The morning came wrapped in fog thick enough to choke. The sky was a dull smear of gray, and even the birds—if any remained in the marsh—had gone silent.
Paths they'd marked yesterday were gone. Bent roots twisted into new shapes, trees subtly shifted, like they'd grown an inch or two overnight. The Veil didn't just twist people. It twisted place.
Nyxia moved near the front, her eyes dark and quiet, scanning every inch of the shifting trail ahead. Her thoughts were still tangled in last night's vision: Vylira standing alone on obsidian cliffs, shadow-chained but calm, almost expectant. That smile. Not of hope. Of inevitability.
She hadn't told the others everything. Not yet.
Behind her, Boo muttered under her breath as her boots sank in another patch of swamp slush. "You'd think the universe could've picked a more walkable apocalypse."
Zhurong offered a grunt that might've been a chuckle. He had his nose in his charred notebook, sketching out a revised glyph from the relic they'd found. The flower had whispered only one word before burning itself into ash.
"Listen."
No instructions. No prophecy. Just that one word.
Boo had flipped it off and called it "a waste of good paper."
Zhurong insisted it meant something. Nyxia kept quiet. The scream that had woken her the night before still echoed—not in her ears, but beneath her skin. A resonance.
Something was out there. Watching. Waiting.
They reached a dry stretch—an old hunting trail, elevated and less soaked with rot. The bones of long-dead prey poked through vines and moss. Charred fire rings marked old campsites. A few rusted utensils still rested by the stones, as if whoever made them hadn't realized they'd never need a second meal.
Loque halted ahead of them. The spirit beast's body stiffened, tail low, nostrils flaring. He let out a low, guttural growl—not alarm. A warning.
Nyxia dropped into a crouch. "There's something."
Zhurong looked up from his notes. "You feel it too?"
"It's like the air's humming through my teeth," Boo muttered.
Nyxia moved forward and gently pushed aside a curtain of bramble and vine. Behind it was a cave—small, shallow, but not natural. Its mouth was framed by jagged roots, and the moss around it had turned a sickly gray.
Inside was a corpse.
A night elf.
She'd been pressed partway into the cave floor, her armor removed with reverence or malice—it wasn't clear which. Strange markings had been carved into her skin with surgical care. But it wasn't the wounds that held Nyxia's gaze.
It was her expression.
The woman had died smiling.
Nyxia stepped closer, and her mark flared faintly. The air inside the cave dropped ten degrees.
"She's not corrupted," Zhurong said from behind, brow furrowed. "There's no void signature."
Boo leaned in cautiously. "Then what's with the creepy runes?"
Zhurong pointed at the elf's chest.
A flower had grown there.
It bloomed from between her ribs, delicate and pale at its tips—fading to inky black toward the stem. Its petals pulsed softly, as if breathing.
Nyxia swallowed. "That's not just a relic."
Zhurong nodded grimly. "That's a Veil flower."
"And she was Veil-marked," Nyxia said quietly.
"How can you tell?" Boo asked, now visibly on edge.
Nyxia didn't answer immediately. She reached out—fingertips brushing the air near the flower—and felt it: pain, distant but familiar. Not hers.
Then it hit.
A wave of memory, not her own. A battlefield scorched in orange fire. The elf—a healer once—moving through chaos, burning her own mana to save others. But it wasn't enough. She knew she would die.
So she made a choice.
She begged the Veil not to save her, but to make her useful.
And it did.
When the vision broke, Nyxia staggered back, catching herself on the stone wall.
Zhurong caught her elbow. "You saw something."
"She wanted this," Nyxia said softly. "She asked to be part of it."
Boo took a full step back, shaking her head. "That's messed up."
Nyxia stood slowly, her face pale but steady. "It's not just memory. The flowers... they grow in those who were chosen. When they fall, the Veil gives us a piece of what they saw. Either how they died... or what happens if we fail."
"That sounds completely normal and not terrifying," Boo muttered.
Suddenly, Loque growled louder—this time, not as warning.
As challenge.
Nyxia spun around.
Something moved in the mist.
Not steps.
A ripple.
Mist drifted like breath over a corpse.
Then it coalesced.
A figure stepped from the trees—not stepping, exactly, but gliding as if the world beneath its feet didn't quite exist. Its body was long and slim, stretched just past human proportions. Ropes of moss hung from its arms like veils. Where a face should have been was only a smooth surface of skin, marred by two pinpoints of light that flickered pale blue.
It did not speak in words.
It spoke in weight.
A pressure behind their eyes. A voice in marrow.
"You trespass. You taint."
Nyxia had no time to respond.
The creature raised one elongated hand—and the forest moved.
Roots tore upward, vines surged forward like spears, and trees cracked as if something ancient was waking beneath them. The very earth recoiled.
"Break formation!" Nyxia shouted. "Loque—left flank, now!"
The spirit beast bolted sideways, snarling as vines whipped toward them. Nyxia rolled beneath a branch that swung like a pendulum and came up with a dagger already slicing into a mass of twisting roots.
Zhurong's voice thundered. "Clear a circle!"
He slammed a burning palm to the ground and called a ring of flame into existence. The fire flared out in a wide perimeter—hot, bright, and hungry. The roots that reached for it sizzled and retreated, but not all of them stopped.
Figures emerged from the trees, half-formed horrors shaped like memories half-remembered. Some had weapons made of rust and bone. Others used their own limbs—stretched into scythe-like claws, wood cracking as they lunged.
"They're not real!" Boo shouted as she fired her flintlock into one's chest. The shot exploded in a burst of bark and black vapor.
