The cavern was a throat of stone, swallowing light whole. The air hung thick with the scent of damp earth and burning tallow. The last embers of a dying fire cast jagged shadows against the walls.
Four figures stood in the flickering gloom, their presence heavy enough to bend the silence.
At the northern edge of the circle stood Cassian, his broad frame wrapped in the silver-chased armor of the Nephilim. The metal was old, older than the wars he had fought in, etched with sigils that pulsed faintly in the dark. His wings, though folded tight against his back, betrayed his agitation in the occasional rustle of feathers. His face was all hard lines, a blade of a nose and a mouth that had long forgotten how to soften.
He had called this meeting. And he was regretting it already.
Opposite him, draped in shadow, was Vesper. The witch wore a long coat of blackened leather, the edges frayed like the pages of a burnt grimoire. His hair, the color of tarnished silver, fell just past his jaw, framing a face that gave nothing away. No smile, no frown. Only the slow, measured tap of one finger against his thigh betrayed any thought at all.
He had come because it amused him, not because he believed.
To Cassian's right, leaning against the cavern wall with the lazy arrogance of a predator, was Seraphina. The vampire's crimson gown clung to her like a second skin, the fabric whispering with every slight shift of her weight. Her nails were long, sharp, and the color of old blood. She tapped against the stone, seemingly unbothered by the tense atmosphere.
She had not wanted to be here. But power called to power, and the summons of a Nephilim commander was not so easily ignored.
And then there was the fourth.
Kneeling by the embers, his skeletal hands outstretched as if to cradle the dying heat, there was Elias. Once, he had been Cassian's mentor. Once, he had stood tall in the halls of Celestia Falls, his voice a clarion call to the faithful.
Now, age and visions had hollowed him out. His robes, once pristine white, hung off his gaunt frame like burial shrouds. His eyes, still piercing still terrible, were the only part of him that seemed alive.
"You should not have called them," Elias murmured, his voice like wind through dead branches.
Cassian's jaw tightened. "You saw what you saw. They need to hear it."
Elias exhaled, long and slow. Then he lifted his head, and the firelight caught in the milky sheen of his gaze.
"The Veil is thinning," he said. "Not today. Not tomorrow. But soon. And when it does, they will return."
Seraphina scoffed. "'They'?"
"The forgotten ones, the Sundered," Elias said. "The ones who were purged. The ones who were never meant to be."
A beat of silence.
Then Vesper spoke, his voice smooth, detached. "You're talking about the hybrids."
Elias did not blink. "I am talking about the end of the Accord."
Cassian's hand twitched toward the sword at his hip. "Tell them when"
"Two centuries. Maybe less." Elias's fingers curled into fists. "The signs are already forming. The ghouls whisper of a coming storm. The banshees sing of a king crowned in shadow. And the Veil…" His breath hitched. "The Veil dreams of them."
Seraphina rolled her eyes. "Prophecies and portents. How convenient that this doom is far enough away that none of us might live to see it proven false."
Vesper said nothing. But his finger stilled against his thigh.
Cassian ignored her. "You're certain?"
Elias smiled, a cracked broken thing. "I have never been more certain of anything in my long, wretched life."
The embers spat, their glow guttering. For a moment, the cavern was a tomb.
Then Cassian straightened. "Then we prepare. We watch. And when the time comes-"
"-you'll do what?" Seraphina interrupted. "Slaughter every half-breed that stumbles through a gap in the Veil? Hunt down shadows on the word of a dying seer?"
Cassian's wings flexed. "If that's what it takes."
Vesper finally moved. Just a tilt of his head, as if observing some curious insect. "And if they are stronger than you remember?"
The question hung in the air like a blade.
Elias answered it. "Then pray, children. Pray that the Veil holds."
The last of the embers died and darkness swallowed them whole.
The silence that followed was thicker than the cavern's gloom.
Seraphina was the first to break it, her laughter a razor's edge in the dark.
"Two hundred years," she mused. "How terribly... mortal of you, Elias. To think any of us will remember this conversation by then."
Cassian's voice was steel. "The Nephilim remember everything."
"Ah, yes. The famed memory of angels." She clicked her tongue. "Tell me seer, did your visions show you which of us will still be breathing when this doom arrives? Or do we all get the privilege of growing old and irrelevant?"
Elias did not rise to the bait. His milky eyes remained fixed on the space where the fire had been.
"The threads of fate are not so easily read. But I have seen enough to know this: the forgotten will rise. And when they do, the Triad will fall."
Vesper exhaled, the closest thing to a reaction he had shown all night. "Then why warn us?"
For the first time, Elias looked at him. Really looked at him.
"Because someone must ensure the right side wins."
The words settled like ash.
Cassian turned toward the cavern's mouth. "We're done here."
Seraphina sighed dramatically. "Finally." She pushed off the wall, her gown whispering against stone. "Next time you feel the urge to summon me to a hole in the ground, Cassian, do us both a favor and don't."
She was gone before the echo of her footsteps faded.
Vesper lingered a moment longer. His gaze slid from Elias to Cassian, unreadable as ever. Then, without a word, he too melted into the shadows.
Only the two Nephilim remained.
The wind howled through the cavern's depths, carrying with it the distant cry of something that might have been a crow...or a banshee.
Cassian flexed his wings. "What do we do now?"
Elias closed his eyes. "We wait."
Outside, the first drops of rain began to fall.
****
The storm found Vesper halfway to the Veil's nearest thin point. Rain slicked his coat, turned the earth to mud beneath his boots.
He did not hurry.
The vision did not trouble him. Prophecies were like knives, only dangerous if you grasped them wrong. And Vesper had never been one to bleed easily.
But the name… The Sundered.
It rang in his skull like a half-remembered dream.
A figure materialized from the downpour, tall, hooded, the scent of wet feathers clinging to him.
Cassian.
Vesper did not stop walking. "Come to slit my throat in the rain, commander?"
Cassian fell into step beside him. "You didn't speak much back there."
"There was nothing to say."
"You don't believe him."
Vesper's lips thinned. "I don't care."
The Nephilim said nothing for a long moment. Then: "If it's true-"
"-then someone will profit from it." Vesper finally looked at him. "The question is who."
Cassian's wings tensed. "This isn't a game."
"Isn't it?" Vesper turned his face back to the storm. "Everything's a game, Cassian. You're just the only one still playing by the rules."
The rain swallowed whatever the Nephilim might have said next.
By the time the thunder faded, Vesper was gone.
And far, far away, in a place not yet torn by time or fate, the Veil shivered.