Kael woke to chains biting into his skin.
Not cold.
Not hot.
Something worse—null. The Vein-suppressors wrapped around his wrists and spine drank the energy from his body the way thirst drinks rain. Every breath felt shallow, every thought slightly dulled, like he was underwater.
He lay on a circular platform of black crystal suspended over an abyss.
Below him, the Veins glowed—slow, rhythmic pulses of pale blue light stretching downward into depths without end. The sound they made was subtle but constant, like a colossal heartbeat buried beneath the world.
Thump.
Thump.
Thump.
Kael tried to sit up.
Pain lanced through his skull.
"Don't," a voice said softly.
He turned his head.
Lysandra sat several feet away, also bound, her wrists chained to a spire of crystal. Her face was pale but defiant, eyes locked on him as if afraid he might vanish if she looked away.
"They're preparing the chamber," she said. "If you fight the suppressors, they'll increase the drain. It can kill you."
Kael swallowed. His throat felt raw.
"How long was I out?"
"Long enough."
That answer scared him more than a number.
Around them, Shadefall moved.
The Trial Chamber was alive with activity—robed enforcers adjusting Vein pylons, mystics tracing sigils into the floor with glowing dust, soldiers lining the circular terraces above. Hundreds of eyes watched from the shadows.
Not spectators.
Judges.
Executioners.
The Council of Shadefall sat elevated at the far end of the chamber, their masks reflecting the Vein-light in fractured patterns. Behind them, massive Vein-spires rose like ribs in a colossal skeleton.
Kael's chest tightened.
"This is about memory," he whispered. "Isn't it?"
Lysandra nodded grimly. "They'll tear yours open. Not just what you remember—but what's buried. What was erased. What isn't yours."
Kael closed his eyes.
Aurelia stirred.
This is where they always break you, she said, her voice quieter than before. Or kill you.
You've been here before? Kael asked silently.
Many times.
Fear crawled up his spine.
A deep horn sounded.
The chamber fell silent.
The central councilor rose.
"Let the Trial by Memory begin."
The Veins responded instantly.
Light surged upward from the abyss, wrapping Kael in spiraling strands of energy. The suppressors screamed as they strained to hold him down. His body lifted involuntarily, suspended in midair as the Veins crawled across his skin like living wire.
Kael cried out.
The pain wasn't physical.
It was invasive.
Something pushed against his mind—not violently, but insistently, like fingers prying open a locked door.
"No—" Kael gasped. "Please—"
The mystic stepped forward.
Her eyes were no longer clouded.
They were blazing.
"Do not resist," she intoned. "The Veins will only take more."
Kael's vision fractured.
The chamber dissolved.
---
He stood in the Sunbound Capital.
But it wasn't the present.
The sky was wrong—darker, streaked with crimson Vein-light. Buildings lay in ruins, fractured streets floating like broken teeth above a churning abyss.
Screams echoed.
Kael staggered forward, heart racing.
"This isn't real," he whispered.
"Memory rarely is," said a voice behind him.
He turned.
A girl stood there.
She had his face.
Same eyes.
Same jawline.
But softer. Sharper. Older.
Her hair flowed like molten light, and Vein-filaments wrapped around her body like armor grown from living metal.
Aurelia.
"You," Kael breathed.
She smiled sadly. "Me."
The ground trembled.
Far in the distance, continents cracked apart, massive landmasses tearing themselves free from the planet like scabs ripped from flesh. Oceans poured into the sky. Mountains folded inward.
Kael dropped to his knees.
"You did this."
Aurelia's expression hardened.
"I was made to do this."
The scene shattered—
---
Kael gasped as he was yanked into another memory.
A laboratory.
Sunbound.
White walls. Surgical lights. Bodies floating in glass chambers.
His body.
Dozens of them.
Clones.
Children.
Adults.
Failures.
A scientist's voice echoed.
"Subject K-47 shows instability. Prepare reset."
Kael screamed.
"No—this isn't—this isn't me!"
But it was.
He remembered the pain now.
The erasure.
The restarts.
The deaths.
The chamber roared with reactions as the memory projected outward—holographic Vein-light spilling his past across the walls for all to see.
Shadefall soldiers recoiled.
Councilors leaned forward.
Lysandra stared in horror.
"You were made," she whispered.
Kael's voice broke. "I didn't know."
The mystic staggered backward.
"This isn't one soul," she said shakily. "This is a series."
The Veins pulsed harder.
Cracks formed along the Trial Chamber floor.
The central councilor barked, "Contain the surge!"
Vein pylons flared, forcing Kael's body rigid as another memory ripped free—
---
The First Sundering.
Aurelia stood atop a Vein-throne grown from the planet's core. Billions screamed below as the world fractured. Veins wrapped around her like a crown.
But her face—
She was crying.
"I tried to warn them," she sobbed. "They wouldn't stop."
Kael felt her pain like it was his own.
"You destroyed everything," he said.
She looked at him sharply.
"No. I reset it."
The memory twisted—
Sunbound survivors rising from underground shelters.
Civilizations rebuilt.
History rewritten.
Heroes fabricated.
The truth buried.
Kael collapsed inward.
"That's why they call me the Destroyer."
"No," Aurelia said softly. "They call me that."
She stepped closer.
"And they made you so they wouldn't need me anymore."
The memory imploded.
---
Kael slammed back into his body with a scream.
The Trial Chamber erupted into chaos.
Vein-energy exploded outward, throwing soldiers from their feet. Crystalline supports shattered. The abyss below churned violently, Veins writhing like serpents awakened from sleep.
"CUT THE LINK!" someone shouted.
The suppressors glowed red-hot.
Kael convulsed.
Lysandra broke free.
She didn't know how—only that she moved. Her bonds shattered as if rejecting containment. She sprinted toward Kael through falling debris.
"KAEL!"
The mystic screamed, clutching her head. "The girl—she's awake!"
The Council rose in unison.
"EXECUTE HIM!" one shouted.
Weapons powered up.
Aurelia's voice filled Kael's mind, no longer calm.
They're going to kill you. Let me help.
No, Kael thought desperately. I won't let you take control.
Then we die.
A Sunbound-style Vein-cannon descended from the ceiling, repurposed for execution.
It charged.
Lysandra leapt between Kael and the cannon.
"STOP!"
The commander hesitated.
Just long enough.
Kael screamed—not in fear, but refusal.
The Veins answered.
Chains shattered.
Suppressors exploded.
Kael rose into the air as raw Vein-light wrapped around him, not violently, but protectively—like arms.
The cannon fired.
The blast bent.
Curved.
Missed.
The chamber froze.
Kael hovered above the abyss, eyes glowing faintly—not Aurelia's blinding light, but something new.
"I am not her," he said, voice shaking but strong. "And I won't be your weapon."
The Council recoiled.
The Veins pulsed once—
—and a section of the chamber collapsed entirely, opening a vertical shaft straight into the depths.
Aurelia laughed softly in his mind.
You've never done that before.
Kael looked down.
The abyss was opening wider.
Pulling.
Lysandra screamed his name as the ground beneath him gave way.
Kael fell.
Not screaming.
Not resisting.
Falling into Vein-light—
As Shadefall alarms blared.
As the Council shouted orders.
As the world above began to realize something had gone terribly wrong.