55. Silence in the Veil
Silence in the Veil
Auryn’s unease lingered as she stepped out of the portal with Lu’ma into the Iliri district.
She was sore from the morning spent in the temple.
Yet, despite the pain and wariness in her body, she felt lighter than in previous months.
Victorious. Hopeful. Even when she knew hope was a poison in the Crystal City.
The Rite was over. She had come to the Axis Hall and stood as Sokar, unchallenged. Some had spoken against her, but she had given voice to her most ardent wish.
And the Council had listened. Shu’Khan himself had spoken. The Mandate was not yet won, but the path forward had been carved.
And yet you walk into this place to celebrate your victory? You have poor taste.
For once, Vargrún had a point.
All sound died far too quickly here, swallowed in the lifeless gaze of glass towers and polished marble corridors.
The Iliri district was different from the Commons and the Rising.
No hammering and sounds of heated forges spilled from open windows.
No vendors signed from colored market stalls.
No apprentices ran through the streets running errands for their Houses through drifting banners of light.
Only sterile quiet.
The avenues stretched wide and immaculate beneath their feet, built not for citizens but for Attendants, sanctioned Roles, and the marching ranks of the Reskala. Tall structures of mirrored glass and pale stone loomed above them, their surfaces reflecting the Shields’ unnatural light.
Every door was sealed.
Every window dark.
Somewhere deep within one of the buildings, machinery hummed—a low, constant vibration that thrummed through the pavement beneath Auryn’s shoes. A pair of Reskala passed at the far end of the avenue, their armor whispering as they turned down another corridor without acknowledging their Sokar.
Even the air smelled wrong.
Acrid smoke. Something scorched and chemical that burned the back of her throat.
Auryn resisted the urge to cough.
The missive from Draevan Sol burned in her pocket.
The Councilor’s handwriting had been precise and brief, requesting her presence in his Iliri laboratory at the earliest possible hour.
No reason given for the summons. Either he wished to speak more on the data she'd presented at Council, or he wanted to address something unrelated.
Perhaps this concerned her Firestone proposal from some weeks past. The small rune-inscribed stones had begun as a personal experiment, a simple answer to the bitter cold that plagued the Commons during the Cycle of Ice.
If the design could be replicated, the stones might be distributed throughout the Commons, warming homes that had never known reliable heat.
Surely that was why Draevan had summoned her here to the heart of industry within Krystopolis. To discuss mass production. Logistics.
Her steps slowed, eyes darting to the colossal black towers surrounding them, each one windowless, their doors marked with sigils pulsing in her Manasight. She wanted to linger, to look closer at the glyphwork etched into the marble, but Lu’ma’s hands signed briskly.
'Your Radiance, if we linger, we will be late to training with the Scarred One.'
Lu’ma’s sign for Zarrek brought a smile to Auryn’s face.
“Yes. This place makes me uneasy. Let us finish our business quickly and return.”
The smile was still on her lips when the air cracked behind them. Auryn whirled around. A portal opened wide. Not amber, like the Resh'Agar's sanctioned pathways but dark emerald.
Aethersteel on stone. Armor slamming into crystal. Runes screeching as their owners sang to them. Shadows falling faster than breath. Reskala poured out of a summoned portal, bearing down on them in full force.
Shock stopped her cold. She turned to Lu'ma, panicking, recalling all the conversations about her being in danger. Remembering the look of disgust on Sevrion's face when he'd look at her friend during Council.
"Lu'ma, run!"
As the first gauntlet seized her wrist, her body remembered how to retaliate before her mind did.
Don’t fight the grip. Use it. Kailorien’s voice echoed in her mind.
She dropped her weight, twisted with the drag, and the Reskala’s own force yanked him off balance. Her elbow slammed into his visor with a jolt that rattled bone. She didn’t feel the pain of it, panicking as one of them ripped Veilpiercer from her back.
Another closed from the side.
Never let them fix your line. Sideways. Always sideways.
She slipped left, pivot sharp as a blade, diving for the bow clattering across the marble.
Fingers curled around its familiar weight.
Her breath steadied. She stepped and the Weave answered her call.
One blink gone, the next behind them. Veilstepping.
Blinding white light coalescing into a quiver at her back.
Arrow fired into greaves, another into a gauntleted wrist. Screams, steel falling. Not killing. Never killing.
Weakest joint is the wrist. Aim small, miss small.
She loosed again—true as breath.
