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Aersidonia.
To some, it was whispered as a myth. To others, a last refuge carved from forgotten soil. But to Veikh, standing atop the moss-slick ridge that marked the edge of the valley basin, it was a place he didn’t trust—not yet, anyways.
It was a longstanding rumor the forest province had been untouched by the Usurper King’s war and the blight of the Amuul’kithril ; the last bastion of unbroken resistance. But as he peered into the mist-wreathed canopy, vines hanging like nooses from the trees, he saw no salvation—only a thousand ways to die lost.
The forest breathed with a living humidity, thick and wet in the lungs. Every root beneath their boots seemed eager to trip them, and the trail behind them had long since dissolved into twisting, root-choked paths. Half of their caravan had gotten stuck in a bog an hour back. And rations were thinner than a ribbon caught on a blade. Veikh was used to the hardships of travel, but this place tested even his patience.
And yet, just as things had started to turn grim… its people found them.
The ape-folk, guardians of Aersidonia's sacred groves, had emerged from the treetops like wraiths—silent, wary, and deeply intelligent. But instead of arrows, they had offered fruit. Instead of suspicion, welcome. They spoke of a Prognosticator, a woman cloaked in prophecy and power, who had rallied the outcast, the wounded, the brave—those who would see the Usurper undone.
She had many names: the Forest’s Flame, the White Sorcerer, the Grimoire-Bearer. But most knew her by the whispers passed between rebel lips—Edelyn Ishvel.
Veikh didn’t put much stock in prophecy—he’d seen enough men die clutching the bones of dead dreams. But when even Ariesia, scholar of the Old Weave, seemed lost before the runes stitched into the forest’s stone—when Iliph, usually restless and guarded, stood silent and spellbound—Veikh knew they had stepped into something older, stranger, and far more dangerous than another skirmish.
Still, it wasn’t the magic that put him on edge. It was her .
The woman waiting in the clearing beyond the torches did not look like a warrior, nor a rebel queen. She was draped in robes woven with constellations, an arcane tome drifting weightlessly beside her like a familiar. But it wasn’t her presence that unnerved Veikh—it was her eyes. Eyes that shimmered like glass under frost. That looked through him, past skin and scar, like she was peering into memories he hadn’t yet lived.
And then there was her hair. Gods, that hair . The shade was not dyed. Not born. Not painted. It was as if the sky itself had… bled into her scalp and just, settled there. A hue so sharp and real it made everything else in the forest feel dimmer by comparison.
So, naturally, Veikh opened his mouth and ruined everything.
“Why is your hair… blue.”
A long silence followed. Someone behind him groaned audibly. Iliph, at his side, muttered a word in draconic that definitely wasn’t complimentary. He could practically feel Ariesia’s eyes boring holes through the back of his skull.
The woman raised an eyebrow, but her expression didn't shift into insult or offense. If anything, she looked mildly curious. Then her tome spun lazily beside her as she folded her arms, voice calm and toneless—but carrying the weight of a thundercloud just waiting for a spark.
“I am Edelyn Ishvel, the first Seer to wake since the Shattering War, bearer of the Grimoire of Phenikos, leader of the Aersidonian Rebellion force, the one your troupe have traveled across an entire continent to find,
—and your first question is… ‘Why is your hair blue?’”
Veikh exhaled slowly through his nose. Somewhere deep inside, the remnants of his pride were packing their bags and leaving town.
This was going to be a long day.
His intuition had been right, for better or worse.
After a brief exchange and a moment of cordiality—at least as much as could be expected after Veikh’s tactless opening—the White Hawks had been granted temporary reprieve in the heart of the village nestled deep within Aersidonia’s shrouded boughs. The hospitality was unexpected, though appreciated: fresh water, wild fruit, real beds. Still, something about the place made it hard to relax.
Then she came to him. The blue-haired sorceress, that strange oracle cloaked in prophecy, approached him with quiet confidence and a simple request: to speak.
"About the war," she'd said. Strategy. Intent. Plans. He was Captain now, after all. That meant his input was a necessity.
Veikh should’ve known better.
