The black stone road wound like a scar across the hills. For hours, they walked in silence, the mist thinning only where the bones marked the path. Kael's footsteps echoed faintly even when the ground was soft. It felt like walking through the inside of a forgotten throat.
As the sun—or whatever light pierced the veil of clouds—descended, they crested a ridge and saw it.
The remnants of a Warden outpost.
It had once been a fort, small but defensible. Blackwood palisades surrounded a central tower that now leaned at an odd angle. The outer walls had collapsed inward in places, and crows circled overhead. Something had torn through the camp—but not with brute force.
With precision.
They approached cautiously, weapons drawn.
Kael felt the Codex stir in his pack again, whispering low, indecipherable things. His branded arm ached, a deep pressure that pulsed in rhythm with the wind.
Thorne inspected the damage first.
"Not razed. Not besieged. Something inside did this."
Kael followed the trail of blood—there was no shortage of it. Crusted into the mud, streaked along splintered beams, even sprayed across the insides of tents. But there were no bodies.
Just… bones.
Stacked.
Dozens of femurs and rib cages arranged in spirals. Skulls placed neatly atop makeshift altars of collapsed furniture and broken stone.
"They made shrines," Kael said quietly.
Thorne didn't answer.
Instead, he moved toward the central tower, where a crooked iron door hung open.
The inside was worse.
Veil-scarred.
The walls were covered in scratches—not from blades, but from fingers. Runes had been carved into the stone, over and over, in blood. Some were words Kael didn't recognize. Some weren't words at all—just patterns that hurt to look at.
In the center of the tower's floor was a hole.
It hadn't been dug. It had been burned through the stone.
Kael knelt beside it. A faint hum rose from the darkness below.
"Did something come up," he asked, "or go down?"
Thorne looked grim. "Both, maybe."
He dropped a stone.
They never heard it hit bottom.
They camped on the edge of the ruins, too wary to remain inside. Kael barely touched his food. His head throbbed with pulses of heat, and the mark on his arm glowed faintly even without firelight.
As night deepened, the Codex slid free of his pack on its own.
Kael froze as it hovered slightly, pages flipping with unnatural speed.
Then—it stopped.
Open to a page he had never seen.
Symbols burned into the parchment like hot iron.
But Kael couldn't read them.
He didn't need to.
The words weren't for the eyes.
They were for the voice.
Without meaning to, Kael whispered.
Three syllables.
Simple.
Soft.
And the world shuddered.
The fire flared blue, then inverted, becoming a hollow circle of shadowlight.
Wind howled around them, but only within the circle.
Kael's eyes burned as he spoke again—three new syllables, this time feeling each sound rather than understanding it. His branded arm lit like a forge.
Thorne was on his feet now, blade drawn. "Kael. Stop."
Kael turned toward him. "I can't. It's using me."
The fire guttered out.
Silence fell.
The Codex shut itself and thumped back to the ground.
Kael collapsed to his knees, coughing blood.
"What did I do?" he gasped.
Thorne's eyes were wide. "You Veilcasted. Without a primer. Without a focus."
"I didn't mean to—"
"No one does," Thorne said. "That's what makes it dangerous."
Kael curled his hand into a fist. The brand was no longer just a mark—it was growing, threading across his shoulder now in delicate spirals. It no longer looked like a burn. It looked like writing.
"I think I'm… becoming something," he whispered.
Thorne sheathed his blade. "Then we'll make damn sure you don't become nothing."
They broke camp before dawn.
The mist was thick again, but the black stone road stretched on—unchanged. Veyra did not return, but her presence still lingered. At every turn, a thorned staff had been placed beside the road. Pilgrim markers, untouched by weather.
As they walked, Kael began to hear things again.
Voices.
At first, distant—like whispers carried on wind. Then closer. Louder. Not malicious, but urgent.
He asked Thorne if he heard them.
Thorne only shook his head.
Midday brought them to a stone bridge crossing a narrow ravine. The river beneath it flowed not with water—but with smoke. Black, slow, and thick as oil. Nothing grew near its banks. Even birds avoided the skies above it.
As they stepped onto the bridge, Kael felt the Codex pulse again.
A low hum rose beneath them.
He stopped.
The air shimmered.
And from the far end of the bridge, a figure approached.
Hooded.
Faceless.
Wrapped in robes that billowed though there was no wind.
Kael drew his blade.
Thorne already had his out. "Wraith. Don't let it speak."
But the figure did not attack.
Instead, it raised a hand.
And Kael felt its mind touch his.
Not like Veyra's. No words. No invitation.
Just emptiness.
A test.
Kael's knees buckled as pain surged through his spine.
He dropped his blade.
His branded arm flared white-hot.
The wraith took another step.
And Kael, through agony, whispered again—just one word.
A name.
It came from nowhere.
Or everywhere.
He didn't even know what it meant.
But the effect was instant.
The wraith froze mid-step.
Its robes unraveled.
And then—it folded inward, vanishing like a page burned too fast to leave ash.
The bridge was silent once more.
Kael collapsed, gasping.
Thorne helped him up.
"You named it," the Warden said, awed. "You bound it."
"I didn't mean to," Kael whispered again.
Thorne looked at him grimly. "You'd better learn how to mean it. Fast."
They crossed the bridge.
And far behind them, deep in the woods, something screamed.
Not in pain.
In rage.
The land after the smoke-river changed again.
