The clock on Elias's wall blinked an unsteady red, its numbers twitching as if the seconds themselves were unsure whether to move forward or backward. Outside the window, the skyline of Avelshade City twisted—buildings breathing, shadows warping. The city was rotting at the edges, and only Elias seemed to see it.
He sat on the corner of his bed, staring at the letter Ren had brought him earlier.
A sigil burned into the paper—a crude black spiral, drawn with something thicker than ink. Blood, maybe. Definitely not paint.
"Veilborn," he muttered, spitting the word like a curse.
The name clung to his mind like a roach crawling across wet skin.
Ren sat across from him, curled up in the battered armchair, hugging her knees to her chest. She had changed clothes—no longer the trembling girl from the alley—but something about her still looked cracked. Fractured.
"I think they're calling to me," she said.
Her voice was barely above a whisper, fragile enough to break if Elias looked at her too hard.
Elias leaned forward.
"You're not listening to them."
Ren flinched.
"They're... inside my dreams. I can't stop it."
A silence spread between them, heavy and suffocating.
Elias closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. Memories surged — fighting off the Mindthieves of Elyndros, resisting the song of the Siren Priests. Back there, voices invading your mind was a death sentence.
And now it was happening here.
Fucking perfect.
He got up and began pacing, boots scuffing against the scratched wood floor. His mind raced through possibilities—wards, barriers, breaking the link manually—but the old rituals required reagents he didn't have in this world.
Ren's voice pulled him back.
"I think they're trying to wake something," she said.
Elias stopped. His pulse hammered against his ribs.
"What do you mean, 'wake something'?"
Ren's arms tightened around her legs.
"I see it in my dreams. It's not... human. It's wrapped in chains. Sleeping under the city. And it keeps whispering my name."
Chains. Darkness. Sleep.
Shit.
Elias swore under his breath. He knew enough old world lore to recognize the signs. In Elyndros, there had been creatures left buried when the realms collided—things too monstrous to kill, too dangerous to set free. They had been sealed instead.
Maybe the Order didn't want to destroy this world.
Maybe they wanted to unleash something worse.
Before he could reply, a sound split the silence.
Knocking.
Hard, deliberate, unnatural.
Three slow knocks against the apartment door.
Ren froze, wide-eyed.
Elias turned to the door slowly, every instinct sharpening into a blade.
The knocking repeated.
Three again. Then again.
Not a neighbor. Not a cop.
Something was testing the boundary.
Elias moved to the door, standing just out of direct sight. He whispered low:
"Stay behind me. No matter what."
Ren nodded, her face pale.
Another knock—but this time, it was coming from the window behind them.
Elias didn't hesitate.
He summoned a shimmer of cold light into his hand, forming a sword made from condensed memory—an artifact from Elyndros, one of the last things he stole before being exiled back to this rotten world.
The blade hissed in the stale apartment air.
The window rattled violently. Cracks spiderwebbed across the glass.
Ren whimpered.
Elias turned, raising the sword.
The glass exploded inward, shards spraying like rain.
A figure burst through—twisted, human-shaped but wrong, as if its bones were wired in backward. It screamed, a high-pitched noise that made Ren clutch her head and sob.
Elias didn't think. He moved.
The sword bit through the creature's midsection with a wet crunch.
Black blood splattered across the room, hissing where it touched the floor.
The creature spasmed, its form dissolving into smoke—but not before its clawed hand grazed Elias's chest.
Pain lanced through him. His skin burned, sizzled.
He staggered back, gritting his teeth.
More figures appeared outside the window, moving in the shadows. Twisted silhouettes, dozens of them.
"They found us," Elias growled.
Of course they had. The blood-sigil had been a fucking beacon.
He grabbed Ren by the wrist.
"We're leaving. Now."
They bolted.
Out the apartment, down the emergency stairwell, into the reeking guts of the city. Avelshade twisted around them—alleyways stretching longer than they should, streetlights flickering like dying stars.
Behind them, the creatures poured into the night like spilled ink.
Elias led Ren through a maze of abandoned streets, heart hammering. His shoulder throbbed where the creature had touched him. Black veins crept under his skin, poisoning him.
He needed time. He needed a cure.
But time was the one thing he didn't have.
Finally, after what felt like hours, they ducked into an old subway station, long condemned and forgotten. Rats scurried into the darkness. The air stank of rot and rust.
Elias slammed the heavy iron door behind them and dropped the rusted bolt into place.
Ren collapsed onto the cracked tile floor, gasping.
Elias staggered to a corner, biting down on a scream as the infection spread deeper into his arm.
"Fuck," he hissed.
Ren crawled toward him, panic flashing across her face.
"What's happening?!"
He ripped his jacket open, revealing the black, pulsing veins threading across his ribs.
"Corruption," Elias said through gritted teeth.
"They're trying to turn me."
Ren's hands trembled.
"I can help," she said. "I think—I think if I focus—"
Before Elias could argue, Ren placed her palms over the blackened skin.
A bright light burst from her hands.
Pure, white, searing.
Elias screamed—a raw, brutal sound—but the veins began to recoil, retreating from the light like worms shriveling under salt.
When it was over, he collapsed back, breathing hard.
The corruption was gone.
Ren swayed, dizzy from the effort.
"You have magic," Elias rasped, staring at her.
Ren looked as shocked as he felt.
"I didn't... I didn't know."
She had power. Real power.
No wonder the Order wanted her.
Elias leaned back against the cold wall, closing his eyes. His mind spun, piecing it together.
Ren wasn't just the key.
She was the fucking weapon.
And if they didn't use her first... someone else would.
---