"Not all who forget are free. Some are just… unfinished."— fragment from an Edras treaty, origin unknown
[Veil Layer 3 – The Glass Spine]
It was darker here.
The Veil had no true "down" or "up" — only deeper. Kael could feel it in his breath, in the strange way his skin buzzed, like memories were trying to crawl out through his skin. Sarai walked ahead in silence, her pace unbroken, but her shoulders… hung lower.
"You shouldn't have done that," she said finally."You gave something up too," Kael replied."I chose what I gave. You let your Aith choose for you."
A long silence passed between them.
Then:
"Who was it?" Kael asked quietly."The one you forgot."
Sarai didn't answer at first. Then she stopped, turned slowly, and raised her arm. There, branded into the skin of her forearm, was a glyph — half-burned. A failed Edras-bind.
"I can't remember his name," she said. "But I still have the wound."
Kael frowned. "Was he family?"
"My brother," she said simply. "He died for the rebellion. I burned him to live."
They kept walking.
The tunnel opened into an enormous vertical shaft, filled with mirrors suspended in chains, slowly rotating like pendulums. Through them flickered fragments of lives — soldiers screaming, children laughing, cities burning.
"This is the Glass Spine," Sarai whispered. "A rift in the Veil where unbound Aith begins to leak. Too many broken contracts. Too many souls trying to rewrite their truth."
Kael paused near one of the mirrors.
His own reflection showed him at the moment of Taro's death — again and again, looping with slight variations.
"We're all stuck in something," he muttered.
"Most people never leave," Sarai agreed.
[Encounter – The Unbound]
It began with a shiver.
A low hum — like a sword being drawn in the distance.
Then the mirrors began to twist.
The air cracked, and a ripple of pressure sent Kael to his knees. Sarai drew two blades formed from her Aith — rugged, shifting, shaped like open eyes.
Then he appeared.
"What— what is that?" Kael asked.
The creature that emerged from the deepest mirror was no longer fully human. A man once, perhaps, now clothed in a tattered void-cloak of Khaon energy. His skin shimmered in a light grey, and where his eyes should be, there was only burning glass.
"I remember you," it hissed. "Both of you."
"Impossible," Sarai breathed. "You're not real anymore."
The Unbound smiled — or tried to. It came out broken.
"Neither are you, Sarai Verrin."
Kael froze.
"Verrin?"
She didn't answer. Her hands trembled now, only slightly — but enough.
The Unbound raised one long, twitching finger.
"He's like me," it said to Sarai, pointing at Kael."He's closer than you think. You brought him here hoping to delay it. Foolish. The flame's already inside."
Kael took a step back.
His Aith sparked — the black fire curling at his fingertips, whispering to burn not the body, but the concept of what stood before him.
But the Unbound didn't attack. Not yet.
"Do you know what it means to remember something that isn't yours?" it asked.
"Yes," Sarai said.
"Then watch."
The Unbound shattered the mirror behind him with a gesture — and for a heartbeat, a memory burst into Kael's mind like a flood:
A room. Screams. A boy bound to a chair. Not Kael. Sarai's twin. Imperial scientists. Binding glyphs. Edras contracts."The girl has potential. The boy is unstable. Burn him. Extract the resonance from her." A scream. A fire. A split. Sarai turning away. "I'm sorry, but I can't carry both of us."
Kael gasped.
"They… took him?"
Sarai's voice was ice.
"No. I did."
The Unbound laughed — a gurgling sound.
"You burn what you love to survive. You all do. That is the truth of Aith."
Then it struck.
[Combat – Broken Flame vs Twisted Mirror]
The Unbound ripped the floor open, pulling gravity sideways. Mirrors became falling blades. Kael leapt, black fire erupting around him. Sarai's Aith-formed blades slashed at angles that shouldn't exist.
Kael's mind fractured.
Every swing of the Unbound made him remember something that never happened — like false futures implanted by force.
"You betrayed Sarai.""Taro begged you to die with him.""You were never a boy. Just a vessel for fire."
He roared, and in that instant, his Aith flared into something darker.
"I BURN THE LIE."
He struck with open palms — not at the Unbound's body, but at the concept of its existence.
The mirror-energy screamed.
Reality buckled.
The creature shattered.
Glass and shadow scattered like ash.
Kael fell to one knee, panting, blood in his mouth. Sarai rushed to him.
"You nearly crossed the threshold," she warned."You burned something that shouldn't have been burnable."
"It lied," Kael muttered."And what if the next thing that lies… is you?" she whispered.
Silence.
[Elsewhere – Tribunalisten Bastion]
In a silver chamber, a chorus of masked figures bowed before a burning pillar of reality-glitch.
"The resonance is confirmed," one hissed."The boy has touched Primordia without passage. He is a threat."
The leader stepped forward — voice cold, unnatural.
"Prepare the Trialmask. The Fluchträger will not reach the edge of the Veil."