fire, their faces gaunt and weary. “A place where the Veil began. Where the forgetting started.”

The others turned to her, their expressions a mix of skepticism and hope. Taran, the youngest among them, crossed her arms. “And what’s there, exactly? Some magic button to fix all this? Because that sounds suspiciously convenient.”

“I don’t know,” Ceyla admitted. “But I do know this: staying here means waiting to be erased. Going means we have a chance. A small one, maybe. But it’s more than the empire’s giving us.”

The silence that followed was thick with unspoken fears. It wasn’t as though anyone truly believed they could succeed. But the alternative was worse: to sit and wait for the Veil to take them, one by one, until there was nothing left.

Finally, Karv spoke. “A chance, huh?” He rubbed his jaw, his voice laced with dry humor. “Well, it’s not like I was planning to live forever anyway.”

One by one, the others nodded. They didn’t believe in salvation, not really. But they believed in doing something, even if that something was as futile as hurling themselves into the void.

And so they prepared to leave. The empire, of course, would not notice their absence. It was far too preoccupied with its banquets and debates, its grand schemes to distract from the quiet collapse of its own reality. But the Veil would notice. It always noticed.

As Ceyla and her companions set out into the uncharted expanse, they carried no guarantees of success, only the grim determination of those who have nothing left to lose. Somewhere, deep in the forgotten void, the answers waited—if answers were even possible in a universe where forgetting was the final truth.

The empire would go on pretending. The stars would go on disappearing. And in the end, the Veil would have the last laugh. It always did.

Beneath the glittering towers of Luntheris, where light became more a rumor than a fact, the forgotten huddled together. They called themselves the Veilborn, because of course they did. If you’re going to live in despair, you might as well give it a dramatic name. It sounded better than “people the empire couldn’t be bothered to remember.”

Here, in the empire’s shadows, the Veil of Oblivion was less of a philosophical quandary and more of a daily inconvenience. Stars disappeared, memories slipped away, and entire towns faded into the void without so much as a farewell note. The Veilborn understood this intimately. They were the ones left holding the pieces of lives that no longer existed. But instead of gratitude for their perseverance, Luntheris rewarded them with, well, nothing.

At the center of this particularly downtrodden group stood Ceyla Arathen. Once, she’d been a scholar of some renown, poring over ancient texts in the gleaming Aetherium Archives. But asking the wrong questions in Luntheris was a career path that inevitably led to exile. Now, her robes were tattered, her shoes had seen better centuries, and her audience was made up of the disheveled and disillusioned. A bit of a downgrade, sure, but beggars can’t be choosers—especially when the empire had forgotten you even existed.

One night, under a sky that looked more like a glitch in reality than a celestial masterpiece, Ceyla decided it was time for a rousing speech. Her audience, naturally, was in peak form: an old man muttering to himself, a woman clutching a locket like it might turn into gold if she squeezed hard enough, and a handful of others who looked like they had nothing better to do than listen.

“It’s closer now,” muttered the old man, because that’s what old men are supposed to do in situations like this. He pointed to the sky with a trembling hand, as though the Veil hadn’t been pressing down on them for years. “I can feel it.”

“Brilliant observation,” Ceyla said inwardly, though she managed to keep her tone serious. She looked up at the heavens, where the stars flickered like they were deciding whether this whole “existing” thing was worth it. “It’s always been close,” she said aloud, the words carrying just the right amount of gravitas. “But running won’t save us. We have to face it.”

A murmur rippled through the group, which is to say, everyone looked at each other uneasily, trying to decide if they should nod or scoff. Facing the Veil wasn’t exactly a winning strategy. The Veil was undefeated, and anyone who’d gone to “face it” had either vanished entirely or returned a gibbering wreck. Luntheris loved its martyrs, but only the kind who stayed conveniently dead.

“What are you asking of us?” the young woman with the locket demanded. Her voice wavered, but her grip on the locket didn’t. She seemed to think it was the key to surviving the end of reality. “You’ve seen what happens to people who go beyond the boundary. They disappear. They… vanish.”

“Yes, thank you for the recap,” Ceyla thought, but she replied with patience born of exhaustion. “I’m asking you to believe there’s more than vanishing. I’ve seen it—in my dreams. There’s a place where this began. A wound in the universe. If we can find it, maybe we can undo this. Maybe we can bring back what we’ve lost.”

The group fell into a thoughtful silence, which was code for “everyone was panicking internally but trying not to show it.” No one wanted to admit that Ceyla might be onto something, because that would mean admitting they had to do something about it. And doing something sounded awfully dangerous.

“Why you?” the old man asked after a moment, his voice carrying the skepticism of someone who’d been disappointed too many times to count. “Why do you think you can succeed where everyone else failed?”

Ceyla paused. The real answer was, of course, that she didn’t think she could succeed. But desperation has a way of making you optimistic—or reckless, depending on your perspective. “Because I have nothing left to lose,” she said. It was true, if a little melodramatic. “And neither do you.”

The old man grunted, which was probably his way of agreeing. Slowly, reluctantly, the others began to nod. They weren’t exactly inspired, but inspiration wasn’t necessary. All that mattered was that the alternative—waiting for the Veil to consume them—was somehow worse.

And so, under a sky that was actively deleting itself, Ceyla and her ragtag band of Veilborn prepared to do the unthinkable: step into the void and see what happened. The empire, of course, remained blissfully unaware. Luntheris had bigger problems, like pretending the Veil wasn’t its fault and ensuring that the next gala featured an impressive selection of imported starlight.

The Veil, however, noticed. It always noticed. As the group set out into the unknown, the stars flickered ominously, as if rolling their eyes at this latest attempt to defy the inevitable. The cosmos didn’t care about hope, or courage, or noble sacrifices. And if the Veil could laugh, it surely would have. After all, what could be more ironic than the forgotten trying to save a universe that had already forgotten them?

Solara Prime: a city so radiant, so impossibly polished, it might as well have been built to feature in its own propaganda posters. It was the jewel of Luntheris, the so-called “Heart of the Infinite,” and boy, did it act the part. From its shimmering walkways to its hovering towers, everything about it screamed, Look at us, we’ve conquered the cosmos, and now we’re just showing off. And yet, beneath all that glitz, Solara Prime was like a clock with a missing gear—beautiful, impressive, but just a little… off.

The city hummed with energy, literally. The Aetherium Core buried beneath it powered everything, from the glowing veins running through its streets to the self-playing orchestras in the Celestine Market. It was all very impressive, though you had to wonder why an empire that was supposedly on the verge of universal collapse still prioritized mood lighting. These veins of light—golden, sapphire, and occasionally a tasteful amethyst—shifted colors to reflect the city’s “collective mood,” as if an entire population could be reduced to a glorified mood ring. A funeral? Dim silver. A festival? Bright gold. Tuesday? Probably some kind of melancholy turquoise.

The Celestine Market was a wonder of commerce and culture—or at least that’s what the guidebooks said. In practice, it was a place where merchants hawked overpriced trinkets, most of which were suspiciously labeled as “starborn,” “cosmically infused,” or “crafted from the tears of the Eternal Flame.” Floating crystal platforms displayed these dubious wares while holograms flickered overhead, advertising things like “artisanal stardust” and “black hole distillates.” The city’s self-generated music—a feature they were very proud of—followed you everywhere, changing just enough to make you question whether it was tailored to your personal experience. It wasn’t, of course, but Luntheris had always been good at selling illusions.

Above the market, the Skybridges sprawled like a giant spiderweb, connecting the city’s glittering towers. These pathways were a marvel of engineering, if not practicality. People glided along them in silent, levitating platforms, looking suitably aloof, as if contemplating deep, cosmic truths instead of their next overpriced latte. The towers themselves were works of art, their surfaces gleaming with an iridescence that made them impossible to look at directly for too long. It was a shame no one could afford to live in them anymore, but they sure looked great against the backdrop of the twin suns.

At the city’s center stood the Sanctum of the Primarchs, a dome of glass and light that glowed like it was auditioning for a role as the galaxy’s next messiah. The Sanctum was once the seat of the empire’s greatest minds—those brilliant, shining figures who had, in their infinite wisdom, decided to play god and accidentally summon the Veil of Oblivion. Now, it was little more than a shrine to nostalgia, where people went to mourn what they couldn’t quite remember. Inside, the ceiling displayed constellations that no longer existed, each star a relic of a history rapidly erasing itself. It was all very poetic, which was another way of saying utterly useless.