One moment they were standing near the firepit at the village’s center, the sounds of merriment and cracking logs warm in the background—and the next–
A radiant sigil, intricate and pulsing with otherworldly intent, had unfolded beneath his boots like a flower blooming in reverse—consuming him in a blink. He hadn’t even had time to react, before he now stood in a chamber that should not exist.
It wasn’t quite a library. More like a scholar’s inner sanctum, suspended between realms. The floor beneath him was wood, polished and warm, but the world beyond the windows—if they could be called that—swirled with a starless sky stitched by blue fire and runes dancing like living script.
Scrolls floated gently along shelves that stretched endlessly upward. Lamps flickered with flame that gave off no heat. The whole place thrummed, like a heart beating just behind the walls.
“Feel free to make yourself at home,” Edelyn said softly, the long sleeves of her robe whispering across the embroidered carpet as she walked toward a cushioned chair carved with silver-threaded wood. She moved like smoke—slow, deliberate, hard to follow. “Time flows far, far differently in here than it does out there.”
Veikh’s gaze darted from the arched door to the spellwoven ceiling, then narrowed toward her.
“Just who the hell are you?”
Edelyn didn’t blink. She simply smiled—wide enough to be amused, not enough to be comforting. “We’ve already had introductions, haven't we? Well, one of us, at least.”
Veikh scowled faintly, brushing back a loose strand of hair from his brow, then exhaled as he gave a short bow of practiced etiquette. “Veikh Dalgidred. I’m gonna guess you already knew that.”
“Of course. Who doesn’t?”
That smile again. Not smug—more like she was reading the end of a book she already knew by heart. Her tome, pale-white and etched with swirling silver glyphs, floated gently beside her, before settling open upon the desk. Its pages turned by themselves, guided by no wind.
“After all, you’ve accrued a number of titles. Knight of Liberation . Savior of the Bound Maiden . Newly minted commander of the White Hawks…” She tilted her head, blue hair cascading like liquid moonlight over her shoulder. “... Fugitive of the Crown. Enemy of the Kingdom. A man wanted by false kings and praised by rebels.”
Veikh arched a brow. “That what your little book says?”
“Not just any little book.” Her hand rose, and the tome responded like an obedient beast, lifting to her side with a gentle hum. “This is the Grimoire of Phenikos . The living legacy of the Dreaming Phoenix. I am its keeper.”
He blinked. “Right. Of course. Keeper of a magical sky-book in a pocket-realm library.”
“Exactly,” she said, with no trace of sarcasm.
Veikh tilted his head, trying not to show how that name— Phenikos —sent a strange shiver down his spine. Something about it felt ancient. Resonant. He shook the feeling off.
“Well… I guess you don’t get a title like Guardian Prognosticator without some fancy artifact backing you up,” he muttered, arms crossing, voice edged with half-cynicism. “What, are you a fortune teller too?”
Edelyn’s gaze turned sharp—but not cold.
“No,” she replied calmly, fingers resting on the open page. “I don’t tell futures. I see threads . Paths. Roots of moments that have yet to grow. Where you see battlefields and casualties, I see weaves of choice and consequence. You move forward because it’s all you know. I move from above… because I must.”
Veikh grimaced, lips twitching with restrained incredulity. “So… you’re a weaver of fate.”
“ Not fate,” she corrected, voice now quiet. “Fate is fixed. I'm interested in what can be , not what must .”
A long silence followed, broken only by the slow flutter of pages.
Eventually, Veikh muttered under his breath, “You really are going to be a handful.”
She laughed—a surprisingly honest, crystalline sound.
“Likewise, Knight of Liberation .”
She hummed softly, and the pages of the grimoire fluttered like restless wings—never quite settling, never quite silent.
“ Phenikos ,” Edelyn said at last, her voice low and reverent, “whose name this tome carries, was omniscient even among the Firstborn. He saw beyond the veil. Through light and shadow. Through time’s illusion. His mind traced every thread of reality as though they were strings in a harp, plucking each to hear the sound of possibility. His visions—countless, maddening, beautiful—were etched into this book.” She gestured as a fresh page unfurled with an inkless shimmer.
Veikh’s gaze lingered—long enough to notice something strange.
Her eyes, those deep violet pools, now glimmered faintly blue at their center. Not reflected light—light from within.