"They're real enough to kill us," Zhurong replied.
One of the creatures rushed Nyxia from the side—taller than her, mouth a blank slit down the middle of its head. She ducked and sliced at the knees. The blade bit, and sap-like ichor sprayed.
"Loque—down!" she barked.
The beast obeyed instantly, collapsing low to let her vault over him. Midair, Nyxia fired two arrows—one into a tree knot mimicking an eye, the other into the torso of a second assailant. Both hits made their targets stagger, but didn't drop.
"These aren't normal echoes," Zhurong said through clenched teeth, conjuring fireballs with both palms. "They're bound here. Fed by something deeper."
"Then we unfeed it," Boo snarled.
She dashed into melee, sabers flashing in quick arcs. One carved into the gut of a mist-creature, spilling dark threads. Another took off a limb—and the limb kept crawling.
"They're not dying!" Boo called.
"They're not supposed to," Nyxia said.
"What the hell does that mean?!"
"They're memories of pain. Of Veil-marked who didn't make it."
Zhurong's eyes narrowed as he lit the mist on fire with a low, focused chant. "That corpse was a warning."
"It was a map," Nyxia said grimly. "And we followed it."
The fire forced back a few of the horrors. Some burst like rotted fruit. Others simply stepped through the flame, steaming.
One of them grabbed Boo's arm.
She stabbed it in the gut, but it didn't let go. Its skin split, revealing teeth hidden beneath.
Then it whispered:
"Vylira…"
Boo froze. Her eyes widened—not in recognition, but raw fear.
"What did it say?" Zhurong shouted.
Boo jerked her blade free and spun, cutting the creature's head clean off. It dissolved in a spray of ash.
"It said her name."
Nyxia had no time to react.
Another creature barreled toward her from the side—huge, bloated with glowing veins. She stepped back, drew her bow, and fired a charged arrow straight into its mouth. The head exploded. The body fell.
But more kept coming.
Zhurong dug his boots into the wet earth, sweat pouring down his neck. "I'm losing control of the flame!"
Loque appeared beside him, snarling, soaked in dark sap. The beast's flank was torn, but his stance was firm.
"Last burst!" Zhurong shouted, eyes glowing gold.
He planted both hands and released a pulse—not a ring, not a line. A dome of flame burst outward, turning the clearing into a temporary furnace.
The fire roared.
When it cleared, only cinders remained.
Ash fell like snow.
Silence returned.
Zhurong dropped to one knee, panting. Boo crouched beside him, bruised and bleeding from a dozen shallow cuts. Loque limped over to Nyxia, who touched his side with concern but said nothing. He nuzzled her hand once before lying down.
Nyxia looked at the dirt where one of the creatures had fallen. Something was scratched into it.
A symbol.
A spiral flower. The same sigil burned into the base of every Veil-bloom they'd found.
Zhurong caught sight of it too. "It's a trail. A signal left behind."
"Leading where?" Boo asked hoarsely.
Nyxia didn't answer right away.
Then she said: "To where the next Veil-marked fell."
And maybe… where Vylira waited.
They didn't rest in the clearing.
None of them wanted to sleep surrounded by the ashes of voices that screamed without mouths.
Instead, they pushed forward until the trees thinned and the ground rose into a narrow ridge—a small bluff overlooking the flooded glade below. The fog didn't reach them here. The moon broke through, pale and tired.
Loque lay curled by the camp perimeter, one eye half-open, tail twitching at every sound. Nyxia had cleaned the sap from his wound and whispered apologies only he could hear.
Zhurong had dug a firepit with slow, deliberate hands, carving small sigils around it as he did. "Won't stop a full breach," he muttered. "But it'll make the Veil hesitate."
Boo slumped beside him, a flask in hand, a new bruise darkening her collarbone. "I'd take hesitating over a second round of haunted tree corpses."
The fire crackled to life. Bone-root and marsh thistle gave it an acrid scent, but warmth was warmth.
Nyxia sat across from them. Her blade was already cleaned. Her bow unstrung.
She just stared into the flames.
"You think that was it?" Boo asked quietly. "That priestess back in the cave? You think she was the last one before us?"
Zhurong shook his head. "No. I think she was just the one who begged loudest."
Nyxia glanced up. "There have been others."
"Veil-marked?" Boo asked.
"Yes." Nyxia's voice was calm, but tight. "And they didn't make it."
Boo leaned back, arms behind her head. "Then we're the cleanup crew. Or the next to rot with flowers in our lungs."
Zhurong stirred the fire absently. "What if the Veil isn't just calling us? What if it's using us to finish what the others couldn't?"
Nyxia didn't respond immediately. Then: "Or maybe it's testing how many failures it can survive."
Loque let out a low, grumbling chuff from the shadows.
Boo lifted her flask in his direction. "Yeah, yeah. You're still mad you had to fight actual plants today."
Nyxia smirked—barely.
The fire popped, sending a streamer of sparks into the sky.
Zhurong leaned back on his hands. "Do you think she's waiting for us? Vylira?"
"I think," Nyxia said slowly, "she knows we're coming."
Boo pulled her cloak tighter around her shoulders. "Then I hope she's the friendly type."
Silence settled again, but it was softer now. Less oppressive.
Above them, the sky cleared just enough to see a few scattered stars.
Nyxia lay back, arms folded beneath her head, staring upward. Her mark itched faintly. Not painful. Just present.
"Why are you still waiting?"
The voice from the dream lingered.She didn't know the answer.Not yet.
But she was walking toward it.
And tomorrow, they'd walk farther still.