The air in the attic tasted of dust and desperation.
Kael Veyra crouched beside his sister, his fingers trembling as he pressed a damp cloth to her forehead. Aria's skin burned hotter than the embers in the hearth downstairs, her breaths shallow and frayed at the edges. The faint, jagged lines beneath her collarbone pulsed like living things, glowing an unnatural blue—a sickly light that seeped through her threadbare nightdress.
Veil-rot.
The words slithered through his mind, unwelcome and venomous. He'd read about it in the crumbling pages of Echoes of the Godclimb, the forbidden text hidden beneath the floorboards. A scholar's curiosity, he'd told himself. Aria had begged him to burn the book. But then the cracks had appeared beneath her skin, and the fever began, and now—
You did this.
He shoved the thought aside and dipped the cloth into a basin of melted snow. The water hissed faintly, tendrils of steam curling upward to vanish in the attic's stale gloom. Outside, the Shattered Veil hung like a jagged scar across the night sky, its fractured light bleeding through the slats of the shuttered window.
"Kael." Aria's voice was a rasp, her eyes glassy but sharp. She gripped his wrist, her nails biting into his flesh. "They'll come. The Hunters. You know they smell blood."
"There's no blood," he lied.
She lifted her hand, the veins beneath her skin writhing like serpents. The cloth fell away, revealing the raw, weeping fissure just above her heart. A shard of something luminous—like trapped starlight—glinted deep within the wound.
The Veil's poison.
Kael's throat tightened. He'd seen it before, in the hollow-eyed beggars who wandered the Ashen Fields, their bodies crumbling into salt and ash. But Aria wasn't a beggar. She was his sister. His fault.
"Listen to me," she whispered. "Take the book. Run. Before they—"
A floorboard creaked downstairs.
Both froze. The house—a crumbling relic on the edge of Luminast's slums—had been silent for hours. Now, the sound came again: deliberate. Heavy.
Boots.
Kael's pulse thundered in his ears. The Heretic Hunters didn't knock. They didn't announce themselves. They came like shadows, like smoke, and left only pyres in their wake.
Aria's grip tightened. "The cellar. Now."
He hesitated, his gaze darting to the loose floorboard where the Godclimb lay hidden. The book was a death warrant. But it was also the only thing that might save her.
"Kael."
He moved.
Snatching the basin, he flung the water across the floor, scattering the ash and herbs he'd used to mask the scent of corruption. The Hunters could track Veil-rot for miles, like hounds to carrion. But ash confused them. Smoke blinded them.
Maybe.
Another creak. Closer.
Aria tried to sit up, her breath catching. "Leave me. They'll take you too if—"
"Shut up." He hauled her into his arms, her body alarmingly light. The fissure in her chest throbbed, its light searing his vision.
The attic ladder trembled as something—someone—began to climb.
Kael staggered toward the far wall, where a rusted iron grate led to the rooftop. Aria had discovered it as a child, back when they'd played at being thieves. Now, it was their only escape.
"Hold on," he muttered, wrenching the grate open. Cold air rushed in, carrying the metallic tang of the Veil's energy.
"Put me down," Aria pleaded. "You can't carry me and the book both."
He ignored her, slinging the Godclimb's leather strap over his shoulder. The text felt heavier than stone.
Below, the ladder groaned under the weight of the intruder.
Kael climbed.
The rooftop was a labyrinth of crumbling chimneys and frost-slick tiles. The Veil's fractured light painted everything in hues of bruised violet and silver, casting long, twisted shadows that seemed to writhe like living things. Somewhere in the distance, a bell tolled—the Church's curfew.
Aria shuddered in his arms, her feverish skin leaching the warmth from his hands. "Kael… the smoke…"
He followed her gaze.
Across the city, a column of black smoke spiraled into the sky. Not from a hearth or a forge. Too thick. Too purposeful.
A pyre.
The Hunters were burning someone tonight.
"We need to move," he said, but Aria's head lolled against his shoulder, her eyes fluttering shut. The fissure in her chest pulsed brighter, tendrils of light snaking up her neck.
No. Not yet.
