Chapter 25: Whispers Beneath the Veil
The road to the Outer Circle was long-abandoned—overgrown with vine-choked fences and shattered lanterns, a place the city had chosen to forget. But Isabelle knew where it led. Beneath it, far from the shimmer of any mirror or the pulse of a ritual stone, the rebels were said to hide.
They called themselves the Forgotten.
Rowan adjusted the weight of the satchel slung over his shoulder. "We're sure about this?"
Isabelle nodded. "The Watcher said we weren't the only ones. The rebels know the truth. Or at least part of it."
The deeper they ventured into the ruins of the Old Quarter, the more distorted the world became. The air buzzed—like radio static in the mind. Faces appeared in broken windows and vanished in a blink. A soft hum threaded through the silence, neither music nor voice.
Then, from the fog, a figure emerged.
She was slight, cloaked in patchwork, her eyes veiled beneath goggles with mirrored lenses. "Turn back," she warned. "This place isn't meant for the still-bound."
Isabelle stepped forward. "We're not bound. We're breaking."
The woman's head tilted. "Name?"
"Isabelle Morane. I've shattered once. I'm looking for the ones who remember."
The woman paused, then lifted her goggles—revealing eyes too old for her youthful face. "Then come. But know this: once you hear the veil speak, it never stops."
They followed her down iron stairs into a sanctuary carved into the roots of the city—a space lit by dim lanterns and marked with strange symbols scratched into every surface. People milled quietly. Some wore robes; others had fragments of mirror embedded in their skin like ornament or scar.
One man approached, his skin etched with ritual burns. "You brought a Shatterer," he said, not without accusation.
"She brought herself," the guide replied. "And she carries echoes."
Isabelle was ushered to a low table. Before her sat a masked figure who called himself Nox. His voice was distorted, filtered through a veil of static.
"You want to break the cycle," Nox said. "Everyone does. But few are willing to give up who they are to become what they must."
"I've already started forgetting," Isabelle admitted. "That means I'm close. But I can't finish this alone."
Nox leaned closer. "Then you must go where memory dies. The Ephemeral Archive. It doesn't exist in space—it exists in the folds between lives."
Rowan frowned. "How do we find something like that?"
"You don't," Nox said. "You remember it. You've all been there. In the flicker between death and return."
Suddenly, the lanterns dimmed. All around them, whispers echoed. Not from the people—but from the shadows.
And then Isabelle heard it: her own voice, from a past life.
"Run," it whispered.
The veil had begun to speak.