55. Silence in the Veil #2
Her next deluge flew faster. Hotter. The arrows didn’t just pierce.
They exploded on contact, magic sinking into the body, burning through veins, then alchemizing, turning each of the Reskala’s carved runes into a living bomb.
Just like she had seen Kailorien do at Stonewake when fighting the Gliders.
The ground shook as the warriors screamed in terror, watching as bodies exploded from within.
No horror came. No shame. It felt easy—so easy to take their lives. The fight was too close, too crushing. Every breath screamed survive. Every heartbeat pounded strike first.
That’s it! Ember mine, see how they fall? See how they bleed for you? You are beautiful when you break them.
Her hands shook. Her teeth chattered. Her jaw clenched so tight that pain spiraled into her temples. Each Veilstep came jagged, desperate, her arrows sharper, harsher, as though her body was no longer hers but the bow’s—no longer hers but his.
I am in you. Every breath, every arrow. Let me out and we shall be infinite.
Red light erupted underfoot. Runes flared, searing into her Manasight. A net of threads snapped tight around her, barbed and merciless.
A ward.
Ascendant rank.
Snaking around her body and crushing the air out of her lungs.
She tried to blur, to rip herself into the Veil one last time—but the web held.
Runes sank barbs into her veins, and the magic refused her.
Her Veilstep failed, and she careened sideways.
The containment web dragged her to the floor, ripping her Weaving from her veins.
MOVE!
:: Too late. ::
Ember mine…
She screamed as silence crashed down, her magic choking like a smothered flame.
An inescapable force slammed her to the ground.
She nearly lost consciousness as the side of her face hit stone, grit grinding into her mouth, the copper sting of blood filling her nose.
Shackles bit cold into her wrists. A gag sealed her mouth.
A blindfold pressed darkness into her eyes.
And the voices—all of them—went quiet.
… mine …
… ember…
… ember mine…
… wake… do not let them…
… take you from me…
:: Release…me…I…sto…hold… ::
Auryn opened her eyes to nothing but blinding, overwhelming white.
Marble surrounded her on all sides, smooth and shining.
Not veined, not stone-kissed—only white.
A sterile, devouring absence swallowing shadow, sound, and even breath.
The walls rose smooth and seamless, their surfaces so polished they shimmered with cold light.
No banners. No carvings. No witness of history. Just endless pale silence.
A single podium loomed at the far end of this vastness, carved of the same merciless stone. Behind it, rows of tiered benches stood in rigid lines, each one fashioned for judgment, not comfort. Rows of faces looked back at her. Masked. Hooded. Bodies covered in white robes of anonymity.
But it was the center that drew her eye.
The altar stood alone. A slab of marble, unadorned, unsoftened, awaiting sacrifice. Upon it rested a long metal case, a thing of white-gold inlaid with runes so deep they pulsed without a mage’s guidance. To the naked eye, it reflected the chamber’s light. But through Auryn’s Manasight…
It screamed.
The walls themselves bled with echoes. Mana did not flow here—it recoiled, shredded into threads, dissolving into nothing.
In every corner, remnants clung like ash to blood.
Tatters of souls, their resonance clawing for release and finding none.
Their grief pooled against the white until the very air trembled with it.
:: …never should …ru…un…sto… ::
They cannot cage you, emberling. Not while I breathe in your bones.
Whispers hissed through her mind, voices no one else could hear; pleas cut short, cries of agony, the silence after breath’s end.
She tasted dead skin on her tongue. Ice crept into her chest. Hands pushed her forward, and each step dragged her deeper into the graveyard of endless executions, where even the world’s color had ceased to exist from the depths of its mourning.
This was not purity. It was obliteration dressed in stolen purpose.
The faces looked on as she was dragged and shoved. Seven figures sitting around the podium.
Councilors.
Expressionless.
Expectant.
She recognized one face immediately, and all hope drained from her body.
Sevrion Hale stepped forward, his face warped into a disgusted sneer. The gag was ripped from her face as a scroll unfurled in his hands.
“Sokar! You have violated the Sacred Writ,” he intoned. “By tampering with the markings of the Resh’Agar, by attempting to decipher the runic core meant only for divine lineage, and by keeping such records hidden from this Council.”
Auryn struggled against the hands gripping her. “That’s not—I didn’t—”
Sevrion’s voice rose. “You have already been judged.”
“Without a trial!” she shouted.
From behind him, an Archivist stepped forward and threw a pile of parchment at her feet—her own handwriting. Her own notes. Her journals cataloging all the information she’d gathered over years on Kailorien’s runes. Torn. Ripped. Pages scattered like dead leaves.
“We do not permit soul-betrayal within the Lattice,” Sevrion said.
Two Attendants stepped forward to the altar, lifting the covering from the Godblind, a velvet cloth dyed with the ashes of the Condemned.
Auryn’s mouth went dry. Horror bloomed in her chest.
“No—wait. You can’t—listen to me—!”
Sevrion raised his arm. The velvet fell, revealing a branding iron. It drew the eye like a wound—wrong, humming, alive. Its surface shimmered in unnatural patterns twisting away from direct sight, as if the air itself recoiled from its unholy aura.
The Iron of Severance.
The Godblind.
The Unmaker.
A relic which, when infused with mana and ritual, was used to brand one’s very soul—destroying it, obliterating it, and removing it entirely from the cycle of the Nine Rivers.
The brand head itself was a hollow circle split by a jagged line, like an eye gouged down the center. Auryn’s stomach turned as the scent of burnt bone marrow and river rot filled the air.
It smelled of death.
Hers.
From the corner of her eye, Auryn glimpsed another familiar face. Black hair. Green eyes. A hyena smile. Zeera, dressed in white robes, a hood and mask doing nothing to hide her true identity.
“The judgment is final and unanimous,” Sevrion announced. “On this Fourth Veilday, Opening Turn of the Ice Cycle, Year 1129 of the Broken Era—the Sokar has been found guilty of breaking Doctrine. She will henceforth be sentenced to Purification by Iron of Severance.”
He paused.
Smiled.
“Effective immediately.”
White-robed mages filed into view, channeling mana into the brand. The end glowed with sinister hunger—not yet hot, but thrumming. Auryn felt it the moment it began to draw from the city’s power. The ever-present hum of the Shields distorted—the pressure in the room spiked.
:: …my…strength…h—ld…you must… ::
Let them burn. I will rise in you. We will rise together.
She screamed.
Thrashed.
But she may as well have been a fly in the hands of the Reskala at her sides. She looked at them. Shouted.
“Stop this madness! Immediately!”
They looked back with dead hollow eyes and held her down.
Auryn couldn’t breathe.
Couldn’t think.
“No—no, no, no—please—!”
She thrashed, tears running down her face, but the Reskala pressed her to the wall. She fought. Bit. Cried.
The Iron was raised.
Someone said a prayer.
"Void keep you.
Void preserve you.
Void guard your steps.
In the Destroyer’s eyes, you are Purified.
In the Void, your will repent."
Pain.
Ripping. Tearing. Like someone was rending through her skin then twisting her insides. Her vision went white. Her mouth opened on a scream that scorched her throat. Something burrowed into the nape of her neck, right at the base of her skull—into her heart, into her very soul.
The world went white—not silence, not sound, but unmaking itself.
:: … Aur…yn…stop…plea…se … ::