The moon hung low and indifferent over Vireth, painting the streets in a pale, indifferent silver. Aerin moved quietly, his footsteps absorbed by the night, though the weight of the carved box against his chest made each step feel heavier than it should. The whispering inside it had not stopped. If anything, it had grown louder, threading through his veins like liquid fire, guiding him toward something unseen, something hidden.
He knew the streets well—or at least he thought he did. Every corner, every alley, every shuttered window had been memorized over years of wandering and delivering scrolls for Master Corvyn. But tonight, the familiar paths seemed... wrong. Skewed. Shadows stretched and bent as though the buildings themselves had shifted in sleep. And always, at the edge of his vision, a faint ripple of movement—something that didn't belong.
Aerin's hand tightened around the box. The symbols on its surface glimmered faintly, as if alive. Follow the shadows. Find the forgotten. Save what cannot be remembered. The message was clear, even if its meaning was not.
Ahead, a figure detached itself from the gloom—a woman wrapped in a dark hood, moving with the fluid grace of someone who did not fear being unseen. She paused, turned her head, and for a heartbeat, Aerin thought she had no face. Then, as their eyes met, he felt a chill—not of cold, but of recognition.
He had never met her. Yet her presence felt like a key in a lock he had not yet discovered.
She spoke, and the sound was almost swallowed by the wind. "The world is forgetting faster tonight. Step lightly, Aerin Vael. Or you may not be remembered either."
He froze. She knew his name. Not called him Aerin, not even whispered it from memory—but known it. How?
"Who… who are you?" His voice sounded small in the vast emptiness of the deserted square.
The figure inclined her head, and in a gesture too subtle to seem intentional, she dropped something at his feet. A small crystal, no bigger than a coin, glowing faintly with a pulse that matched his own heartbeat. "Find the first thread. Pull it. But do not unravel yourself."
Before he could respond, she was gone, dissolving into the night as though swallowed by it.
Aerin knelt to pick up the crystal. Warm. Alive. And in its warmth, a memory stirred—one that was not his own. A laugh. A smell of candle smoke and parchment. A hand brushing his shoulder. And then… nothing. Just the echo of something erased.
He stood, heart hammering, and looked around the empty streets. The town of Vireth appeared unchanged. Ordinary. Safe. Yet he knew, deep inside, that the ordinary was a lie. Every vanished neighbor, every forgotten story, every erased name had been a thread holding the world together. And tonight, those threads were fraying.
The whispering from the box grew urgent. Noctyra. Noctyra. Follow the path.
Aerin took a deep breath, adjusting the cloak over his shoulders. The map Corvyn had given him in fragmented pieces would only take him so far. The rest, he realized, would be discovered in movement, in instinct. He stepped into the alleyways, guided by the faint pulse of the crystal, feeling his connection to the hidden world deepen with each careful step.
Time began to bend. Not in hours or minutes, but in sensation. A familiar alley that should have led him toward the northern gates seemed to stretch endlessly, twisting into a corridor of shadows that whispered in voices half-remembered. Aerin shivered. The veil is thinner here. He could sense it—the boundary between the Seen and the Veiled, fragile and trembling like a spider's web in the wind.
Then he saw it: a door, unremarkable, set into the side of an abandoned building. Its surface was cracked and aged, but faint golden symbols shimmered along the frame. The crystal pulsed in his hand, almost violently now, as though urging him forward.
Aerin hesitated. Every instinct screamed that this was dangerous, perhaps deadly. But something deeper, older, undeniable, urged him onward. He pressed a hand against the door. It was warm. Alive. A heartbeat beneath his palm.
And then the door opened.
Not into another room, but into a corridor bathed in soft silver light. The air smelled of rain on stone and candles burned somewhere unseen. The walls were lined with mirrors, each reflecting a slightly different Aerin—not the same, but versions of him erased from memory, faded, yet somehow real. He staggered back, almost dropping the box.
A whisper came again. Choose a reflection. Follow it. Remember what was forgotten.
Aerin stepped forward, the pulse of the crystal syncing with his own heartbeat. Each step into the corridor felt like stepping into another layer of the world. Time shifted. Shadows moved of their own accord. The whispers grew into words: names, events, memories that had been erased from the town, from the streets, from his very life. Each name called to him, tugging at his heart with a weight that was both unbearable and intoxicating.
He paused before a mirror that showed him not as he was, but as someone standing at a crossroads he could not remember choosing. A choice he had not made, but which had made him. He raised a hand, and the crystal flared bright. The pulse of magic surged into him, and for a moment, he felt everything: every erased name, every forgotten person, every lost thread of the world.
And then the corridor shuddered. A shadow darker than night poured from the walls, reaching for him. He stumbled backward, the crystal glowing fiercely, holding the shadow at bay.
A voice echoed, deep and resonant, not from any person, but from the world itself: "The veil is thinning, Aerin Vael. Walk carefully. What is forgotten tonight may never be remembered again."
He swallowed hard, gripping the box and the crystal together. His journey had begun. And already, the world was whispering his name—one that may be erased before dawn.