Pretty little ember, break their throats. Spill their blood. Feel them die beneath your hands.
Her stomach clenched, but her shot swerved low, striking tendon instead of spine.
She blurred, back at Lu’ma’s side. Her friend was fighting for her life, wielding two daggers, her limp forgotten in well-practiced, deadly motions.
One Reskala raised his blade. Auryn's bow cracked against steel, shaft driven point-blank into armored knuckles before the blade could drop. The Reskala yelled, flinching back.
“Run!” she cried, ripping the key sigil bracelet from her wrist and thrusting it into Lu’ma’s hand. “Portal! Find him—GO!”
Fear is a blade they will hand you. Don’t take it.
The Reskala reformed, shields locking in brutal rhythm. They circled the two of them. Marched forward, step by step.
Lu'ma threw up a ward around them with one hand and summoned magefire with the other. A blaze of flame roared to life at the Reskala's feet.
“Shackles! Cut off her magic!"
Auryn’s chest locked. Shackles were for prisoners. For the condemned. For Purification.
Terror for Lu'ma split her thoughts and scattered them. She pushed against her friend's back. "Lu'ma, open the portal! Now!"
But the Attendant shook her head, eyes dark eyes determined. Fierce.
"If they capture you, they'll—"
"Kill the Attendant!" another Reskala shouted.
Auryn's thoughts splintered once again. Kill? Not capture? She froze. Confused. Overwhelmed. Unable to move. And then everything came into focus.
The Reskala were not advancing on Lu'ma.
They were advancing on the Sokar.
With shackles. With containment webs and shields.
Another voice whispered in her mind, one she hadn’t heard in many years. Familiar and foreign. Like the call of a long-forgotten memory. The thing called Numen spoke…
:: They do not want to cage you. They wish to take your light. This is no game of politics. It is an execution. ::
Her stomach twisted as the circle of shields closed in. Massive, towering bulwarks meant to protect from magefire and spells with large destructive radius. Her shields. The ones she’d invented to protect the Reskala against Solutus invaders. Against more Blightspheres and bombs.
And now, against her.
How little your compassion has purchased.
With a cry of sorrow and utter frustration, she Veilstepped upwards, jumping from platform to platform, summoning magic into as many points as she could.
Pulling back, she fired, and a deluge of white arrows crashed down on the Reskala below.
The magic shrieked and hissed as it flew, hitting flesh and breaking bone.
She aimed to dislodge the shields. The warriors staggered back.
The formation faltered with their screams.
:: Mercy will break you. Strike to end them, or all is lost. ::
Her pulse staggered. She refused. Fought harder. Veilstep. Arrow. Veilstep. Arrow. Her body blurred through the storm, her shafts sinking into knees, wrists, shoulders. Crippling, never killing.
Mercy is not weakness, starlight. It’s strength held on the edge of steel.
Tear them apart. Drown in me. Let me make you strong.
Her jaw clenched.
“No,” she hissed, loosing another shaft into a shoulder seam. “Not like that.”
The clash was deafening, her lungs burning with every Veilstep, every draw of the string tearing more from her ribs. Still she moved, still she struck. The circle of shields broke. Then reformed. Broke again.
“Now!” Auryn screamed.
Lu’ma staggered out of the circle, rolling, twisting, dodging flailing limbs and spears.
Auryn covered her flight with a rain of white light and piercing arrows.
A portal ripped open, and her friend jumped inside it.
A Reskala made to follow, screaming as an arrow in the chest threw him backwards to the ground.
He skidded several feet back, blood welling from his mouth.
That’s it! Harder now. Faster. Can you feel me in your blood? Can you taste their screams?
Her lungs burned. Her vision blurred with sweat and mana strain. For every warrior she took down, two more stepped from the shadows. An endless sea of glowing white eyes and glowing golden runes. They pressed in, relentless, shields rising like walls she couldn’t breach.
Cease this folly. You shall not spare them. You are not prey—you are my flame. Loose me. Loose yourself. Kill.
Her fingers trembled on the bowstring. She wanted to resist, to aim for wrists, knees—safe shots. But her arms moved faster than thought, guided by panic, by adrenaline, by the hunger curling in her skull.
By the howl of the Vargrún in her mind.
The next arrow buried itself in a throat. Blood sprayed, hot and sudden. Another loosed into the seam of a gorget, sinking deep into the meat of the neck. A third drove hard between plates into the chest, the shaft shuddering with the force of it.