Leira's scream tore from her throat, it was raw and instinctive, but the sound didn't reach the world around her, it fell flat in her own ears, swallowed by the edges of the echo, nothing shifted, nothing slowed, the Echo's shadow loomed over the laughing child, its claws drawn back like hooked blades.
"Please…!" she choked, reaching forward…
…but her arm wouldn't move past the invisible line between her and the illusion. It felt not like hitting a wall, but like trying to push her hand through a frozen memory, something both present and unreachable.
The Shadow descended.
Leira's entire body tensed, bracing herself for another scream she knew she wouldn't hear, but right before the creature's claws touched the child, the world flickered…once, twice… as it the echo itself blinked, then everything froze.
The child stood suspended mid laugh, the basket a woman was carrying hung in the air, smoke from a fire froze in a perfect curl, even the Shadow hovered, its claws outstretched, mouth gaping in a silent roar.
Leira stumbled back, her own breath shook unevenly in her chest, the world paused but she wasn't.
Slowly… slowly… the sky darkened above her, draining color until it be amé a flat dome, the frozen villagers shimmered less like people now and more like painted memories.
A chill grew itself from Leira's spine as a voice rose again, this time from everywhere and nowhere at once:
"You are not here to save them."
Her heart hammered painfully, her fingers dug into the Clock Root, she wasn't supposed to let go of it until she was fully healed.
"Then why are you showing me this?" She demanded, as her voice was shaking. "Why make me watch something you won't even let me stop?"
The silence that followed wasn't empty, it was judgmental, considering. And then… the scene shifted. Not smoothly, not like a natural transition, it was as if it broke.
The village shattered like a cracked mirror, fracturing into a thousand glasslike shards, all just suspending around her, each shard held a frozen silver if the moment; the terrified child, the hunting Shadow, the woman lifting her basket. Slices of life that would never be finished. Leira's breath hitched, the Clock Root pulsed sharply in her grip, reacting to something unseen. The voice returned, closer now:
"You are here to understand."
Leira swallowed, her throat was tight, she was in absolute disbelief, this made no sense, what kind of a test was this?
"Understand what?" she whispered, but she already feared the answer, she knew that this was an Echo and fully understood the kinds of horrors that could await her. A shard drifted past her, slowly and gently, showing the Shadow's claws a breath away from a small shoulder, just inches away from mauling away, she turned her head sharply, unable to look at it, she couldn't stand the sight of something so grotesque and inhumane.
"Why?" she forced out. "Why would the Veil allow this in the first place? Only for me to watch it happen again?"
This time, the voice didn't echo through the world, it spoke from behind her… right behind her. "Because," it murmured, "interference carries a cost you have been paying for for centuries past, and you are not ready to pay it again."
Leira spun around… and gasped as another Leira stood there. Not a copy, not a hollow mimic, not one of the blank faced versions anymore, this Leira was older but not too old, maybe a few years in the future, her hair was darker, her shoulders were heavier, her eyes were still grey, they were deeper, carrying a weight the real Leira had never known. She looked like someone who had already lived through years of decisions that carved scars into the soul. Leira stared in disbelief. "What… what are you?"
The older version tilted her head slightly. "A possibility," she answered softly. "One path the Veil could shape you into."
Leira felt something cold bloom in her chest. "A path where I didn't interfere?" She whispered.
A faint, almost sorrowful smile touched the older Leira's lips. "No," she said quietly. "A path where you did."
Leira froze.
Her pulse thudded painfully. "I don't understand."
"You will." The older Leira lifted her hand and touched a floating shard, the image inside shifted, becoming something darker, sharper, wrapped in shadows she didn't recognize. But her own face stared back at her… changed, corrupted, stripped of softness.
"You intervened," the older self murmured. "Again and again, every Shadow, every time tear, every life you tried to save."
Leira shook her head violently.
"Kael said that my crime was falling in love, that that was what broke the Veil. And the first tear? Ari? What was I supposed to do? Let them kill my…"
"Yes!" Her older self's voice raised. "You were supposed to let fate take its course. It is not your purpose to prevent destiny, your purpose is to protect it."
Her eyes widened, in disbelief of what she was hearing.
"Did you ever ask yourself why Ari died anyway?
Why you couldn't save her? You had the power to, but you couldn't… that's because that was her destiny, Leira. You can try to change it, but you will always fail.
"No," she repeated in a whisper. "That's not true… Kael said…"
"That there is no cure for soul poison?" the older self continued, her tone gentle but unyielding. "Leira, you are the Veil Keeper, you possess powers that are far beyond the understanding of most, even yourself."
Leira's knees gave out, she sank onto them, gripping the Clock Root for dear life.
"Why didn't you let me save her," she whispered. "You could have just let me save her… I was only trying to help her…"
Her older self knelt in front of her, expression softening with a painful kind of compassion.
"I know."
Leira looked up at the frozen shards spinning lazily around them.
"Then why are you punishing me? Why tell me all this? Why make me watch something I'm not allowed to stop?"
"Because," her older self whispered, "there is a day coming when you will face a moment like this. A moment where you are certain you must save someone. And if you choose wrong… you will break everything all over again."
Leira's breath shuddered.
"Who?" she whispered. "Who am I supposed to save? Who am I supposed to let…"
The older version's expression tightened abruptly, as if something pulled at her. She glanced over her shoulder, eyes narrowing.
It was then Leira noticed it the white cracks spreading through the older version's arms, like fissures of light splitting through flesh made of memory, she was fading, being pulled apart.
"No," Leira gasped, reaching toward her. "Wait…wait! Don't leave, I don't understand yet…!"
The older self caught her trembling hand with surprising strength.
"Listen to me," she whispered. "You cannot save everyone. And the Veil will soon ask you to choose between two lives."
Leira's heart lurched, her eyes widened in horror.
"Who?" she begged. "Tell me who…"
The older self leaned close, her fading fingers brushing Leira's cheek.
And for a brief, devastating second, her voice dropped to an almost human tremor:
"Kael..."
Leira's world cracked. The older self dissolved, shattering into the shards around them. The village pieces flickered, the frozen Shadow twitched, the child's smile trembled, everything began collapsing back into motion; the roar returned, the claws fell, the little boy lifted his face fully toward death, and then… swing. Leira let out a horrifying scream, she watched the shadow rip people apart like an animal, it hunted them, mauled them into pieces, it had an evil smile on its face while it did so. Leira let tried to turn away from the scene, but this image had to be seen, the echo didn't let Leira lose even a single moment of it, it had infiltrated her mind. Even when she closed her eyes, the image just kept playing in her head, everything that lived in that village died a painful, bloody death. Men, women, and children alike.
They screamed for help, but none would come, they begged for mercy but none was given, some ran into the forest, some hid their babies in baskets and put them underground, but that stopped nothing. This Shadow was sent here to go after everything that drew breath, it could sense everything that happened in the village, where people hid, what areas of the forest they scattered into. This was some kind of twisted game to it, and Leira was to watch this scene and many more destructive scenes on a constant loop over and over again, for what felt like an eternity.
This was the test, this Echo was going to force her to understand. Leira had a soft heart, and helping people had always been her witness, even before the death of her sister, she had been tempted so many times to prevent the actions of the Dark Keepers.
Leira had fallen flat on the floor of this white space, eyes looked like they were stuck open, unable to blink, just taken it all in. The only thing that made her look like she was alive was the occasional scream she would let out of her lungs, and the almost constant stream of tears that would fall down her face from the sight of these events. One thing was clear, the Veil wanted Leira to be its Keeper, but not before she had been broken into submission, it was going to get her to learn by any means necessary.