The alarms did not just scream. They howled, a piercing wail that clawed into the brain and refused to let go. Red runes flared to life across every wall, pulsing like open wounds, bathing the corridor in bloody light. The ground trembled underfoot as distant explosions rocked the facility, and the air turned thick, charged with fae magic that pressed against the mind like invisible hands trying to crush focus.
"RUN!" Lirael roared again, already sprinting.
They bolted down the corridor, boots pounding glass that cracked with every step. Tobias's lungs burned, the pack on his back feeling heavier than stone. The heat inside him surged with each breath, feeding on the panic, begging to be unleashed, but he clamped it down. One slip here, in these narrow halls, and he would bury them all.
Behind them, the ice wall shattered in a deafening boom, shards flying like deadly rain. Fae voices echoed through the breach: sharp commands in ancient tongues that carried the weight of spells, promising pain and capture.
"They're through!" Kael shouted, twisting mid-run to fire three suppressed shots back. Sparks flew as bullets ricocheted off pursuing armor.
Seraphine grabbed Tobias's arm, yanking him around a corner as a bolt of starlight magic slammed into the wall where his head had been a second earlier. The stone melted into glowing slag.
"Move faster!" she snarled, her voice edged with something raw, fear, maybe, or fury."
The corridor twisted into a labyrinth, walls shifting like living things, trying to trap them. Elyndra flung a hand back, summoning a gust of razor wind that bought them seconds, slicing pursuing shouts into screams.
But the patrols were closing.
Tobias heard them: boots thundering closer, wards humming louder, the air vibrating with the promise of death if they were caught. Vaelor's judgment was absolute. Exposure meant erasure, not just for them, but for everything they knew. The squad. The truth. His fragile grip on who he was.
A side wall exploded ahead, debris flying like shrapnel. Three fae guards poured through, bows drawn, arrows of pure judgment magic nocked and glowing.
Lirael spun, hands blazing with fire. The blast hit them square, hurling bodies back into the breach with bone-crunching force.
"Keep going!" he yelled, voice strained. "The exit's ahead!"
But the stakes clawed at Tobias's mind: one wrong turn and they were dead. One patrol too close and the Accord would bury this secret forever, along with them. The heat inside him screamed to fight, to burn, but unleashing it now could collapse the entire vault on their heads.
Another explosion rocked the hall behind them. Dust rained from the ceiling. A chunk of stone clipped Kael's shoulder, drawing blood.
"They're collapsing the tunnels!" Seraphine shouted.
Elyndra flung up a shield of shimmering ice just as a kinetic wave slammed into them from behind. The impact shook her to her knees, but the barrier held, for now.
Tobias grabbed her arm, hauling her up. "We can't stop!"
The final door loomed ahead: a massive vault seal, runes flickering in panic.
Lirael slammed his palm against it, spell weaving frantic. "Open, damn you!"
The runes fought back, flaring bright, sending shocks through his arm that made him grit his teeth.
Boots echoed closer. Voices shouted judgment spells that made the air itself heavy with doom.
"Hurry!" Kael fired blindly back, bullets sparking off advancing shields.
The door groaned open.
They tumbled through into the cold forest night, gasping, bleeding, alive.
But the alarms followed them out, howling into the trees.
And the Veilwood woke fully, wards screaming their betrayal to every patrol within miles.
They had seconds.
Maybe less.
And the only way out was forward: straight into whatever waited deeper in the dark.
They ran.
Deeper into the Veilwood, where the trees grew denser, their branches intertwining like living walls, roots rising from the ground to trip the unwary. The alarms howled behind them, a piercing wail that echoed through the canopy, summoning every patrol in the forest. The wards woke fully, the air buzzing with invisible threads of magic that tugged at their minds, whispering doubts, sowing illusions of twisting paths and dead ends.
Lirael led, but his steps faltered, sweat beading on his brow as he wove desperate spells to mask their trail. "This way!" he gasped, veering left into a thicket of glowing thorns that parted at his command, but only barely, slicing shallow cuts across their arms as they pushed through.