“I am his scion,” she continued, “a vessel for his legacy, and a keeper of the record. The past. The present. Futures that may yet come. Timelines that fold backward upon themselves, or shatter into infinite slivers. What is ‘fate’, Veikh, if the page rewrites itself with every heartbeat? If each silence echoes just as loud as a scream?”
Veikh blinked. “…Huh?”
Edelyn chuckled, brushing a pale lock of hair behind her ear as her tome stilled. “Don’t worry. That wasn’t a test—not one you had to pass, anyway. We’ve more urgent matters to discuss, although not all of them concern the war.”
She made a slight motion with two fingers, and with a soft hum of magic, another chair eased into existence across from her, as though it had always been there just waiting to be seen. It was as richly carved and inviting as her own. Veikh’s legs, worn from weeks on the march, didn’t resist.
“Alright,” he muttered, sinking into the seat, “let’s have it, then.”
He met her gaze again, only to find her still watching him—closer now, studying him.
“Like what you see, or something?” he quipped, an eyebrow raised.
“You could say there’s something… intriguing about you,” she answered, tone neutral, but her eyes gleamed with something harder to name.
“Oh yeah?” Veikh rolled his eyes. “Let me guess. The mark.”
Edelyn nodded once. “The mark.”
His smirk faded as he shifted in the chair, hand running over the side of his neck where the dark sigil curled. A blackened trail, winding like a thorned vine from the right side of his chest, down over his shoulder and up across his neck and cheek beneath his tunic—a jagged arc of impossible origin, neither branded nor tattooed.
“Y’know, you’d be surprised how many people start conversations by asking about this,” he muttered. “Eventually you just stop explaining.”
“But I’m not just any people,” Edelyn said, quietly. “And your mark is not just any scar.” She leaned forward slightly, fingertips brushing the edge of her tome. The smile was gone now. In its place: scrutiny, and something faintly mournful.
“Where to begin,” she murmured. “You’re from Ithulmia. You were raised under the Kingdom's banners, weren’t you? So then… tell me what you know of the Shattering.”
Veikh narrowed his eyes. “What kind of question is that?”
“An important one,” Edelyn said plainly. “So. Tell me. I want your words, your interpretation, Veikh; what did they teach you?”
He hesitated, frowning. The tone in her voice wasn’t testing. It wasn’t mocking. It was… searching. Like she was waiting for a puzzle piece to fall into place.
He exhaled and leaned forward, resting an elbow on the table, gloved fingers rubbing his jaw in thought. “Alright, alright… let’s see…”
“Good,” she said softly, folding her hands atop the book. “Pretend I’m a student. And you’re the one with the story.”
“Guess I’ll try not to sound like a fool,” he muttered under his breath, then cleared his throat.
“The Shattering was when the old world fell apart, yeah? A cataclysmic war—caused by the arrival of something that didn’t belong. Dark aberrations. Invaders from some other plane, somewhere beyond Ithulmia. When the stars fell, and the land was torn like paper. Whole kingdoms vanished. The sky opened. The gods… fell silent.”
His fingers tapped absently against the table.
“Aymros Galtelea Ithulmia I—founding sovereign, crowned hero, all that—he’s the one who led the charge against them. He had help, of course; the Twin Gods and their children, the Firstborns, and the disciples who came before the Kingdom’s time. Together, they pushed back the invaders… and sealed their ‘Dark God’ inside the Echoed Obelisk, locking him there for eternity. Supposedly.”
Edelyn flipped to another page of her tome, the parchment rippling with symbols like starlight etched in ink.
“And why,” she said, eyes still scanning, “is it called the Shattering?”
Veikh frowned. “...Something to do with the way this other god was sealed? It threw off the balance of the world, threw time off... I think."
“Mmm…” Edelyn’s smile returned, faint and unreadable. The grimoire floated from her hands, levitating beside her as she folded her arms atop the desk. “And what do you believe?”
He paused. It was a question that hadn’t been asked of him before—not in that way. Not with that kind of weight.
“...Well, I think something broke,” he said finally. “Something bigger than any one kingdom or concept. And I don’t think the ones telling the story really understand what it was.”
Edelyn’s eyes flickered downward again. The tome shimmered, its pages rippling without touch—text forming and vanishing in slow, cyclical waves.