Trees grew taller, their bark gray as old stone and leaves a dull silver that clinked together like wind chimes. Every root pulsed faintly with breath or light—Kael wasn't sure which. The Codex had gone silent, but its weight felt heavier than ever. Even Thorne walked with more care, eyes flicking toward the shadows between trunks.
After several hours, the forest ended without warning.
A clearing yawned before them—an unnatural circle, wide and sunless, its edges too perfect to be natural. In the center stood a structure.
A tower of mirrors.
No walls. Just spiraled rings of polished glass rising like a helix, narrowing at the top, each mirror angled inward to reflect the others. At its base was a door—black, round, and without a handle.
Kael took a step forward.
Thorne grabbed his arm.
"That's a place of Reflection."
Kael frowned. "Like the Pools of Atreth?"
Thorne shook his head. "Worse. The Pools show what you are. This shows what you could have been."
Kael stared at the mirrored tower. Something shimmered within it—like smoke trapped behind the glass. "Do we need to go through?"
"I don't know," Thorne admitted. "But the path ends here."
Kael stepped closer.
The Codex pulsed once.
The door opened.
Inside, there was no light.
Yet Kael saw.
Not the walls, not the structure—but himself. Reflected a thousand times. Taller. Stronger. Weaker. Bloodied. Crowned. Broken. Armored. Naked. Eyes glowing. Eyes empty. A child. An old man. A corpse.
Kael reached out to one of the mirrors.
His reflection didn't move.
It stared back, eyes narrow, lips curled in disgust.
Then it spoke.
"You will fail."
Kael jerked back. "What—?"
The image stepped forward from the glass.
"You don't have the will. You don't have the knowledge. You don't even know what the Thorn is. You're just a conduit. A wound. A boy playing with godfire."
Kael drew his blade.
The reflection did the same.
But where Kael's was steel, his double's blade was black—a mirror-image, etched with runes that pulsed.
Then it attacked.
Steel met shadow.
The room filled with ringing.
Kael staggered back, parried a second strike, then twisted away from a third. His twin fought like he'd trained for years—his own body, perfected.
Thorne called from somewhere outside. "Don't fight it!"
Kael gritted his teeth. "Little late for that!"
The double swung again. Kael ducked, swept low, and slashed up—
His blade passed through the shadow.
No blood.
Only light spilled out.
Golden.
Blinding.
Kael staggered back as the mirror twin dissolved.
Not shattered.
Absorbed.
The mirror took him back.
The glass rippled.
Then it showed Kael something else.
A vision.
Him, sitting on a throne of living vines.
The world burning around him.
His hands dripping with blood.
And a crown of thorns on his brow.
Kael stumbled out of the tower, breathing hard.
Thorne caught him.
"You saw it, didn't you?"
Kael nodded. "A thousand versions of me."
"That's what the Reflection does. It tests not your strength—but your certainty."
Kael's hands trembled. "And if you fail?"
Thorne looked at the tower. "Then you become one of the reflections."
Kael turned back.
One of the mirrors was cracked now.
And through it, he saw his defeated twin still trapped within, screaming soundlessly.
They left the clearing as the sun dipped beyond the mountains.
This time, there was no marked road. Only instinct.
The Codex throbbed like a second heartbeat.
Kael's mark had now spread to his collarbone. The spirals shimmered faintly in darkness. He no longer needed to speak to Veilcast—the words came when he thought, but he held them back.
Barely.
That night, the wind howled in voices.
Not his name.
But names close to his. Twisted echoes. Old selves.
He dreamed of the cathedral again.
But this time, the veiled corpse rose.
And it wore his face.
He awoke with blood in his mouth.
The sky was wrong.
Too many stars.
Not constellations—sentences.
Kael looked up and saw words written across the heavens in burning white fire, and though he could not read them, he knew they named something true.
Something forgotten.
Then he heard it.
A voice without speaker.
Not in his head.
Not in his heart.
But beneath everything.
"The Third Thorn opens."
In the morning, they reached the edge of a valley unlike any Kael had ever seen.
No trees grew here.
Just thousands of broken staffs, sunk into the ground like graves.
Each one bore the same spiral symbol.
Thorne looked ill.
"This is where the Hollow Pilgrims came to die."
Kael looked at the field. "So why are we here?"
Thorne didn't answer.
Instead, he stepped forward and began walking among the graves.
Kael followed, careful not to disturb the staffs.
Then he saw something ahead.
A figure, standing alone at the center.
Wrapped in white cloth.
Maskless.
Veins of ink traced her skin.
And in her chest—
A hole.
Where her heart had been.
Kael knew her instantly.
Veyra.
But this wasn't the one who'd visited them.
This was a memory.
A statue.
A fossil of a moment that had never ended.
She turned her head.
And her voice spoke again, though her lips didn't move.
"The Thorn is not a weapon. It is a wound. You do not wield it. You become it."
Kael stepped closer.
"Then what am I becoming?"
"The answer to an old question."
"What question?"
Veyra turned her eyes to the sky.
"Why did the gods bleed when they spoke?"
Kael fell to his knees.
The Codex opened of its own accord and hovered above the field.
Thorne backed away, alarmed. "Kael—"
Light erupted.
Spirals of gold and silver rose from the grave-markers.
Names. Words. Phrases lost for centuries.
The Codex inhaled them all.
Then closed.
And on its cover, a new symbol etched itself into the leather.
Not a spiral.
A crown.
Of thorns.
Kael stood.
His eyes glowed briefly with silver fire.
And in that moment, the valley fell silent.
Even the wind feared to breathe.