Warden Sareth

Veilrend 50: The Whisperglass She had no name anymore. Not really. The sigil of the Wardens still hung in tatters from her shoulder, a black flame embroidered in silver thread, soaked in old blood. Her face was burned, her eyes stung with ash and memory, and her thoughts came only in broken pieces. But her legs still worked. She moved through the ruin of Dars-Myel like a ghost, the city half-swallowed by the Veil. Buildings bent in impossible angles. Cobblestones hummed faintly when you touched them. Something in the air ticked like a second heartbeat. She heard children’s laughter in empty wells. Faces in shattered glass blinked and whispered, but never screamed. This was what was left. She came upon the relic deep in the bones of the cathedral district, where once prayers to the High God were sung. Now, silence reigned—except for the whispering. It was a mirror. Oval, framed in bone. Etched with a spiral of symbols too intricate to follow. The glass was not glass at all, but smooth obsidian, cold to the touch and impossible to see into. She didn’t know why she picked it up. But when she did, her mouth moved. Words spilled out that weren’t hers. > “The eye does not blink. The mouth does not close. The mirror remembers.” She dropped it, stumbled back—but it did not shatter. Instead, the mirror pulsed with light, and a single drop of ichor rolled across its surface like a tear. Behind her, the shadows in the church pews twitched. And the dreams began that night. Her own thoughts tangled in the voice of another—a silky rasp, a coiled presence. Ith’rael, whispering from beyond the walls of sleep. The mirror was her eye, planted like a seed. Through it, she would harvest those left behind. And the Warden would lead her to them.