A crash echoed from inside the house. Glass shattering. A low, guttural chuckle.
Kael's blood turned to ice.
They were here.
He stumbled toward the edge of the roof, his boots slipping on the frost. Three stories below, the alley yawned like a grave.
"Jump," Aria murmured, delirious. "We'll fly, like in the stories…"
He almost laughed. There were no stories here. Only the Veil, and the rot, and the Hunters.
But then the trapdoor burst open, and the shadows poured out.
The Hunter stood taller than any man had a right to. Its armor—if it could be called that—was a patchwork of bone and molten silver, fused to its flesh. No face, just a hollow-eyed mask forged from the same sickly metal, its surface etched with screaming runes. In one hand, it gripped a blade of crystallized shadow; in the other, a chain etched with teeth.
Kael's breath hitched. Veilwarden.
The Church's enforcers. Death made flesh.
It tilted its head, the mask creaking like old leather, and sniffed the air.
Ash, Kael thought wildly. Remember the ash.
But the Veilwarden's gaze locked onto Aria.
"Heretic," it hissed, the word slithering from the mask's jagged mouth.
Kael ran.
The roof's edge came too fast. He leapt without thinking, clutching Aria to his chest. The fall lasted forever. The impact—
A jolt of agony. His knees buckled, but he staggered upright, the Godclimb slamming against his hip. Aria cried out, the sound swallowed by the Veilwarden's roar above them.
The alley reeked of piss and iron. Kael ran blindly, his sister's breath hot against his neck. Behind them, the Veilwarden's chain lashed out, slicing through stone like parchment.
"Left!" Aria gasped.
He obeyed, veering into a narrower passage. The walls here leaned inward, stained with decades of soot and worse. Somewhere ahead, a child's laugh echoed—taunting, hollow. A Wailing Star's ghost, maybe. Or his own fraying mind.
The chain struck again, shearing a chimney in half. Debris rained down, and Kael stumbled, nearly dropping Aria.
"Put me down," she begged. "You'll die."
"We die," he snapped.
The alley opened into a square. Abandoned. At its center stood a dry fountain, its basin cracked and filled with frozen blood. Kael's heart sank. A dead end.
The Veilwarden emerged behind them, its shadow swallowing the moonlight.
"Yield the corrupted," it intoned, raising its blade.
Kael backed against the fountain, his hand slipping into his coat. The Godclimb pressed against his ribs. Forbidden words burned in his mind—a gamble, a prayer.
Bloodprice.
He didn't understand the ritual, not truly. But he'd read the steps. A life for a life. Years for power.
Aria's fingers brushed his cheek. "Don't."
The Veilwarden lunged.
Kael spoke the words.
The world caught fire.
Or maybe it was him.
Agony ripped through his veins, molten and sweet. His vision blurred, then sharpened—every shadow a blade, every breath a symphony. The Veilwarden's strike slowed, the crystallized sword inches from his throat.
Move.
He moved.
Aria tumbled from his arms as he surged forward, his hand closing around the Veilwarden's wrist. The metal seared his palm, but he barely felt it. With a snarl, he twisted.
Bone crunched. The blade clattered to the cobblestones.
The Veilwarden staggered back, its mask cracking. "Defiler."
Kael didn't let it finish. He drove his fist into the mask, the impact reverberating up his arm. Silver shards pierced his knuckles, but the Veilwarden's head snapped back, its neck bending at an impossible angle.
It collapsed, twitching.
Silence.
Kael stared at his hands. Blood dripped from his fingers—black and shimmering, like liquid night. His veins glowed faintly, crimson threads beneath his skin.
What have I done?
Aria's whimper snapped him back. She lay curled beside the fountain, her fissure blazing like a star. The Veilwarden's chain lay nearby, its teeth still gnashing.
He knelt, reaching for her. "Aria, I—"
She flinched.
His name died on her lips. Not Kael. Not brother.
A stranger's name.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
The Godclimb slipped from his shoulder, its pages splayed open. The ritual's price glared up at him in jagged script:
Burn years. Gain power. Lose yourself.
Somewhere in the city, another pyre bloomed.