Leira didn't know how long she had laid there for, it could have been minutes, hours, years, a whole century all inside one breath. Time dissolved the moment she hit the floor, pain rewrote the laws of existence, and this Echo, this ancient cruel force that governed this chamber showed her no mercy whatsoever.
It dragged her mind through horror after horror, it forced her eyes open even when she clawed desperately at her own face, it held her consciousness by the throat and pumped agony into her skill with a precision that felt intelligent… almost intimate.
The screams did not stop, not even for a single moment. They layered themselves into a chorus; men, women, elders, newborns, entire towns. Each scream had a story, a face, a heartbeat forced to stop abruptly. Leira watched shadows tear through villages, ripping families apart in seconds, she watched children clutch their parents' clothes before being wrenched away into the dark, she watched blood rain from ceilings that had once belonged to temples of peace.
Every second was a lifetime of agony. Her own voice broke long ago, her throat was sand and fire, her ribcage shook with each son until she felt something inside her crack.
She begged at first, she pleaded, she screamed until the tendons in her neck felt like they would snap.
"Please…please…stop…please…STOP…"
But the Veil did not answer. It observed her, studied her? It pressed her deeper and deeper into the truth it demanded she understand:
A Keeper must witness the worst of the world… and do nothing. That was the test, not endurance or even courage, it was obedience.
At some point, Leira didn't notice when… her body became still. Not because the pain ended, but because something inside her had simply broken.
Her eyes stayed wide and glassy, unblinking, tears dried in streaks on her cheeks, her lips trembled soundlessly. Her mind was no longer fighting, it was simply surviving now, floating above her own agony like a hollow ghost tethered to a dying body.
The air tasted metallic, thick, suffocating. The ground beneath her pulsed with faint white light, reminding her that this was not a real world, this was a construct, a cage, a lesson.
Finally, after centuries compressed into a single, shattering moment, the Echo pause.
The screams froze in mid air, cur off mid breath, leaving a silence so abrupt it rang like a slap, shadows halted mid slash, bodies stilled mid fall, time itself suspended like an unfinished sentence.
Leira's heart stuttered painfully in her chest at the sudden quiet…then…
A voice rose inside the void. It was ancient, massive, layered with a thousand tones, like a chorus speaking through a single throat.
"Are you ready now?"
Leira didn't respond.
Her mouth moved, but no sound came. Her chest lifted and fell in shallow, broken gasps as she stared at nothing, her vision blurred at the edges, losing shape and color. The ground vibrated beneath her, like the Veil was losing patience.
Then, without warning, Leira's body was ripped violently off the floor. She gasped as she shot upward, suspended brutally in the air by an invisible force. Her spine arched, her limbs jerked uncontrollably, and just like it has been for hours now, the sound escaped her…a scream. It was raw, ragged and it was scraped from the very bottom of her soul.
"ARE YOU READY TO BE MY KEEPER?"
The voice thundered through her bones.
Her scream broke into choking sobs. Her whole body shook like a leaf in a storm, suspended in blinding white light.
"St…stop…please…" she gasped between sobs. "Please…"
The voice sharpened like a blade pressed to her throat.
"Or would you like to keep watching?"
The meaning hit her like a punch. Her heart nearly stopped.
"N-no…" she whispered, shaking violently. "Please…no more…"
The Veil did not soften.
"Then say it."
Her lips trembled uncontrollably.
"I…I can't… I don't…"
The space darkened around her, as if the voice swallowed the light.
"Say it…
or I will spend centuries breaking you."
Her pulse thrashed violently against her ribs.
"Say it…
or I will bind you to their screams."
Her vision blurred.
"Say it…
or you will watch the worlds burn."
Leira shook her head wildly, tears blurring her sight. Her breath hitched, her chest squeezed so tight she thought she'd pass out.
But the voice was not done. It dropped into a whisper…one softer than a breath. One soft enough to become terror.
"Say it…
or he will die right in front of you."
Everything inside Leira froze.Her trembling stopped, her sobs cut off, her breath caught in a sharp, painful gasp. Her eyes snapped open.
"…what?" she whispered.
The voice did not elaborate.
It only repeated:
"Say it."
Leira's vision sharpened, it was burning, fierce, alive in a way it hadn't been a second ago.
"Don't you dare," she breathed.
Her fingers curled into trembling fists.
"Don't you dare threaten him."
A low, echoing laugh filled the space. Soft. Predatory. Pleased.
"There you are…
That flame…that defiance…that is the fire of my Keeper."
The light around her pulsed, once, twice…like a heartbeat.
"Say it."
Leira inhaled shakily.
"…Kael…?"
Her voice cracked open.
"If… I say yes… will you bring him back to me?"
The Veil answered with absolute certainty:
"If you say yes…
you can bring him back yourself."
Her heart slammed once, so hard it hurt.
And she whispered:
"…then yes."
The Veil reacted instantly.
Light didn't just surround her.
It detonated inside her. A blinding eruption of pure white energy tore through every inch of her body. It spilled out of her eyes, her mouth, her fingertips, her skin, every opening, every pore.
Her scream ripped out of her… but it wasn't one voice anymore….it was hundreds… thousands, a layered symphony of pain, power, and ancient force.
Her back arched so violently it looked impossible. Tendrils of light wrapped around her limbs, around her spine, around her skull, bleeding through her like living rivers.
The Veil was not empowering her.
It was rewriting her.
Her blood boiled with energy no human body was built to hold. Light pulsed through her veins like molten silver, her heart pounded fast enough to break, her bones vibrated, humming with a frequency beyond the mortal spectrum. The pain was indescribable.
But beneath it…
beneath the burning…
beneath the tearing…
beneath the overwhelming flood…
she felt something else…purpose.
Claiming her. Binding her. Taking its rightful place.
The Veil's voice spoke through the blinding light:
"Rise, Leira.
Rise, Veil Keeper."
Her scream cut through the space, echoing with the voice of the Veil itself, until they merged, indistinguishable.
Her eyes snapped open. They glowed white.
Not normal white…a shimmering, metallic white that bordered on silver. It was ancient, unyielding, unmistakably not human.
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Leira hung there in the air…
glowing, trembling, changed. The Veil lived inside her now.
She could feel it humming beneath her ribs.
She could hear a second voice beneath her own.
She could sense entire realms pressing against her mind, like doors waiting to be opened.
The Veil whispered into her mind, soft and cold:
"You will not interfere with fate."
Then, after a beat…
"But you will cleanse the worlds of those who corrupt it."
The light pulsed, slow, like the breath of a god settling into truth.
Then the Veil spoke again… calmer now, almost contemplative.
"For centuries, I have watched."
Images flashed through Leira's mind…
Shadows tearing through cities.
Keepers falling at the hands of corrupted ones.
Worlds crumbling under the weight of greed, fear, hunger, power.
Innocents dying because fate permitted it.
"I watched shadows devour what once was pure.
I watched Keepers fail, betray, and be destroyed.
I watched mortals slaughter one another.
And I did nothing."
Its voice grew colder, older.
"Because fate decreed that all things must end.
Even Keepers.
Even worlds."
More images flashed…
A Keeper screaming as darkness consumed her.
A world collapsing into ash.
Thousands begging for mercy the Veil was forbidden to give.
"But I have watched long enough to understand why you broke the rule."
The light around Leira flickered, like the Veil itself was remembering.
"I did not agree with your interference then.
I do not agree with it now."
Her heart clenched.
"You are still forbidden to change the fates of mortals.
You may not prevent their deaths.
You may not interfere in the lives they are destined to lose."
Leira's breath trembled, painful, but steady.
The Veil's voice dropped, low and resonant:
"But the shadows who kill them…
the corruption that poisons worlds…
the forces that destroy what fate intended to live…"
A ripple of power surged through her chest.
"Those you may hunt."
"Those you may destroy."
The white around her trembled, as if bowing to its own decree.
"For they are not fate."
"They are rot."
"And you will be my weapon against them."
Then:
"You will cleanse the worlds of those who corrupt it."
The power in her veins surged in agreement, wrapping her like armor made of light.
She didn't understand all of it, but she understood enough.
The Veil had not given her all her memories.
It had not given her her true name.
It had not given her the full truth of her purpose.
Not yet. It still didn't trust her fully yet. But it had given her one promise;
Kael lived… if she could bring him back.