The ruins didn't start as ruins.
They began as shapes in the fog—too angular to be trees, too silent to be alive. Moss-covered arches, half-sunken pillars, and remnants of a bridge that led nowhere. The forest had swallowed it all, but not out of malice. It felt more like fear.
By midmorning, the group found themselves standing at the edge of something vast and sunken. A crater, half-choked in vines, filled with stone bones from a temple that had tried to disappear.
Boo stopped short, one hand resting on her hip. "Okay, I'll say it: this place looks like it regrets being born."
Zhurong said nothing. He crouched low and touched the ground. His fingers came up smeared in ash that hadn't come from fire. "This isn't just erosion."
Nyxia took one step forward, and the mark on her forearm pulsed—not brightly, but with a slow, steady ache. Not pain. Pressure. Like something aware of her presence, and unwilling to be ignored.
"Is this another Veil site?" Boo asked.
"No flower," Nyxia murmured. "Not yet."
Zhurong stood, dusting his hands. "The structure was old even before the Veil marked this region. Night elf craftsmanship, but corrupted. Reclaimed by something that doesn't obey natural time."
"Something like the Veil?" Boo asked.
Zhurong didn't answer.
Nyxia was already descending the slanted path into the basin.
She felt it again—like walking into memory. Not hers. Not even her father's. Older. This place had been built to contain something, not shelter it. The air shifted the farther down they went. It wasn't colder. It was denser. Like each step pressed harder against their lungs.
At the base of the crater sat a wide stone dais, ringed by cracked columns. Symbols carved into its surface blinked faintly with silver-blue light, same as the ones on her skin.
Zhurong knelt and traced one with a fingertip. "Same language as the relics. Different dialect."
Nyxia's fingers brushed the nearest pillar.
The runes responded—rising faintly like embers being coaxed to flame.
That was when Loque growled again.
Not warning. Not fear.
Recognition.
He prowled forward and stopped near a jagged altar at the dais center. His paw scraped at the edge.
Something metallic glinted beneath the moss.
Nyxia moved quickly. She swept away the overgrowth with a practiced hand, revealing a small, broken circlet—ornamental, not regal. A priest's band. An old one.
She lifted it.
The moment her fingers made contact, her mark pulsed again—and this time, so did the pillar behind her.
Then came the vision.
It struck like an echo returning too late—violent in its delay.
A priestess knelt here. A draenei. Her armor gone. Her voice hoarse from chanting. A flower bloomed at her back—white fading into deep red. Not grown, but implanted.
She wasn't resisting.
She was feeding it.
Nyxia gasped and stumbled.
Boo was there this time. Caught her before she could fall. "Okay. You've got to stop touching haunted jewelry."
Nyxia steadied herself and stared at the circlet in her hand.
"She gave herself to it. Willingly. She thought she was lighting the way."
"To what?" Zhurong asked.
Nyxia looked around the ruins.
And the runes responded again—flaring brighter, revealing a pathway carved into the ground itself. It spiraled downward, disappearing beneath the cracked surface.
Zhurong stepped beside her. "Whatever she wanted us to find… it's down there."
Boo grunted. "Of course it is."
They descended.
The spiral was tight, claustrophobic. The walls bled faint light from veins of embedded runes, but the path narrowed the deeper they went. It smelled of old dust and something metallic—blood that had never been cleaned.
Eventually, the tunnel opened into a chamber—perfectly round, too smooth to be natural. In the center sat a plinth, and atop it… a flower.
Not a blooming one.
A wilted one. Dry. Blackened at the tips. Its petals curled inward like fists.
Loque growled again.
This time, it was low and continuous.
Zhurong drew a flame into his hand, but didn't throw it.
Nyxia walked to the flower.
The moment she touched the air around it, her mark flared—and so did the room.
Visions crashed into her skull.
Three Veil-marked, long dead, screamed across her thoughts. One tried to run. One fought. One knelt and offered their breath as sacrifice.
All three died.
All three failed.
Nyxia blinked back the pain and backed away.
"The flower's not a beacon," she said. "It's a grave."
Zhurong frowned. "Then why call us here?"
"To remember," Nyxia said. "To warn."
Behind her, Boo drew her pistol. "Or it's bait."
The shadows shifted.
From the walls emerged shapes—slow, quiet, too perfectly still until they weren't.
Four of them.
Tall. Armored in cracked plate.
Veil-corrupted.
Former Veil-marked.
Boo fired first—quick, clean. The shot blew a hole in one of their chests.
It didn't fall.
Nyxia drew both daggers, her voice calm. "Don't let them touch you. They remember how to hurt."
Zhurong ignited, flames racing along his limbs. He shouted a warning and hurled a burst toward one as it lunged for Boo. The fire caught it, slowed it, but didn't stop it.
Combat exploded across the room.
Loque tackled one, his claws scraping against armor laced with void crystal. Nyxia met another in a flurry of blades—each clash sparked light, each impact louder than it should've been. These weren't mindless constructs.
These were memories that learned.
And they hated what they'd become.
Zhurong blasted the floor, creating a ring of fire to split the room. Boo leapt through the flame with a snarl, driving her sabers into one of the knights' shoulders. The thing grunted, twisted, and backhanded her into a pillar.
"Boo!" Nyxia called, but had no time to check. Her own opponent pressed hard—stronger than it should be. Faster. It drove her back, blow after blow.
Then Loque slammed into the side of it, dragging it down.
"Now!" Zhurong shouted.
Nyxia reversed her grip and plunged both daggers into the creature's throat.
It convulsed—and finally, it stopped.
The others collapsed shortly after. Not from physical wounds.
From something deeper.
As if the Veil had released them.
Boo groaned from her crumpled position. "Tell me that was the worst of it."
Nyxia knelt near the flower.
It had withered completely.
"No," she said quietly. "That was just the beginning."
Zhurong looked down at one of the armored corpses. "These weren't summoned."
"No," Nyxia agreed. "They were left."
"By who?"
She stood slowly. "The Veil."