“Some memories do not belong to a single life. They belong to the Veil.”

  — Fragmented Diary of Therran the Forgotten

  The world unraveled into silence.

  Kael no longer saw the forest. He didn’t hear Nim calling his name, nor feel the ground beneath his feet. Everything around him had been swallowed by thick, liquid darkness. And at its center… the rune glowed.

  But not on his arm.

  It now floated before him, suspended in the void, expanding in concentric rings that pulsed like the heartbeat of something ancient. Each line of the rune transformed into image, sound, scent — and memory.

  And then he saw.

  A field of black stones beneath a sky full of stars. Around it, seven figures in gray cloaks stood in a runic circle, chanting in a language that made the very air tremble. Their voices echoed through the stone, through Kael’s bones — or perhaps through his soul.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  At the center of the circle: a child. Frail. Trembling. Bearing the same mark on his arm.

  Kael.

  Or… someone who shared his face.

  One of the figures stepped forward — a woman with amber eyes, calm and piercing. She knelt before the child, touched his forehead with trembling fingers, and whispered:

  “You are the Heir of the Fifth Rune. The one who will hear the echoes of the Veil.”

  The child cried — not in fear. It was as if he recognized those words. As if he had heard them before, in another life.

  Around them, the runes began to glow with a cold fire. And the ground didn’t crack — time did.

  Fissures opened like fractures in reality itself, revealing other skies, other versions of the world. And at the center of it all… the child stood, wide-eyed, as the rune burned brighter.

  And then — darkness.

  Kael awoke with a gasp.

  He was on the ground again, the forest mist low around him. Nim knelt beside him, concern etched into her face. Around them, the fragments of the Veil stood still, watching — not as enemies, but as witnesses.

  “You were out for just a few seconds,” Nim said softly. “But your eyes were glowing. What did you see?”

  Kael looked at the shadows, then down at his own hand — where the rune now pulsed with something like awareness, as if it knew it had been seen.

  “I think I saw who I was,” he said at last. “Or who I was before I became me.”

  Nim narrowed her eyes.

  “Then we’re not just being followed,” she murmured. “You’re being… remembered.”