The fire burned low.

  Seris kept it that way on purpose—just enough light to keep the refugees steady, not enough to announce them to anything listening beyond the trees. The cart was parked off the road beneath a canopy of old pine, branches sagging low like they were tired of holding the sky up.

  The people slept in turns.

  Joren did not.

  He sat a short distance from the fire, knees drawn up, cloak loose around his shoulders. His hands rested in his lap, palms open, like he was waiting for something to fall into them.

  Seris watched him for a long time before she spoke.

  “You’re going to ask,” she said.

  Joren didn’t look up. “About what?”

  Seris snorted softly. “Don’t insult us both.”

  He exhaled once, then finally lifted his eyes to her. The firelight caught his face at an angle that made him look older than he should have.

  “You called them Veilborn,” he said. “Like it meant something specific.”

  Seris nodded. “It does.”

  Joren’s fingers flexed unconsciously. “I’ve never heard the term.”

  “You wouldn’t have,” she replied. “Not unless you’d survived an encounter long enough to ask.”

  That got his attention.

  Seris adjusted her grip on her staff and stared into the fire as she spoke, voice measured—careful in the way people were when words carried teeth.

  “Veilborn is what they call themselves. Not corrupted. Not thralls. Not survivors.” She glanced at him. “Veilborn.”

  Joren frowned slightly. “Why that name?”

  “Because they believe they’ve stepped past the veil that separates life, death, and whatever came after,” Seris said. “Not fallen through it. Passed through it.”

  Joren absorbed that in silence.

  “They don’t think of corruption as infection,” Seris continued. “They think of it as clarity. A shedding. They believe the world after the Gate broke revealed a truth everyone else was too afraid to accept.”

  “And that truth is?” Joren asked.

  Seris’s jaw tightened. “That survival belongs to those willing to let go of what they were.”

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  Joren’s gaze drifted to the trees. “They still talk like people.”

  “Yes,” Seris said quietly. “That’s what makes them dangerous.”

  She leaned forward slightly.

  “Veilborn organize themselves. Cells. Circles. Some call them Clans. Others call them Orders. The ones who’ve lasted longest—like Elith—call themselves Adepts. Above them are Ascendants. Below them are Novices. The weak ones burn out. The disciplined ones…” She trailed off.

  “Command demons,” Joren finished.

  Seris nodded. “And people.”

  Joren was quiet for a long moment.

  “They weren’t insane,” he said. “They weren’t desperate.”

  “No,” Seris agreed. “They were certain.”

  That word settled badly.

  Joren stared down at his palm again. He turned it over slowly, as if expecting to see something written there.

  “They knew me,” he said.

  Seris didn’t deny it.

  “They knew how I fight,” Joren continued. “They knew where I’d hesitate.”

  Seris’s voice softened. “That’s why Elith smiled.”

  Joren clenched his hand into a fist, then forced it open again.

  “They’re studying us,” he said.

  “Yes,” Seris replied. “And they’re doing it on purpose.”

  Silence stretched between them.

  Finally, Joren asked the question that had been circling him since the road.

  “Am I becoming like them?”

  Seris didn’t answer immediately.

  When she did, her voice was steady—but honest.

  “No,” she said. “But you’re closer than you think.”

  Joren swallowed.

  “Veilborn choose the Veil,” Seris continued. “They step into it willingly and let it reshape them.” She met his eyes. “You’re being pulled. That’s different.”

  “That doesn’t feel better,” Joren said.

  “It shouldn’t,” Seris replied. “If it ever does, that’s when you worry.”

  Joren nodded slowly.

  The fire popped.

  Somewhere deeper in the trees, something howled—and then went quiet again.

  Far from the refugees.

  Far from the road.

  A village burned.

  Not chaotically.

  Not screaming.

  Systematically.

  Itsuka walked through the remains like a man counting steps.

  Buildings lay collapsed in clean arcs, roofs split rather than shattered. The corpses—human and demon alike—were positioned where they’d fallen, not dragged, not piled.

  Efficient.

  A Watchtower rose at the village’s edge, its signal flame extinguished before it could ever be lit.

  Itsuka stepped over a fallen door and paused.

  A man knelt at the center of the square—Veilborn by the violet glow still clinging to his eyes, by the corrupted sigils carved into his armor. He was alive.

  Barely.

  Itsuka crouched in front of him.

  “You shouldn’t have been here,” the man rasped.

  Itsuka tilted his head slightly. “You shouldn’t have stayed.”

  The man laughed weakly. “Too late now.”

  Itsuka studied him—not cruelly. Not kindly.

  Precisely.

  “You call yourselves Veilborn,” Itsuka said. “Why?”

  The man coughed blood. “Because we’ve seen what waits beyond.”

  Itsuka’s white hair stirred in the heat of the dying fires.

  “And?” Itsuka asked.

  The man’s smile was broken—but proud. “Because it’s better than kneeling.”

  Itsuka considered that.

  Then he reached out and closed his fingers around the man’s throat.

  Not crushing.

  Listening.

  Soul surged.

  The Veilborn’s essence tore free—not screaming, not resisting. Itsuka’s eyes widened a fraction as the information settled.

  Formations. Names. Routes.

  And one more thing.

  A pale blade.

  Itsuka released the body. It collapsed soundlessly into ash.

  Itsuka straightened.

  “So,” he murmured. “You’ve stepped onto the board too.”

  He turned his gaze northward.

  Toward Ophora.

  Toward a city that thought it still had time.

  Deep beneath stone and corruption, Draven felt it.

  Not pain.

  Not fear.

  A shift.

  He lifted his head against the restraints, breath slow, controlled.

  Something had changed.

  Someone important had moved.

  Draven smiled faintly.

  “…Good,” he whispered.

  Because whatever was coming next—

  It wasn’t going to be simple.