But for all its splendor, even Solara Prime couldn’t hide the cracks in its perfection. At the city’s edges, near the Outer Districts where the less fortunate resided (read: everyone not living in a spire), the veins of light flickered ominously. The hum of the Aetherium Core wavered, subtle but unsettling, like a maestro who’d suddenly forgotten the next note. People whispered about the Veil, though not too loudly. Acknowledging it felt too much like tempting fate, and the Veil was nothing if not a drama queen when it came to making its presence known.

Elira, a girl with more curiosity than was probably good for her, stood at the edge of the marketplace, staring down at one of the flickering veins. In her hands, she held a shard of crystal, a piece of a long-forgotten starship, though in Solara Prime, anything “forgotten” was just another word for “unimportant.”

“Do you feel it?” she asked her brother Kael, who was leaning against the railing of a nearby Skybridge with the kind of bored expression that only an older sibling could perfect.

“Feel what?” Kael asked, not bothering to look at her. He’d heard this kind of thing before. Kids and their existential musings—so dramatic.

“The city,” Elira said, her voice low, as if she were sharing a secret. “It’s quieter. Like it’s… forgetting itself.”

Kael sighed, finally turning to look at her. “It’s a city, Elira. Cities don’t forget. They just break down and cost a fortune to fix.”

She didn’t respond, her gaze fixed on the faint, uneven glow beneath her feet. Kael followed her line of sight and frowned, though he’d never admit it. The flickering light was unsettling. He glanced toward the Sanctum, its glow muted against the storm clouds rolling in from the horizon. For all its grandeur, Solara Prime looked tired, like a performer at the end of a too-long show.

The city still shone, of course. Luntheris would never let its crown jewel go dark—not officially. But even Kael, skeptic that he was, couldn’t deny that something was off. Solara Prime was trying very hard to be what it had always been: a beacon of hope, a testament to the empire’s greatness. But somewhere in the flickering light and uneven hum, you could hear the truth: it wasn’t a city anymore. It was a memory. A beautiful, crumbling memory, holding its breath for something that wasn’t coming.

And if the Eternal Flame still burned somewhere in the cosmos, it was probably laughing.

​

Long before the stars burned and before anyone thought to invent calendars to keep track of cosmic failures, there were the Barbelo: the self-proclaimed architects of existence, which is a fancy way of saying they were the universe’s first control freaks. They didn’t have bodies (too pedestrian) or even personalities in the traditional sense—just infinite will and creativity, a combination as dangerous as it sounds. Their job? Build reality, balance light and shadow, and generally not mess it all up.

Among this ethereal brain trust were Kahina and Lyrion, the teacher’s pets of cosmic engineering. Kahina was the Flame of Aspiration, which is just a poetic way of saying she really liked starting things and couldn’t sit still. Lyrion, on the other hand, was the Shadow of Depth, the cool, brooding type who probably would’ve been voted “Most Mysterious” in high school, if cosmic entities had yearbooks. Together, they were the dream team, churning out galaxies and life forms like overachieving interns trying to impress their immortal supervisors.

But even the best of the best can’t resist hubris, can they? Kahina and Lyrion decided that building a pretty good universe wasn’t enough. No, they needed perfection. No chaos, no flaws, no entropy—just an endless parade of perfectly balanced, utterly boring systems. It was going to be The Greatest Creation Ever™, and naturally, they poured all their energy into it.

The problem? Perfection is terrible at taking a punch. Their masterpiece didn’t just crack under the pressure; it imploded, taking galaxies, dimensions, and who knows how many innocent bystanders with it. Stars turned into cosmic tantrums, collapsing into black holes. Dimensions folded like cheap paper. Entire universes were effectively yeeted into the void. Oops.

The rest of the Barbelo, who probably should’ve seen this coming, gathered to deal with the fallout. As Kahina and Lyrion stood before them—looking slightly less luminous and a lot more sheepish—the Barbelo issued their verdict, equal parts poetic justice and cosmic overreaction.

“You sought perfection,” they boomed, because of course they spoke in ominous, unified voices. “And in doing so, you forgot the essence of creation: it’s supposed to be messy. You’ll be cast out, stripped of your essence, and condemned to mortality. Oh, and you’ll forget who you are because we think it’s funnier that way.”

And just like that, the galaxy’s worst perfectionists were turned into mortal beings, doomed to spend countless lives as humans. Humans! Kahina and Lyrion—former deities, cosmic architects—would now have to contend with all the indignities of the mortal experience: stubbed toes, bad hair days, and the existential despair of grocery shopping.

