The Veil seemed to stretch on forever, a space both limitless and crushing, where time lost its hold. Yuzen walked forward, though her footsteps felt dreamlike, each step almost dissolving into the darkness as if the ground itself were slipping from her memory.
She had no sense of how long she had been moving, nor could she recall her purpose clearly, but fragments of conversations—familiar, yet faded—whispered at the edges of her mind. The faces of her crew, the blurred outlines of places she had once visited, all slipped away like water through her fingers. But she held onto her one remaining tether: her own name.
"I am Yuzen Raiel," she murmured to herself, as if speaking it aloud would anchor her. "I am Captain of the Sable Crescent."
The Veil shifted around her, and, as though in answer to her words, a new path unfolded before her. Alongside it, dim glimmers began to light up, each glow revealing a shadowy outline. They were memories, suspended in pools of light, waiting for her to see them.
Her fingers brushed against the first, and with a shiver, the memory enveloped her.
She stood now in a long-forgotten hall, cold and dark, where only flickering beams of pale light shone through narrow slits in the stone walls. It was a citadel, ancient and silent, its arches draped in thick banners marked with symbols that were familiar yet just beyond her grasp.
Footsteps echoed behind her, and Yuzen turned, recognizing the silhouette of her younger self, barely more than a cadet in the Lunar Kingdom's academy. Her face was a mask of steely determination, her jaw set with the conviction of youth. She was staring down an older man, clad in the regal uniform of the Eistian Fleet—Admiral Vareth Raiel, her father.
"It's a fool's errand, Yuzen," his voice was harsh but restrained. "You're risking everything for a myth. The Luvian Drift, the Aetherborn—they're ancient stories meant to keep us reaching for unattainable heights. There's no value in searching for shadows."
Young Yuzen bristled, her eyes flashing. "The Drift isn't just a story. It's out there, Father. The Sable Crescent has the technology. We could find answers, learn the truth."
"And if the truth comes with a cost you aren't prepared to pay?" Admiral Raiel's gaze softened, and he stepped forward, placing a hand on her shoulder. "We serve the living, Yuzen. Not the dead."
The scene blurred, the memory slipping from her like mist. