The ancient chamber hummed softly as the Shard of the Silver Veil pulsed in Aeryn's trembling hands, radiating a cold, argent glow that seeped through his fingers. Even without the System's constant whisper, he could feel the artifact reacting to something buried deep within him. It resonated with his heartbeat, echoing his pulse like two mirrored rhythms struggling to merge.
Aeryn stood still, breath steady, as if afraid the slightest movement might shatter the fragile connection forming between him and the Shard.
Across from him, the Guardian—still half-kneeling in solemn reverence—watched with awed, unblinking eyes.
"It accepts you." The Guardian's voice was soft, almost reverent. "I have waited centuries to witness the moment the Shard answers its heir again."
Aeryn swallowed, though his mind was spinning with questions. "Why… does it choose me?"
"Because the Shard remembers the Veilborn," the Guardian murmured. "Because your blood remembers what was stolen."
The words struck Aeryn deeply—not because they were unexpected, but because they aligned with the whispering fragments of vision that had been haunting him since the day he awakened the System. The sense of a forgotten lineage. The feeling of a heritage cut apart before he understood it.
He tightened his grip around the Shard.
The artifact pulsed again—once, twice—before its glow expanded outward, spilling tendrils of silver light through the air like drifting strands of moonlit silk.
The Guardian bowed its head. "It will show you what you must see."
Aeryn didn't have the luxury to brace himself.
The Shard exploded with radiance.
Light engulfed the chamber, drowning everything in formless brilliance. The ground beneath Aeryn vanished. The Guardian vanished. Even the air disappeared, leaving him suspended in a vast, endless expanse—neither sky nor darkness nor light. Something between everything and nothing.
He felt as if he had stepped into the memory of a memory.
A silhouette formed.
Then another.
Then an entire scene wove itself into existence.
Not a vision.
A living memory.
Aeryn found himself standing in the middle of an immense silver hall, its vaulted ceiling carved with thousands of glowing runes that shifted like constellations. Platforms of floating stone drifted overhead like pieces of a shattered sky, each carrying robed figures who radiated authority and arrogance.
He recognized none of them.
Yet the hall felt deeply familiar.
A pulsing sigil glowed on the far wall—one he had seen before in the Silverwood's hidden pool. The crest of the Veilborn.
A powerful woman with long silver hair stood at the center of the hall, carrying a newborn wrapped in shimmering cloth. Her eyes glowed with the same argent light as the Shard.
Behind her, a tall elf with stern features slammed a staff against the floor. His robe bore the crest of the High Clans.
"Lady Vaeryelle," he thundered, "you endanger the balance by keeping the child alive."
The woman tightened her grip on the infant—on the child that the Shard made Aeryn understand was him.
"This child bears the right of succession," she hissed. "The Veilborn do not bow to you."
"You refuse to see reason," the elder spat. "His existence will awaken the Shard. And if the Shard awakens, the old order returns."
Another robed figure stepped forward. "Surrender the child to the Council, Vaeryelle. We will hide him until the threat has passed."
Vaeryelle's voice dripped with icy fury. "The last time you hid one of ours, he vanished forever."
"And yet here the Shard stands silent," the elder replied sharply. "Your lineage ended the moment the Veil was shattered. The clans decide the fate of the realms now—not an outdated house clinging to lost power."
Aeryn felt something deep inside him ache.
The woman—his mother—took a step back. Instinctive. Protective. Her power flickered around her wrist in twisting silver threads, as though she was only moments away from unleashing it upon the entire hall.
Then—
The runes on the ceiling ignited.
A deafening hum tore through the chamber.
Aeryn's newborn body let out a faint cry, and the Shard in Vaeryelle's grasp pulsed violently.
The robed elders recoiled.
"It responds to him—!"
"We must separate them!"
"Seize the child!"
Guards rushed forward.
Vaeryelle's eyes widened. "No—!"
The memory fractured.
Light tore the scene apart.
Aeryn was thrown into another vision without any sense of transition.
He found himself in a dimly lit chamber. The woman lay weak and bleeding on a stone bed, surrounded by warding sigils that glowed faintly. The infant—Aeryn himself—was gone.
A lone elf knelt beside her. His hands were stained with blood. His eyes were wet.
"I'm sorry," he whispered. "They took him. I couldn't—"
"You… must find him…" Vaeryelle gasped. "Before they… erase… the Veilborn…"
Her eyes dimmed.
Her last breath escaped as a faint shimmer.
Aeryn felt a terrible emptiness in his chest.
The vision cracked like glass.
Another replaced it.
A group of robed elves whispered around a cradle. The infant inside was asleep, unaware of the sigil burning into the cloth wrapped around his chest. One of the elders muttered:
"He cannot be killed."
"Then seal his lineage. Remove his threads from the Loom."
"He will be no one."
"He will remember nothing."
Aeryn's stomach twisted.
The sigil glowed brighter.
A sound like tearing fate echoed in the silence.
The vision shattered.
Darkness swallowed everything.
A weight crashed into Aeryn's mind. He staggered, clutching his skull as the memories clawed their way into him—fragmented, incomplete, but real. His heritage had not been lost accidentally. It had been stolen. Deliberately cut away. Buried so deeply that even the System had been unable to fully reveal it.
His breaths came slowly.
The Shard's voice whispered into his thoughts:
"Now you understand, Aeryn. They feared what you would become."
Aeryn opened his eyes.
The cavern returned.
The Guardian remained kneeling.
The Shard's glow dimmed slightly, as though it had exhausted itself revealing the past.
Aeryn stared at his reflection in the Silver Essence pool.
"I wasn't born powerless," he muttered softly. "They made me powerless."
"Yes," the Guardian replied. "And they will do so again unless you claim what was taken."
Aeryn tightened his grip on the Shard.
Not with rage.
Not with despair.
With resolve.
"I'm done running," he said quietly. "I'm done being someone they can mold or erase."
His voice echoed through the cavern.
The roots around him pulsed gently in acknowledgment.
The Guardian bowed deeper. "Then the Silverwood will answer your call. The Shard will awaken. And the clans will tremble."
A distant thunder rolled through the forest—the sound of armies approaching.
Aeryn rose.
His path had never been clearer.