But there was a twist, because every good punishment needs a twist. The two of them would be bound by an eternal connection, doomed to find each other across lifetimes, only for tragedy to wrench them apart. Love, pain, repeat. You know, a cosmic soap opera. Oh, and there was some vague prophecy about redemption, but nobody paid much attention to that part.

Fast forward a few millennia (or a few bad reincarnations), and here they were again. Kahina, now a battle-hardened warrior with a penchant for dramatic speeches, and Lyrion, the obligatory brooding tactician, had once more found themselves caught in a swirling mess of existential doom. This time, it came in the form of the Veil of Oblivion—a fancy name for “everything is disappearing, and no one knows why.”

Neither remembered their time as Barbelo, of course. That would’ve been too easy. But there were… echoes. Kahina felt an inexplicable trust in Lyrion, despite the fact that he gave off the kind of vibes that screamed I have trust issues. Meanwhile, Lyrion, in his classic cryptic style, had dreams of a woman wreathed in fire, a memory that haunted him like an unpaid parking ticket from another life.

Their current predicament—the slow, inevitable collapse of the empire of Luntheris—wasn’t just a mortal crisis. The Veil, as it turned out, was their old screw-up come back to haunt them. The chaos unleashed from their perfect creation’s collapse had festered, gaining momentum over countless eons, and now it was tearing reality apart. Talk about long-term consequences.

Kahina and Lyrion, of course, had no idea they were cleaning up their own mess. They were too busy saving the empire, one impossible battle at a time. Each victory brought them closer to the truth, though neither of them realized it. The prophecy was beginning to stir—one of those vague, dramatic prophecies that sounded profound but mostly served to make everyone feel important.

“They shall rise, forged through suffering, blah blah blah, light in the shadows, yada yada, guardians of the cosmos,” the stars seemed to whisper. It was all very poetic and deeply inconvenient.

Now, standing on the edge of oblivion (because where else would they be?), Kahina and Lyrion prepared to face the Veil. She burned with fiery resolve, ready to fight until the last breath. He stood beside her, a cool and shadowy counterbalance, because of course he did. Their bond was unshakable, their destinies intertwined, and their mutual inability to express feelings downright legendary.

“Do you ever feel like this is all… bigger than us?” Kahina asked, her voice tinged with an existential weight that would’ve made any philosopher proud.

Lyrion, ever the enigmatic one, tilted his head and stared into the void like it owed him rent. “Probably,” he said, which wasn’t an answer but sounded profound enough to pass for one.

And so, they marched forward, oblivious to the truth of their past and the cosmic punchline that awaited them. The Veil loomed, the prophecy flickered, and somewhere, the Barbelo probably shook their collective heads in cosmic exasperation.

The former architects of existence, now mortals fumbling their way toward redemption, were poised to become something entirely new. Or maybe they’d just screw it all up again. Either way, the universe was watching, popcorn in hand.

And so, Kahina and Lyrion, blissfully unaware of their roles as walking cosmic punchlines, took their first steps into what the empire called the Void Beyond. Of course, calling it the Void Beyond made it sound much more exciting than it was. In reality, it was just a lot of emptiness with an occasional flicker of something terrifying in the distance. Perfect for existential crises, but terrible for sightseeing.

The Veil loomed ahead of them, a shifting mass of darkness that looked like it had eaten one too many universes and wasn’t quite done digesting. The closer they got, the more the air seemed to hum—not a pleasant hum, like a lullaby, but the kind of hum that makes you wonder if the fabric of reality is about to explode.

“This is it,” Kahina said, her voice full of the sort of determination that only someone without a full grasp of the stakes could muster. Her hand hovered over the hilt of her blade, which, for all its glowing dramatics, probably wouldn’t do much against the Veil. “We face it here. Together.”

Lyrion gave her a side glance, his expression hovering somewhere between admiration and You do realize this is insane, right? He didn’t bother drawing his own blade; it was all part of his brand to look perpetually unimpressed, even when faced with apocalyptic doom.

“Do you even know what we’re doing?” he asked, not for the first time.

Kahina shot him a look that practically screamed Stop ruining the moment. “We’re fighting for the empire. For hope. For the light of creation itself.”

