The Veiled Dimension was an aberration of existence — a place untouched by the laws of the mortal realm. Neither solid nor empty, neither cold nor warm, it existed in the space between moments, where time unraveled like a tangled thread, and the fabric of reality bent, not to the will of the living or the gods, but to something far older. Something that had been forgotten, even by the immortal.
The air shimmered with an almost tangible hum of regrets — not merely regrets of those who had once walked its fractured grounds, but the collective lamentation of countless lives and futures that might have been, but were not. Every breath you took felt foreign, as though inhaling memories not your own, fragments of lives and sorrows that intertwined with your soul. With each step you took, the echoes of alternate decisions rang out, like a distant song. You could never truly move here, not without leaving a part of yourself behind.
Kael's forces had pushed into the Veiled Dimension to track down the Singularity fragment buried within its depths. Their presence was a wound in this realm, but the dimensional veil itself didn't care. This space was not for mortals or demons, nor even the gods. It responded to thoughts, to desires, to obsessions, and it knew its travelers intimately.
Of all his forces, only one dared to venture deeper into the heart of the Veiled Dimension, alone, and that was Valeryn.
Half-demon. Full of wrath.
She cut through the twisted landscape with the precision of a scythe sweeping through grass. Her twin daggers, lethal extensions of her own soul, flashed with deadly grace as they carved arcs through the shifting shadows of this place. Each strike echoed through the dimension with a soundless snap, like the breaking of an unspoken vow.
No one followed her here. None dared. The Veiled Dimension was a place of isolation, a realm that distorted and turned upon itself. It was a labyrinth not only of space but of thought and memory.
And Valeryn… she had lived there, in her mind, for years.
Her entire existence had been defined by chains — both physical and mental. Raised under the thumb of her mother, the demon queen who had forged her into an instrument of cruelty, Valeryn had never been given the luxury of freedom. Freedom had been a myth, a concept she could only understand through the stories of others. Until Kael.
She had never known love — not until Kael, not until he had broken her apart and put her back together, piece by piece, molding her into something stronger. Something more than she had ever been under the shadow of her mother's expectations.
And yet… something had always lingered, a fear, a doubt. Could she ever truly escape the twisted, obsessive loyalty that had once bound her to her mother? Could she truly place her heart in Kael's hands, free of the haunting echoes of the past? The Veiled Dimension was a mirror of all those unresolved questions, a reflection of her inner turmoil. And here, her obsessions bled into the very landscape.
As she ventured deeper, the space around her began to shift, growing darker, the air growing thick with the scent of dust and something more. Something familiar.
The voice called again.
"Valeryn."
Kael.
His voice, unmistakable, calm and measured, rang out in the empty space. It wasn't a call. It was an invitation.
She stopped in her tracks, a shiver running down her spine. Her crimson eyes narrowed, focusing on the faint distortion in the air where the sound of his voice emanated. This shouldn't be possible. Kael had ordered her to stay behind, to lead the forces from the rear while he dealt with the others. Why would he be here?
Her hand gripped the hilts of her daggers, muscles tensing. It wasn't like Kael to act impulsively. He had been angry, yes. No, not angry. Afraid. She hadn't seen that in him until now. She had sensed it before, the flicker of fear in the depths of his dark eyes. But she couldn't understand it. Couldn't understand why.
The voice called again. "Valeryn. Come."
It sounded softer now, as if the very fabric of reality itself was coaxing her forward.
Without thought, without hesitation, she stepped into the rift. The air in front of her warped like liquid, flowing around her as she crossed through. A momentary pulse of energy surged within her as she passed, and her feet landed soundlessly on the other side.
What she saw took her breath away.
Kael stood before her, his dark presence unmistakable. He was exactly as she remembered — his sharp eyes, his calculated poise, his aura of cold certainty. But something was off. The scent was wrong. His essence felt hollow, the power surrounding him too smooth, too perfect, as if it had been crafted by hands that knew Kael's likeness but not his soul.
Her instincts screamed at her to turn away. This wasn't him. She could feel it in the pit of her stomach, in the small tremors that ran up her spine. This was a trick. A deception. But her mind, clouded by obsession and longing, couldn't let go.
She took a step closer, her breath catching in her throat. His eyes met hers, and for a brief moment, the world seemed to stop. She saw the flicker of something — something dark — beneath his gaze. Something that wasn't quite Kael.
"Valeryn," the figure spoke again, his voice as smooth as silk, and yet… it didn't carry the weight of his usual command. "Come."
It was enough.
She smiled, a sad smile, her lips curving not with malice, but with understanding. This wasn't him. This was a reflection. A hollow imitation.
"Wrong move," she whispered, her voice low, tinged with a mixture of sorrow and fury.
Before the figure could react, she struck, her daggers a blur of motion. The air around her seemed to rip apart as the twin blades slashed through the illusion with precision. But it wasn't enough.
The figure's form shattered like glass, dissolving into silken threads of falsehood.
But as the illusion faded, something else emerged.
From the walls of the Veiled Dimension, from the very shadows of her memories and regrets, another figure appeared. This one was not Kael, nor a mere imitation. This was Valeryn herself, but not the Valeryn she had become.
This was the Valeryn who had never known love. The Valeryn who had been bound by her mother's manipulations. The Valeryn who had been forged in hatred, in madness. The Valeryn who had once sworn to destroy everything Kael had touched, to take everything he cared about and twist it into ash.
She wore the face of a demon queen's heir, elegant and merciless. Cold, untouched by warmth or hope. Her eyes were empty, void of the fire that now burned in the real Valeryn's heart.
"You were never supposed to leave her," the echo-Valeryn whispered. Her voice was a ghost, a remnant of what might have been, of what could have been if she had stayed beneath her mother's thumb.
"I didn't," the real Valeryn hissed, her voice laced with fury and pain. "I chose someone stronger."
The two women — one born of obsession, one born of freedom — clashed. Silent and swift, they fought in the heart of the Veiled Dimension, the very realm bending and shifting around them. Blade against blade. Memory against truth.
And in the final moment, the echo-Valeryn struck with a jagged piece of herself — a fragment of her heart, twisted and warped into a weapon.
Valeryn gasped as the sharp pain pierced her. Black blood spilled, the ink of a death too deep to comprehend. She fell to her knees, the world around her trembling as her soul began to unravel.
But she didn't scream.
Instead… she hummed.
A soft, broken tune. The lullaby Kael had once sung to her — not perfectly, but gently — to calm the storm inside her after her first true nightmare under his command. The song she had never forgotten, even in her darkest hours.
Her voice, quiet and fragile, echoed in the hollow air, blending with the fading echoes of the dimension. Her body began to dissolve, not in ash, but in darkness — petals of shadow falling away, soft and silent, as if the very dimension itself mourned her passing.
In the material realm, Kael paused.
He had felt it.
Not through magic. Not through any of his carefully honed senses.
He had felt it through the void. The emptiness that had always been there, lurking within him. But now, that emptiness began to stir. His shadow, his ever-constant companion, writhed behind him. It was uncontrollable, violent. The stillness he had forced upon it for so long shattered, flickering with an energy that was not his own.
He did not move.
He did not speak.
But for the first time, the darkness within him wasn't waiting.
It was waking.
To be continued…