The air inside the Catacombs was thick with tension.
Caius felt the weight of every gaze on him—rebels, fighters, survivors, all waiting for him to explain the madness of his decision.
But he didn't have time to make them understand.
The Watcher had chosen him.
And if he didn't figure out what that meant, Evernight would fall.
Selene was the first to break the silence. "Caius, listen to yourself."
Her voice was controlled, but beneath it was something rare—fear.
"The last time you stepped into the Veil, it almost killed you."
Elias folded his arms, eyes burning with frustration. "And now you want to go back in, just because your magic's acting weird?"
Caius clenched his fists. "Not just weird. Wrong."
He took a slow breath, forcing himself to find the right words. "Time doesn't just bend around me anymore. It's… resisting me. Changing without my command. And the Watcher—"
He hesitated.
Should he tell them what he had seen? That he had seen himself on the Hollow King's throne?
That he had seen Evernight's doom written in time?
Selene studied him carefully. "The Watcher did something to you, didn't it?"
Caius exhaled sharply. "It marked me."
The weight of his words settled over the room like a curse.
No one spoke.
But the rebels exchanged uneasy glances. Whispers spread through the chamber.
Even among those who barely understood what he could do, the weight of being marked by something beyond time itself was not something they could ignore.
Elias ran a hand through his hair. "Great. Just great. Now you're carrying an otherworldly death sentence on top of everything else."
Caius forced himself to meet his gaze. "I don't have a choice. If I don't figure out what's happening, we all die anyway."
Selene's jaw tightened. "And what if you don't come back?"
He almost told her that was a risk he had to take.
But the way she was looking at him—not just as a leader, but as a friend—made the words stick in his throat.
So instead, he said, "I will."
The Path to the Veil
An hour later, Caius stood at the entrance to the ruined temple once more.
Selene and Elias had insisted on accompanying him—they always did.
But this time, there was no army at their backs. No battle raging through the city.
Just the three of them and the gaping maw of the unknown.
The Veil had been torn open at the temple ruins days ago—when Caius had first tried to wield his power against the Hollow King's forces.
A mistake. A fracture in time itself.
And the moment he stepped into it again, he felt it.
The cold.
It wasn't just physical—it was something deeper, something that clawed into his bones, his thoughts, his very presence.
Selene shivered beside him. "I hate this place."
Elias kept a hand on his sword. "You and me both."
Caius took a slow step forward. And reality shifted.
Stepping into the Veil was like stepping into a place that should not exist.
The world around them stretched and blurred, warping like oil over water.
Shadows moved where they shouldn't. Fragments of moments—past and future alike—flickered in and out of existence.
Caius saw himself.
Or rather, versions of himself.
In one, he was dying on the battlefield, cut down by Calrix's blade.
In another, he stood side by side with the Hollow King, his hands stained with rebel blood.
And in yet another—Selene was the one on the throne.
Caius staggered, his breath coming faster.
"Caius?" Selene's voice was distant, but she was right beside him.
"I see them again," he whispered. "The possibilities."
Elias tensed. "Then we're in deeper than before."
Caius forced himself to focus. The Watcher was here. He could feel it.
It had always been here.
Watching.
Waiting.
And then—
It spoke.
"You Are Beginning to Understand."
The voice was not a voice.
It was inside him, outside him, woven into time itself.
The shadows rippled, and something shifted in the fabric of the Veil.
A figure loomed in the distance.
No—not a figure. A presence.
The Watcher did not have a form that could be understood. It was a wound in time, an impossibility given shape only by Caius's attempts to perceive it.
And when it looked at him—it saw everything.
His past. His future. His failures. His fears.
All of it.
"You struggle against what has already been written."
Caius gritted his teeth. "What does that mean?"
The Watcher did not answer directly.
Instead, the space around them cracked.
Time shattered, and suddenly, they weren't standing in the Veil anymore.
They were somewhere else.
Caius's breath caught in his throat.
They stood in a vast, endless hall—but it was not of this world.
Black stone stretched toward a sky of shifting colors. Shadows moved like liquid, twisting around massive, towering pillars.
And at the end of the hall—
A throne.
It was not like the Hollow King's throne.
It was older. Much older.
Selene took a step back. "What the hell is this place?"
Elias's hand went to his sword. "We shouldn't be here."
Caius couldn't move.
Because he recognized this place.
He had seen it in his visions.
He had seen himself sitting upon that very throne.
And when he looked closer—
He saw something sitting there now.
A shape. A shadow.
A version of himself.
But older. Darker.
Caius's heart pounded.
And then, the figure on the throne lifted its head.
Golden eyes met his own.
And it spoke.
"You cannot stop what is coming."