Seraphine grabbed Tobias's sleeve, pulling him close. "Stay with me," she snarled over the din. "The wards are turning the forest against us. Focus on my voice."
Kael fired blindly behind them, suppressed shots cracking into pursuing shadows. "They're gaining! We need cover!"
Lirael skidded to a halt in a small clearing ringed by ancient oaks. "Here!" He slammed both palms against the ground. A massive surge of starlight erupted from his hands, raw and blinding, weaving into a dome of shimmering illusion that enveloped the group. The magic pulled from deep within him, his face paling, veins glowing beneath his skin as he poured everything into the concealment.
The dome sealed.
The world outside blurred, sounds muffled, the alarms reduced to a distant hum.
Lirael's arms gave out. He collapsed forward.
Kael lunged, catching him mid-fall, easing him to the ground. "Easy, star-boy. You still with us?"
Lirael gasped, chest heaving, but he managed a weak nod. "That... that bought us time. The illusion will hold for an hour. Maybe less if they bring hounds." He pointed a trembling finger north. "That way. Through the Whispering Thicket. It leads to a hidden path back to my home. Go fast. Don't stop for anything."
Elyndra knelt beside him, hands already glowing blue. "We're not leaving you."
Lirael's eyes fluttered. "You have to. I'm... spent. The magic took too much. Go. I'll... catch up."
Seraphine snarled. "Like hell."
But the alarms grew louder, even through the dome. Shouts echoed closer, fae voices calling spells that made the trees themselves groan in response.
Kael hauled Lirael over his shoulder. "Not debating. We go together."
They ran again.
The Whispering Thicket lived up to its name. The trees murmured secrets and lies, voices slithering into ears: Turn back... you're lost... they don't trust you... the Accord was right...
Tobias's head pounded, the magic clawing at his focus, making the path blur. Seraphine's hand found his again, her cool grip an anchor. "Ignore them," she hissed."
A ward snapped to life ahead, a wall of thorny vines bursting from the ground. Lirael, slung over Kael's shoulder, whispered a counter-spell through gritted teeth. The vines withered just enough for them to shove through, thorns raking bloody lines across exposed skin.
Another alarm, closer. Shouts in fae: "Intruders! Seal the paths!"
Elyndra flung a blast of frost behind them, freezing a pursuing shadow mid-stride. "Faster!"
The trees thinned.
Lirael's home rose ahead, the massive star-oak a beacon in the chaos.
They burst through the wards he had left open, slamming into the main hall.
Kael kicked the door shut behind them. It sealed with a boom of magic.
The house alarms stayed silent, Lirael's doing.
Kael lowered Lirael to the floor, gasping. "What the fuck. What the actual fuck."
Seraphine was already at the windows, peering through slits in the living wood, fangs bared. "They're closing in. We need to hold them off."
Elyndra dropped to her knees beside Lirael, hands glowing as she poured healing magic into his chest. "Stay with me. You've lost too much essence."
Lirael coughed, eyes fluttering open. "The house... will protect itself. Old wards. Strong. But Vaelor... he'll come."
Tobias stood frozen in the center of the hall, the images from the vault burning into his mind: the container, the body inside, tubes harvesting blood and magic, a perfect copy of himself suspended in fluid, eyes closed but somehow watching.
What had the Accord done? What was he?
The heat inside him stirred, not in rage this time, but in cold, quiet certainty.
Whatever it was, it wasn't finished.
And neither was he.
The pounding on the door began.
The Veilwood had found them.
And the night was far from over.
The pounding on the door stopped.
Dead silence fell, thick enough to choke on.
Then a voice rolled through the wood and stone like warm honey poured over steel. Perfectly calm. Perfectly certain. Impossible to ignore.
"Open the door."
Vaelor.
Every ward in the house flared in panic. The crystal lanterns dimmed to blood-red. The air itself bowed.
"There is no need for theatrics," the voice continued, smooth as a lullaby and twice as dangerous. "I know exactly who is inside."
He began naming them, one by one, as if reading from a ledger written in their own blood.
"Lirael of House Starweave. Elyndra Vaelshae, once my brightest student. Kael Brightpaw, ever the reckless heart. Seraphine of the Crimson Veil, who should know better."