Lyrion raised an eyebrow. “Right. And what’s the plan, exactly? Charge the unknowable cosmic force head-on and hope it gets intimidated?”

“Something like that,” she said, refusing to be deterred. “You have a better idea?”

He didn’t. Not because he lacked the brains for it—his whole thing was being the tactical genius, after all—but because, let’s face it, trying to out-strategize the literal unraveling of reality was a fool’s errand. He sighed, a long, theatrical exhale that practically shouted Fine, I guess I’ll die dramatically with you.

As they approached the Veil, the air grew heavier, and time itself seemed to wobble, like it wasn’t quite sure which direction it was supposed to flow. Kahina’s fire, which normally blazed with an almost obnoxious intensity, flickered uncertainly. Lyrion’s shadow seemed to stretch unnaturally, reaching toward the darkness as if it knew something he didn’t.

“Well, this feels promising,” Lyrion muttered, his tone as dry as the void around them.

“Do you always have to be so cynical?” Kahina snapped, though her voice wavered. She hated to admit it, but something about the Veil unsettled even her. Maybe it was the way it seemed to move, not like smoke or water, but like it was alive—watching, waiting. Or maybe it was the faint whispers that tugged at the edges of her mind, half-formed words in a language she didn’t recognize but somehow understood.

“It’s not cynicism,” Lyrion replied coolly. “It’s realism. You should try it sometime.”

Before she could retort, the Veil shifted. It wasn’t a dramatic movement, just a subtle ripple, but it carried the unmistakable weight of something that had just noticed them. Kahina gripped her blade, and Lyrion—after a brief internal debate—finally drew his, if only to look like he was participating.

Then, out of the swirling darkness, came a voice. It wasn’t loud or booming, as one might expect from a cosmic force. No, it was soft, almost conversational, as though the Veil had been expecting them and was mildly amused by their presence.

“Well, well,” the voice said, echoing in a way that made it impossible to tell if it came from within or outside their heads. “If it isn’t the prodigal children. How quaint.”

Kahina stiffened. “Who’s there?” she demanded, her voice ringing with the sort of righteous defiance that tended to go poorly in these situations. “Show yourself!”

The Veil chuckled, a sound that managed to be both deeply unsettling and irritatingly smug. “Oh, Kahina. Always so dramatic. You haven’t changed a bit.”

Lyrion’s grip on his blade tightened. He didn’t say anything, but his eyes narrowed, his mind racing. The voice knew Kahina’s name—knew them. And not in the I’ve read your dossier way, but in the deeply personal, I-was-there-when-you-ruined-the-universe way.

“Care to explain?” Lyrion finally asked, his tone deceptively casual. “Or do we just stand here while you monologue?”

“Oh, Lyrion,” the voice cooed, clearly enjoying itself. “Ever the skeptic. Ever the shadow. And yet, you’re so much more, aren’t you? Both of you are.”

Kahina frowned. “Stop talking in riddles,” she snapped. “What do you want?”

The Veil rippled again, its darkness curling inward like a predator deciding whether to pounce or toy with its prey. “Want? I don’t want anything. I simply am. I am the result of your perfection. The consequence of your hubris. You built me, little flames. You wove me from the ashes of your failure.”

Kahina froze, the weight of the words hitting her like a blow. She didn’t understand—couldn’t—but something deep inside her stirred, a faint echo of a truth she had long forgotten. Lyrion’s expression darkened, his sharp mind already piecing together what she could not.

“Let me guess,” he said dryly. “You’re here to tell us it’s all our fault and we’re doomed to fail.”

The Veil’s laughter deepened, resonating through the void. “Oh, not at all. I’m here to see if you’ve learned anything. If you’re ready to embrace what you are. Or if you’ll keep repeating the same mistakes.”

Kahina’s grip tightened on her blade, her fire flaring defiantly despite the oppressive darkness. “We’ll stop you,” she said, her voice trembling but resolute. “Whatever it takes.”

The Veil sighed, a sound almost pitying. “Ah, Kahina. Always so certain. So bright. And yet, you still don’t see. Light cannot exist without shadow. And you, my dear, are both.”

Before they could respond, the darkness surged forward, engulfing them in a cascade of whispers and memories. And as reality fractured around them, one thing became painfully clear:

The Veil wasn’t here to destroy them. It was here to remind them of who they’d been—and what they still were.