Eryndra

Intro Veilrend 23 – The Shard’s Whisper Part 2 The shard was placed on the altar. Ashren began the incantation. “By thread, by veil, by silent breath, reveal thy memory… thy hidden death…” The shard shimmered, its surface bending light like warped glass. Then it opened. Not physically—but inwardly. Ashren’s mind plunged through layers of thought not his own. His breath hitched. His hands froze mid-gesture. “…no…” he whispered. What he saw defied every glyph, every warding, every book he'd scrawled by candlelight. A spiraling abyss of burning logic, of eyes behind time, of Seris weeping in silence—not alone, but caged beside a towering presence of bleeding stars and inverted laws. The screaming geometries of Thar’Zul. He stumbled back. “It’s not dead—it waits. It waits in him.” Eryndra stepped forward, voice sharp. “Master, we must seal it—now!” But Ashren was already shaking, eyes wide, heart hammering beneath his ribs. “No door… no wall holds that. This is not a relic. It’s a key.” His voice fractured. He screamed—once, high and ragged—and collapsed. His mask hit the floor and shattered, as blood trickled from his ears. The shard pulsed faintly. Eryndra stood frozen. The pulse again. Faint. Deliberate. And in her mind, a whisper too intimate to be sound: “Soon.”