Wronki Fortress stood like a scar upon the land.
Cold stone walls rose from the earth, surrounded by mist that clung to the trees like desperate hands. The forest surrounding it had long since died—leaves brittle, bark blackened, soil dry as ash. Even from a distance, Liora could feel the magic here—tainted, ancient, watching.
Jaeyun crouched beside her on the ridge above the fortress. "There's no natural path through the main gates. They've sealed it with binding wards. No light, no sound, no life."
"They're not protecting it," Liora said. "They're hiding something."
She held the fragment in her chest loosely, not calling its full power but keeping it near. It had grown quieter since the confrontation with the Binder—like it, too, was preparing for something.
Beneath them, figures in Court armor moved along the battlements—hulking silhouettes draped in crimson and bone. At least three High Marked. Possibly more.
"We can't go through the front," Jaeyun muttered. "But I remember something… when I was stationed here, years ago. There's an old entrance—a mine shaft that feeds into the lower crypts."
"Crypts?" Liora raised an eyebrow.
"This used to be a monastery," he explained. "Before the Court claimed it."
Liora gave a faint, bitter smile. "Of course they'd build their stronghold over a grave."
They moved at dusk.
Following Jaeyun's memory, they found the shaft buried beneath a collapsed hillside, its mouth hidden by dead brush. The air was cold, wet with mildew and something else—decay. Liora descended first, the glow of her fragment faintly lighting the walls. They crept through the tunnel, past collapsed beams and rusted rails, until the stone gave way to carved marble steps descending into the crypts.
The silence was oppressive.
And then she heard it.
Whispers.
Not from the walls. Not echoes.
From within the veil.
She stopped, hand on the damp stone. The fragment pulsed. The veil was thin here—torn, even. This place had once been a site of worship, of power. And it had been corrupted.
"They used this place to bleed the veil," she murmured. "To feed it their lies."
Jaeyun touched her arm gently. "We don't have to face this alone."
"No," she said. "But we have to face it."
They reached a sealed stone door. Runes marked it in broken, jagged script—defensive wards, designed to repel truth.
Liora stepped forward and placed her palm against the door.
The runes screamed.
A wave of force burst outward, nearly knocking Jaeyun off his feet. Liora stood firm. She gritted her teeth as the veil surged up around her in defense, the fragment blazing white-hot beneath her ribs. The wards cracked like dry earth. Light spilled from the seams, and the stone shattered with a deafening boom.
When the dust cleared, they stood at the threshold of the vault.
And at its center, chained in rings of runic steel, hovered the second fragment.
It was different from hers—this one pulsed darkly, like a heart soaked in ink. Shadows swirled around it, resisting light, resisting form. And beside it stood another figure.
Not masked.
Not armored.
But unmistakably powerful.
A woman—tall, draped in crimson robes stitched with silver thread. Her hair was ash-gray, her eyes pure black.
"You're late," she said.
Liora stepped into the room. "Who are you?"
"I'm the one who's been waiting for you. My name is Virelle. Keeper of the second veil."
The name rang faintly through Liora's memory—like something her mother had whispered once in fear and awe.
"You were supposed to be dead," Liora said quietly.
Virelle smiled coldly. "I was. And then I remembered what death had forgotten."
She turned to the fragment.
"This piece of the veil doesn't want to be saved. It wants to devour. And someone has to decide… if it's better to bury it again—or to unleash it on the world."
Liora's hand went to her chest. Her own fragment blazed in response.
Two pieces.
Two choices.
And only one could survive.
The chamber trembled.
Power hummed between the two fragments—Liora's, radiant and alive within her chest, and the one suspended midair, seething with black mist like a storm cloud captured in stone. Virelle stood between them, her eyes fixed on Liora with something between reverence and pity.
Jaeyun stepped forward cautiously. "Why are you here, Virelle? Why now?"
"I was exiled by the Court years ago," she replied, never looking away from Liora. "They feared what I had become. Not corrupted—clarified. I saw the veil not as a boundary but as a mirror. And when I tried to warn them what was coming, they tried to burn me out of existence."
"You survived," Liora said quietly.
"No," Virelle corrected. "I transcended."
She turned back to the fragment. "This one is different than yours. It was cut from the lowest threads of the veil—where grief gathers, where time collapses. It doesn't bond like yours. It feeds. And if you take it into yourself, you will not remain who you are."
Liora's throat tightened. "Then why protect it?"
"Because even hunger has its place," Virelle murmured. "And because the Court would use it without understanding what it would cost."
She moved her hands slowly, unraveling the runic chains that suspended the fragment.
"I'm giving you a choice," she said, looking back at Liora. "Destroy it now—and sever what remains of the veil's balance. Or bind it to yourself, and become the anchor between what was and what should never be."
Jaeyun stepped between them, voice sharp. "You don't get to give her that burden."
But Liora raised a hand to stop him. She stepped forward, her fragment glowing in response—flickers of gold against the darkness of the one before her.
"I've already become something I wasn't meant to be," she whispered. "Maybe that was never the point. Maybe I was meant to carry this."
She reached for the fragment.
And the chamber exploded in light.
Not fire. Not shadow. But a burst of raw memory.
Suddenly, Liora stood in a place that was not a place. A moment pulled from the veil's dreaming—a palace of stars and silence, where a hundred voices whispered truths that had never been spoken.
She saw her mother, Eliara, kneeling before a cracked altar. Saw the moment she sealed the first fragment within her own daughter. Saw Virelle behind her, silent, weeping.
They were once allies. Sisters in purpose.
Then came betrayal.
The Court had twisted everything—used the veil not to protect reality, but to cage it. And Eliara's final act had not just been sacrifice—it had been defiance.
Liora gasped as the memory faded.
She was back in the chamber.
On her knees.
The second fragment floated above her palm, no longer hostile. Still dark, yes—but not devouring. Listening.
Virelle knelt beside her. "It's yours now."
Jaeyun looked from one woman to the other. "What happens now?"
Liora stood, both fragments circling her slowly, orbiting her presence like twin moons.
"Now," she said, her voice resonating with layered echoes, "we finish what my mother began."
Virelle bowed her head slightly.
But before they could speak again, a thunderous crash echoed through the crypt.
The far wall shattered.
And stepping through the dust, clad in red obsidian armor, was a figure neither Liora nor Jaeyun expected to see again.
The High Marked.
But this time… he was not alone.
Behind him came six others—cloaked, masked, and wielding blades woven from the veil itself.
"You've gathered your fragments," the High Marked said. "Now let's see if you can survive us."