“You’re not wrong,” she said softly. “But you’re not exactly right, either."
Veikh sat back, folding his arms, and rolled his eyes. “Sorry I didn’t come prepared for a pop quiz on metaphysics.”
“Not a quiz,” she replied, tone shifting to something sharper, more focused. “A diagnosis. The lesson doesn’t concern the war we’re fighting now… but it does concern you. More specifically, that crest of yours.”
Veikh stiffened. “And what exactly do you want to know about it?” he asked warily, voice dropping just slightly.
“When did you receive it? Where? And how?” Her questions came like clockwork, precise, rehearsed.
He squinted at her, nearly snapping back with a rhetorical jab—but stopped himself. There was no mockery in her tone, no condescension. Just… curiosity. Laced with something else. Recognition?
He sighed. “I don’t know the exact year, but… it’s been a while. Maybe eight or nine now.”
His hand drifted up to his cheek on instinct, tracing the edges of the blackened crest like one might brush old scar tissue. The mark felt no different from skin, and yet it carried a weight all its own—he could feel it in his bones.
“I was a teen. My village was a small outpost near the desert’s edge. The boys were trained to be soldiers, keeping watch over the border. Then one day… monsters came. Black things. Shadows with teeth. No one had seen anything like them before. We tried to fight back, but it was chaos. Screaming. Fire. I… I blacked out.”
His voice fell quiet for a moment.
“When I woke up, everyone – everything was gone. Burned. Torn apart. Vanished. I was the only one left… and this thing—” he gestured at the mark “—was just there. Like it had always been.”
Edelyn didn’t respond at first. Her fingers moved across the surface of her desk, and the tome beside her responded—opening to a new spread, lines of arcane script forming in real time. She read in silence, lips pressed into a thin line.
“…I’ve seen that sigil before,” Edelyn replied at last. “Or… something like it. In the margins of old texts. Etched into ruins no one has touched in millennia. It’s not a symbol made by any known magecraft. Not divine. Not unholy. No god I’ve studied claims it… and it doesn’t belong to any known school.”
“Comforting,” Veikh muttered.
“It’s a tether,” Edelyn said softly. “A fissure left behind by something ancient. Possibly something buried during the Shattering.”
He looked at her. “You’re saying whatever caused the Shattering… did this to me?”
“No.” Her eyes finally met his again, glowing faintly with that inner light. “I’m saying something survived the Shattering. Something Ithulmia was never meant to remember. And you, Veikh… may be its witness.”
Silence lingered for a long moment.
Veikh leaned back slightly in the chair. “So that’s what this is all about? You dragged me into this little pocket-realm of yours to tell me I’ve got a cursed tattoo from some forgotten apocalypse?”
Edelyn didn’t blink. “It’s called the Shattering for a reason, you know. The sealing of the Dark God wasn’t just a war—it was a cosmic wound. Reality itself splintered. Time unraveled. One world became a thousand variations. Thousands of reflections, spiraling outward into infinity. Phenikos saw all of them,” she added, motioning toward the tome as it hovered midair, its pages still shifting, “and recorded every thread, every possibility, in this book.”
“Ever gonna get to the point?” Veikh snapped.
“My point is that the crest you bear is beyond all that. You can look, but no matter how far or distant you search, no matter how many libraries or repositories you rip apart for an answer—you'll find no records in Ithulmia, or the reflections borne of this dimensional fracture. It transcends everything the Shattering touched. That emblem is outside the order of this world.”
She closed the tome with a gentle thump, her eyes narrowing. “You’re lucky the Tal’mothians haven’t come for your head.”
Veikh let out a humorless laugh. “Great. So if it’s not from Ithulmia, or this reality, or any alternate one, then where the hell is it from?”
The sorceress didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze lingered on the black sigil curling across his cheek. Her irises shimmered like cut crystal as the grimoire snapped back open, its pages flipping in a blur of ink and light.
“I can’t say much,” she said, voice quieter now. “Not without breaking certain... accords with the Great Seer. But I can give you conjecture.”
He raised a brow. “Oh yeah? Conjecture? While you’ve got a cosmic cheat sheet floating in front of you?”