A pause.
Deliberate.
"And Tobias Hale."
The name landed like a blade between ribs.
"Come out," Vaelor said, gentle, reasonable, terrifying. "All will be forgiven. You are frightened children who wandered too far. Return to the light, and no harm will come to any of you."
Kael barked a laugh that cracked with fear. "Like hell."
Seraphine's fangs were fully out. "Over my cold, dead body."
Elyndra's hands glowed, ready. "Never."
Lirael, still pale from the concealment spell, managed a weak smirk. "I'd rather die."
But Tobias said nothing.
He couldn't.
The voice wasn't just sound. It was a hook in his chest, pulling.
One step.
Then another.
His feet moved without permission, drawn toward the door like iron to a lodestone.
Seraphine saw it first.
She moved faster than thought, slamming her palm-first into his sternum with vampire force.
Tobias flew.
He hit the far wall ten feet back, wood splintering behind him.
No pain.
Only numbness.
Only confusion.
Why stop me?
He looked up.
For one heartbeat the room was full of his people, staring in horror.
Then it wasn't.
The faces flickered.
Kael became a human boy from the old photos, eyes hollow, hands reaching. Elyndra became a fae girl, throat cut, and pleading. Seraphine became the child with black eyes and fangs, blood on the slab, mouthing help me.
All of them, hands outstretched, mouths open in silent screams.
Tobias recoiled, scrambling backward hitting the wall with his back.
Kael's voice cracked. "What the hell is happening to him?"
Elyndra started toward him, hands glowing soft gold. "Tobias, stay with us…"
He didn't mean to.
He never meant to.
But something inside him lashed out.
Pure void, erupted from his chest in a wave.
Elyndra flew sideways, slamming into Seraphine. Both women crashed into the wall hard enough to crack living wood and slid to the floor in a tangle.
The magic swirled around Tobias like smoke made of night, wrapping him, comforting him, whispering in a voice that was not his own but felt like home.
Just let go.
I've got you.
Let me take care of everything.
He was so tired.
The Accord.
The rebels.
The running.
The blood.
The death.
All of it.
He closed his eyes.
"Fine," he whispered aloud.
And the world vanished.
He stood in an endless field of golden grass under a perfect sun. Warmth soaked into his skin. No pain. No fear. No monster. Just peace.
A figure was next to him, he couldn't make out who, but he knew this person.
Sigh…" You know, if this is what heaven is like Tobias I would gladly go there as long as it was together.
He smiled.
The world shattered in an instant.
Magic erupted from Tobias like a star being born: golden and black void twisting together in violent pulses that warped the air, cracked the floor, and made the star-oak's living walls groan in protest. The room filled with raw, pulsating power, thick enough to taste, like ozone and blood and something ancient screaming to be free. Kael staggered back, shielding his eyes from the blinding light; Elyndra flung up a ward that shattered like glass under the pressure; Lirael whispered frantic counter-spells that dissolved mid-air; Seraphine snarled and lunged toward Tobias, claws extended, desperate to pull him back from the edge.
But the power wasn't chaos.
It was deliberate.
Hungry.
Building.
The front door opened.
Not burst. Not slammed. Opened slowly, deliberately, as if the alarms themselves bowed to the figure stepping through.
Vaelor entered like he owned not just the room, but the air inside it.
Tall, ageless, dressed in flowing robes of midnight silk threaded with living starlight. His silver hair fell straight as rain, eyes the color of storm clouds before lightning. No weapon. No guards. Just him.
The alarms cut off mid-wail.
The chaos froze.
Vaelor's gaze swept the room, calm, collected, as if he were stepping into his natural environment.
"This could have been avoided," he said, voice smooth and resonant, like wind through ancient leaves. "A simple conversation. A moment of trust. But you chose shadows and secrets instead."
He stepped forward, each movement deliberate, the air seeming to part for him.
"I only want to fix this," he continued, tone gentle, almost paternal. "To bring order back to the chaos you've stirred. No harm needs to come to any of you."
Seraphine's lips curled back from her fangs. "Liar."
