The Mourning Marsh faded behind them, swallowed again by its cursed fog and drowned ruins. For three days they traveled southeast, through shadowed hills and broken forest roads, until the air turned sharp and dry.
At the edge of the old highlands, the ground dropped into a vast crater of stone and glass—a city shattered from the sky.
Valdaran
Once the capital of a proud elemental kingdom. Now a scar.
The floating city that had hovered above it—Valdaran Prime—had fallen years ago during the last great rebellion, brought down by a Veilstorm none could explain. What remained below were ruins cracked open like a ribcage, scorched towers leaning into each other, and broken canals still whispering with wind.
And somewhere in its heart, they said, lived an oracle.
A Veilborn. Like Syaoran.
One who had seen the future… and chose silence.
---
Kira stared down at the ruins from the high ridge, eyes narrowed. "This is wrong. There should be patrols. Bandits. Scavengers. But I don't see anything."
Teren swallowed. "Maybe they've all left?"
"No," Syaoran said, eyes locked on a distant, silent tower in the center. "They were driven out. Something down there doesn't want company."
---
The ruins of Valdaran were colder than expected. Lifeless. Even birds did not cry here
As they moved through cracked streets and ash-covered plazas, the map began to pulse again. Not toward a Seal—but toward something else
A heartbeat. A mind
A soul
Kira caught the shift too. "You feel that?"
Syaoran nodded
The Veil was pulling him
---
They reached a tower made of obsidian and shattered glass, half-buried in rubble, its entrance sealed by roots and rust. But when Syaoran touched the stone—it opened.
Inside, they found a spiral staircase descending into a chamber lit by flickering rune-lamps and quiet air.
There, seated in the center of a rune-circle carved into solid stone, was a woman.
Young. Pale. Eyes blind but glowing faintly with violet light.
She did not speak.
She simply raised her hand—and beckoned Syaoran forward.
---
When he entered the circle, the air vanished.
He could no longer feel his heart. His breath. Time.
Only her voice, inside his mind.
> "Veilborn. Lightning of the storm. Child of no name, born of flame and silence."
> "You are too late for the second Seal. But not the third."
> "The Tyrant moves. The Cult prepares the Hollow Temple. The great beast stirs."
> "And you… must choose who dies."
---
Her eyes bled tears of light.
Syaoran gritted his teeth. "Why me?"
> "Because the first Veilborn failed. And you… are his echo."
> "But the king does not yet know what you carry. Not fully. Not yet."
> "Hide the blade. Trust no map. The next Seal lies not in stone… but in flesh."
> "Seek the City of Crows. Find the Bloodgate. And beware the smiling man with fire on his tongue. He lies in every truth."
---
Then she said one final thing:
> "You are not the last."
> "One more stirs. But when she wakes… the sky will burn."
---
The trance broke.
Syaoran stumbled back, gasping.
Kira caught him. "What did she say?"
He looked at them both.
"She said we have to go east. To the City of Crows."
Teren paled. "That's across the deadlands."
"Then we go now," Syaoran said, eyes still glowing faintly.
He didn't tell them the rest.
About the girl who would burn the sky.
Or that he wasn't the first.
---
Far above, in the Sky Citadel, King Valcheiros stood before a new prisoner.
A captured mage.
Tortured. Broken. Barely clinging to breath.
But in his last gasp, he whispered:
> "The Veilborn lives."
The king smiled
"Good," he said.
"Then let him watch what comes next"