Night lingered like fog over Veln. The inn's quietness was unnatural as if the world itself paused to listen.
Kael stood alone in the courtyard, scythe at his side, head tilted skyward. The stars didn't shine the same way anymore. Ever since the ruin, something in him itched like memory clawing at the edge of thought.
Inside, Elira led the others to an old room tucked deep in the Guild's archives. It wasn't just any room it was sealed, warded, and half-buried beneath older stone.
Waiting there was a woman older than anyone Kael had seen. Her eyes were cloudy, but they did not miss a thing.
"This is Archivist Maelin," Elira said. "Some call her Seer. Most forget she's alive."
Maelin stirred. "And yet I remember more than I should."
She motioned them to sit. Dust fell like snow from the beams above. Candles flickered in unison as if sensing her breath.
"You want to know what touched the ruin," she began, her voice low. "But to understand that… you must understand how the world began."
Kael tensed.
"Elira, you know the surface truths. But none of you know Xha'veth."
She traced a symbol in the dust.
"Before light. Before darkness. Before anything at all… there was Xha'veth. It was not a god. It was not a force. It was the Unmaking. A breath before the first word. A hunger that shapes by breaking."
Ryall narrowed his eyes. "You're saying the world was built by destruction?"
"No," Maelin said. "It was built by contradiction. Xha'veth didn't build. It fractured. And from the fractures… came what we call existence."
She spread her hands. "The Prime Expanse. A sea of layered realities. Each Current its own realm. Our world is but a ripple. One scar among many."
"And the Everspire?" Elira asked.
Maelin nodded. "A spiral realm. Once stable. Until a sliver of Xha'veth touched it and it shattered. Cause unraveled. Time looped. Echoes were born."
"Echoes?" Drev asked quietly.
"Fragments of Xha'veth's breath. Not alive, not dead. They cling to places, people… ideas. You met one in that ruin."
Kael stayed silent.
Maelin's gaze turned to him.
"There are three Veils that shield us from total dissolution. The Veil of Origin, where souls are first brushed by Xha'veth. The Veil of Conflict, where laws and beliefs war endlessly. And the Veil of Null the place of anti-being. Only mad things dwell there."
Tessan scowled. "And mortals… we're supposed to survive this?"
"Some adapt. They channel echoes. We call them Whisperborn, Veilborn, Fathomwalkers. But power has a price."
She pointed to Kael. "You've begun the path. Your body changes. Your thoughts fray. The scythe you carry is not mere metal it remembers."
Kael opened his mouth, but nothing came.
"Do not seek answers too fast," Maelin warned. "Understanding Xha'veth makes you less real. The deeper you go, the more you unmake yourself."
Ryall folded his arms. "Then what's the point of knowing?"
"To choose," Maelin whispered. "To face what comes. The Patch-Realm was formed after the Cataclysm. You live in its aftermath. The Inverses, the Nullborn Wastes… all scars. And the power rising in Veln? That's not magic. It's memory."
Silence.
Then Kael finally asked, "And if I keep changing?"
"Then you must decide," Maelin said. "Will you anchor yourself… or become something the world no longer remembers how to name?"
Later that night, Kael sat by the window of the inn, watching shadows stretch longer than they should. The others rested. But he couldn't.
The whispers were clearer now.
Not voices.
Echoes.
He gripped the scythe. It pulsed not with light, but memory. A breath from before existence.
In the silence, a phrase stirred in his mind.
The Black Sun must never rise.
He didn't know where it came from.
But something in his blood answered.
It already has.