The air hummed with the weight of ancient promises, the kind that clung to the villagers' tongues like ash. Lyra Veyra stood at the edge of the Blackroot Hollow, her boots sinking into moss that glimmered faintly, as if the earth itself remembered the stars. Above her, the Celestial Veil shimmered—a gauzy scar in the sky, rippling with hues that defied name. It had haunted her dreams since childhood, a luminous wound that pulsed in time with her heartbeat. Tonight, she would finally touch it.
The villagers crowded behind her, their torches casting jagged shadows over the standing stones. Old Mara, the ritual's keeper, pressed a chiseled obsidian dagger into Lyra's palm. "The Veil answers only to the brave," she croaked, her breath reeking of burnt sage. "Ask it for the rains. For the blight to lift. But do not linger, child. It *hungers*."
Lyra nodded, her throat tight. She hadn't told them the truth: this wasn't just a plea for salvation. For months, whispers had slithered into her sleep—a voice like fractured glass, urging her to *cross*. To find the source of the Veil's song. Her brother Kael would've called it madness. But Kael was leagues away, buried in his machines and wars, deaf to the mysteries humming in the dark.
She stepped into the circle of stones. The Veil's glow intensified, painting her hands in liquid silver. The villagers' murmurs died. Even the wind stilled.
"*Aska veyra en'lumin,*" Lyra chanted, the old words bitter on her tongue. *Let the veil part.*
The ground trembled. Roots erupted from the soil, coiling around her ankles. The Veil shuddered, peeling open like a flower. Beyond it stretched a corridor of swirling light, and within that light—shapes. Tall, luminous, their eyes twin supernovae.
A gasp rippled through the crowd. Someone screamed.
Lyra's pulse roared. The voice from her dreams crescendoed. *Come. See. Become.*
She took a step.
"Lyra, *stop!*"
Her father's voice. Too late.
The Veil surged, tendrils of light lashing out. They wrapped around her wrists, her throat, gentle as lovers' hands. She felt no fear—only a terrible, beautiful longing. The villagers' cries warped into static. The world dissolved.
For a heartbeat, she floated in a sea of stars. The luminous figures loomed closer, their forms shifting, fractal. One reached for her. Its touch seared, cold and infinite.
*You are the first,* its voice echoed inside her skull. *The bridge.*
Then—pain.
Lyra's scream tore through dimensions. On Earth, the Veil snapped shut with a thunderclap, hurling the villagers to the ground. When the light faded, only the dagger remained, embedded in the moss.
Silence.
Old Mara crawled forward, her gnarled fingers brushing the blade. It crumbled to dust.
"Gone," she whispered. "The Veil took her."
Panic erupted. Mothers clutched children. Men cursed the sky. Lyra's father collapsed, his howl raw as a fresh wound.
But in the chaos, none noticed the faint sigil burned into the soil where Lyra had stood—a twisting glyph that pulsed once, twice, then faded.
Far away, in a steel-plated workshop reeking of oil and gunpowder, Kael Veyra jolted awake. His drafting table rattled; blueprints of war machines fluttered to the floor. A coldness gripped his chest, sharp as a blade.
*Lyra.*
He didn't know how he knew. Only that the word echoed in his bones, a dirge.
Outside, the stars blinked out one by one, as if swallowed by an unseen tide.