Vaelor's smile was small, indulgent. "It is laughable, truly, to think we were not prepared for every possibility. Did you believe your little incursion went unnoticed? That we would allow such a threat to fester without eyes everywhere?"
His gaze landed on Tobias last, unblinking, ancient.
"You are well within our control, child. You always have been. We have known every step, every breath, every desperate grasp at truth."
Vaelor was legend wrapped in flesh. One of the oldest beings on the planet, far beyond the 200-300 year span of even the eldest fae. No family. No heirs. No ties to weaken him. Only power, pure and absolute, honed over centuries into something that bent reality to his will.
Kael snarled. "Like hell we're yours."
Elyndra's hands glowed blue, ready. "You won't take him."
Lirael's voice shook with rage. "Not while I breathe."
Seraphine rose slowly, eyes blazing crimson. "Please," she said, voice low and breaking for the first time. "Anything. I'll do anything you want. Just let him stay with me."
Vaelor's interest piqued, head tilting slightly. "Anything?" He smiled, as if he'd anticipated the offer. "How intriguing. Desperation suits you, Seraphine."
Then his voice softened, almost kind.
"But first," he said, "I need to fix our little problem."
And everyone saw black and faded into unconscious.
They were back in Lirael's star-oak home, they were seated around the long nightstone table as if nothing had happened. Platters of glowing fruit. Flagons refilled. Elyndra's childhood friends laughing over old stories like the night had simply paused for breath.
Everything felt too normal. Too calm.
Seraphine sat beside Tobias, unblinking, eyes locked on him like she was afraid he'd vanish if she looked away. Her hand rested on his thigh under the table, nails digging in just enough to remind him she was real.
Kael nursed his fourth cup of wine, trying to laugh with the others but failing. Elyndra's smile was brittle, her gaze flicking to every shadow. Lirael kept glancing at the door, brow furrowed, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop.
It dropped.
A knock. Three measured taps, polite and patient.
Lirael stood, confusion creasing his face. "I wasn't expecting anyone."
He crossed the room and opened the door.
Vaelor stood on the threshold.
Moonlight silvered his hair. His robes moved like liquid starlight. His smile was gentle, almost paternal.
"Good evening," he said, voice warm as summer rain. "May I come in?"
The room went dead silent.
Kael's cup slipped from his fingers and shattered on the floor. Elyndra's friends froze mid-laugh. Seraphine's nails dug crescents into Tobias's thigh.
Lirael recovered first. "Arc Vaelor. An… unexpected honor."
Vaelor inclined his head. "I heard reports you had guests interested in old history. I thought I would save you the trouble of sneaking."
His tone was light, kind, the way a parent speaks to children caught with their hands in the cookie jar.
Seraphine did not move an inch away from Tobias.
Vaelor's smile didn't waver. "I prefer to think of it as courtesy." He looked at Tobias, eyes soft. "You've been through quite an ordeal, young one. I only want to help."
Tobias's voice came out rough. "Help."
"Of course," Vaelor said, as if surprised by the question. "The facility you sought. I can take you there. No tricks. No traps. Just answers."
Kael barked a laugh. "You expect us to trust you?"
"I expect you to want the truth more than you fear me," Vaelor replied calmly. "Come. Let us end the mystery tonight."
He turned and walked into the dark as if the forest itself would part for him.
No one moved.
Then Tobias stood.
Seraphine caught his wrist. "Don't."
He met her eyes. "I have to know."
She searched his face, then released him with a shaky breath.
"Fine," she said. "But I'm coming too."
Vaelor waited beneath the trees, patient as stone.
They followed.
The walk was silent, the forest quieting around Vaelor like it recognized its master. Wards that had nearly killed them hours ago dimmed and bowed as he passed, runes flickering out like snuffed candles.
At the hidden entrance he pressed one palm to the seal. Light flared, pure and blinding, and the massive door swung inward without a sound.
Inside was ruin.
Charred tables. Melted glass. Papers scattered like dead leaves across the floor. The air tasted of old fire and something sickly sweet, like rot beneath perfume.
Vaelor walked ahead, hands clasped behind his back.
