Vael

Intro Veilrend 15— Ash Beneath the Tongue Part 1 Vael hated the silence. Not because it meant danger—but because it meant Rhen wasn't talking. They walked through the ruined subterranean corridors of the collapsed cult sanctum, their boots crunching over glass and bone. Each echo was too long. Each shadow moved too much. In her hand, she clutched the shard. It was warm now, as if it had absorbed the heat of the devastation. Or the memory. She hadn’t let Rhen touch it—not yet. Something inside it breathed. > "That was Seris." She hadn’t said it out loud. But she knew. She had known the moment the Mirrored One had looked at her with that flicker of sorrow. And now… that presence was in the shard. Silent. Waiting. --- Rhen followed a few paces behind her. Too quiet. Too watchful. He looked ordinary. Thin. Bookish. Barely a thread of muscle beneath his robes. But something about him itched at her senses—like a blade near the base of her neck. There was something inside him. She had seen it during the collapse. A shimmer that bent light wrong. Glyphs glowing along his palm in the exact same geometry she'd seen in the forbidden texts. > Ith’rael. The name rose unbidden. Ancient. Forbidden. One of the Veiled Pantheon, the old ones who whispered between decisions, who fed not on blood but on potential. And now Rhen was walking beside her. Breathing like a man. Speaking like one. Pretending. > “Where are we going?” he asked, finally breaking the silence. His voice was too even. > “Out,” she said curtly. “Then north. The wardens at Dars-Myel might have a ritualist who can make sense of this.” She nodded toward the shard in her satchel. “Unless you know someone else.” He didn’t respond.