The transition was violent. Not like stepping through a door, but like being torn apart and rebuilt in the span of a heartbeat.
Orion and Lyra hit the ground hard. The wind howled around them, thick with the scent of metal and decay. The sky above was different—fractured, as if someone had shattered a mirror over an abyss.
They were no longer in the ruins.
They had crossed into something older.
Lyra groaned, rising to her feet. "Orion—"
He wasn't looking at her. He was looking at the people surrounding them.
There were five of them, draped in armor that bore the same glowing runes as the Weavers' ruins. But they were not Weavers. They were something else—something lost. Their faces were obscured by half-masks of bone and shadow, and their weapons pulsed with an eerie, shifting light.
A woman at the center stepped forward, her presence radiating quiet authority. She was tall, her silver hair bound in intricate braids, her eyes glowing faintly like dying stars.
"You are not the first to come here," she said. "But you may be the last."
Orion's pulse quickened.
"Who are you?"
She studied him, then Lyra. "We are the Forsaken Witnesses. The last to remember the first war. The last to stand against the Nameless."
The name struck something inside him. "You know about it?"
A second figure spoke—a younger man, his voice rough with exhaustion. "We saw what you saw. We lived through the fall."
Lyra stiffened. "That's impossible."
The silver-haired woman shook her head. "Time does not move as it should beyond the Veil."
Orion narrowed his eyes. "Then why are you still here?"
Silence.
Then, another voice—this one colder, edged with malice.
"To stop fools like you from breaking what little remains."
A new presence emerged from the mist, separate from the Forsaken Witnesses. Unlike them, this figure wore no armor—only a tattered cloak that shimmered between reality and something beyond it.
His face was sharp, eyes like carved obsidian. He carried no weapon, yet the air around him crackled with raw, unchecked power.
Orion felt it instantly.
This man was like him.
The stranger smiled faintly. "Orion, is it?"
His blood went cold. "How do you—?"
"I was the last Sovereign before you. The last to try and mend what cannot be mended." His gaze flickered to Lyra. "And I failed."
Lyra's grip on her sword tightened. "You're lying."
He laughed softly. "Am I?"
The Forsaken Witnesses did not move. They did not deny his words.
Orion's mind raced. If this man had held the title before him—if he had failed—then what did that mean for him?
For the world?
For the Veil?
The stranger tilted his head. "Let's see if you're any different."
The air ruptured.
And the fight began.