"An accident," he said conversationally. "Early trials. Too much power, too little understanding. The resonance went critical. Seventeen subjects lost before we contained it. The contamination lingers.
Hallucinations.
Madness.
Death for the unwary."
He glanced back, smile gentle.
"My wards keep it at bay. You're quite safe."
Kael muttered, "Said every villain ever."
Vaelor only chuckled.
They moved deeper.
And with every step, the air grew heavier, sweeter, wrong.
Tobias felt the heat inside him stir, curious.
Listening.
Waiting.
Because whatever had happened here, it had his name written all over it.
Vaelor led them back through the Veilwood with the calm certainty of a man who had shaped the forest himself. The wards that had nearly torn them apart earlier parted like mist before him, runes dimming in deference. The group moved in tense silence, the earlier warmth of the feast replaced by a cold knot of suspicion that none of them dared voice.
They retraced their steps without incident, the forest unnaturally quiet, as if holding its breath. The hidden entrance loomed ahead, the massive door sealed tight. Vaelor placed his palm against the glowing handprint without hesitation. Light flared, bright and blinding, and the door groaned open, releasing a puff of stale, metallic air.
"After you," Vaelor said, voice gentle, as if inviting them to tea.
They descended into the black glass corridor, the group clustered tight, every sense on high alert. The magic in the air was thicker now, humming against their skin like a live wire, making focus slip and thoughts wander to dark places.
At the final archway Vaelor pressed his hand to the seal again. The obsidian door swung inward with a sigh.
Inside was exactly as he had described: ruin frozen in time. Charred desks and tables scarred by age and wild magic. Papers scattered like dead leaves, edges scorched black, some crumbling to dust at the slightest draft. Vials lay shattered, their contents long evaporated, leaving only faint stains that shimmered unnaturally in the dim light.
"Look around at your leisure," Vaelor said passively, stepping aside. "No contamination will touch you while I am here. My presence holds it at bay."
The group exchanged glances, suspicion thick as the dust.
Seraphine was the first to move, gliding toward a pile of half-burned scrolls with predatory grace. Kael followed, rifling through drawers with tense efficiency. Elyndra knelt beside a scorched console, fingers glowing as she probed for residual magic. Lirael hung back near Vaelor, eyes narrow.
Tobias drifted toward the center, drawn by the faint hum of power that seemed to pulse in time with his heartbeat.
Kael's voice broke the silence first. "Over here."
They gathered.
He held open a folder of faded images. Individuals in white coats rushing aiding wounded children, pulling them from rubble. Fae healers mending broken limbs with glowing hands. Werewolf medics carrying survivors on their backs. And in several: Vaelor himself, kneeling amid the chaos, children crawling over him like he was a favorite uncle, their faces lit with trust and laughter even as explosions bloomed in the background.
Kael looked up. "This isn't... this looks like you were saving them."
Vaelor stepped closer, his calm cracking for the first time, a shadow of regret crossing his ageless face.
He dropped his head slightly, silver hair falling forward.
"This has been my biggest regret in my life," he said quietly, voice heavy with centuries of weight. "I loved those children. And due to my mistake, we lost so much."
The room went still.
Vaelor's eyes met Tobias's last, soft and sorrowful.
"You were lucky indeed," he said. "But your origin is not known to me. Not fully. I will make an inquiry. You deserve that much."
The words hung, unanswered questions blooming in the silence.
As they began to leave, papers and artifacts tucked into packs, Tobias paused. A faint pulse of energy tugged at him from a side door he hadn't noticed before, subtle, insistent, like a whisper made of light.
The magic in the air thickened, humming against his skin, pulling him one step closer.
Then another.
The group was ahead, voices murmuring about what they'd found, but the pull grew stronger, drowning them out.
His hand reached for the handle.
One more step.
The door swung open.
Inside: a chamber of shattered glass and rusted machines, but in the center stood a large vat of swirling liquid, tubes long dead and dangling. At its heart pulsed a massive crystal, its facets glowing with faint, fractured light, and in its reflection, Tobias saw himself staring back.
Vaelor stepped beside him, gently resting a hand on his shoulder.