Rhen

Veilrend 12 — The Spiral Below Part 2 Rhen Aversin appears unassuming at first glance—the perfect vessel for a god who lives between notice and neglect. But subtle details betray the strange gravity he carries since his bond with Ith’rael. After opening the spiral-bound tome, Rhen begins to shift in ways that don’t always stay consistent. Reality has trouble agreeing on how he looks at any given moment. That’s when she sent him to the Circle of the Fractured Eye—the cult building a shrine in the depths beneath Solthar. Ith’rael showed him the path between cracks in the Archive floor. A hidden descent no one else saw. They welcomed him. They thought him a convert. They didn’t know a second god was watching. He wore their robes. Memorized their prayers. But Rhen’s faith belonged elsewhere. He’d been there a week when it happened. The air grew cold. Mirrors cracked. Candles died. The obsidian mirror split. And the Mirrored One stepped through—half man, half unknowable. Eyes like galaxies collapsing inward. The cult bowed in blood-soaked awe. But Rhen didn’t bow. His glyph burned beneath his glove. Then he saw her—Vael—blade drawn, standing against the impossible. She was fire in human shape, defiance wrapped in grief. > “I know what you are,” she told the Mirrored One. And as the two locked eyes, the god’s gaze drifted— —to Rhen. Not in confusion. Not in hatred. In recognition. > “You…” the Mirrored One said. “She sent you.” Rhen said nothing. His mind spiraled with Ith’rael’s laughter, echoing from a place no sound should come. And in that moment, he realized: The Mirror had returned. But so had the Spiral. And this story had more than one god at war.