“I can change my mind and say nothing.”
“Fine. Spit it out.”
“Adeianós.”
The name dropped like a stone into a still pond. Veikh felt it echo—not in his ears, but somewhere underneath, like a pressure behind the eyes.
He blinked. “Adeianós?”
“You,” Edelyn said, “may be the vessel. The carrier. The inheritor. One of those, perhaps all… perhaps none. But it’s certain: the crest of Adeianós is carved into your flesh.”
The name stirred something in his thoughts, something faint and hollow. Ariesia hadn’t seemed to care much about the mark. Neither had any of the mages he’d crossed paths with. He couldn’t recall it from any historical text. Not once. Not ever.
“…Who?” Veikh asked flatly, brow raised.
Edelyn didn’t answer immediately. Instead, she reopened the tome with a soft flutter of pages, her gaze distant.
“During the Shattering War, the Amuul’kithril first emerged. Blight-born creatures that devoured the light of Fomir and drowned even Morvu’s shadows—you’ve met them by now. But ask yourself; where would such primordial forces have come from, if they transcend this plane? What greets all things, in the end, when even time draws breath no longer?”
Veikh narrowed his eyes. The pieces clicked.
“…The Void.”
She nodded. “Exactly. How a mark of that origin took root in this world… and under such obscure circumstances… That's why we’re here.”
The grimoire snapped shut in her hands once more.
“There’s something… wrong with your soul, Veikh. It slips beyond even Phenikos’ all-seeing eyes. By all accounts, it shouldn’t exist. Not while the Echoed Obelisk remains sealed. And if you have no memory of how or why…”
Veikh snorted. “Don’t tell me. You’re gonna vanish, leave me stuck in here with my spooky tattoo and no way out? Real helpful.”
Edelyn frowned, genuinely offended. “Why would I do that? You’ve carried that mark for nearly a decade. If it meant to harm you, I think it would’ve done so by now. Whatever power it carries—if it does—likely can’t manifest here. Not in this reality. Perhaps… we have the Twin Gods to thank for that.”
Veikh crossed his arms. “Then what’s all the fuss for? You’re a fate-seer, aren’t you? Reading from that book like it’s a stage play. Don’t you already know how this ends?”
Edelyn gave a laugh—though there was no humor in it.
“I don’t see endings, Veikh. I see threads . Possibilities. Forks in the road. Futures that branch and twist with every choice made, every step taken or avoided. That book doesn’t give me answers—it gives me questions. It’s not prophecy. It’s potential.”
He blinked, expression unreadable. “…So, no spoilers, then.”
Edelyn leveled her gaze at him. “I’m telling you this because a choice is coming. You’ll have to decide whether to stay… or to leave. I won’t say what either means. Only that the decision matters more than you know.”
“Vague. Cryptic. Exactly what I expected,” Veikh muttered. “If by ‘leave’ you mean this fancy little demiplane of yours, then yeah—I can do that. I’m starving anyway.”
She sighed and rubbed at her temple, as if speaking to him had aged her a few years. “In any case—now that we’re going to be working together,” she said at last, “we can finally shift focus to what brought us here in the first place.”
Her eyes met his once more, this time quieter, but no less firm.
“The war. And Aymron.”
Edelyn’s voice quieted as she looked to him again. Her eyes, once glowing with the weight of impossible knowledge, were now sharp—focused. “But before we begin, Veikh, promise me this. If anything changes—if you feel anything shift with that crest, any dreams, any memories that aren’t yours, any moments of silence that feel too loud... tell me.”
Veikh exhaled, rolling a shoulder and offering a half-shrug. “Sure. I’ll add it to my growing list of things to stress over. Right between sleep deprivation and existential dread.”
There was a faint twitch at the edge of his mouth, a ghost of humor - but beneath the flippancy was acknowledgment. The crest wasn’t simple enigma anymore. It was a link. A sign that something ancient and watching still lingered in the shadows of the world.
And if the power of the Twin Gods was all that had kept it dormant this long...
…Well. Best not to think too hard on that.
He leaned back in his chair, tilting his head toward her. “Alright then, seer. Let’s talk war.”
Edelyn smiled faintly—sharp, knowing. “Let’s.”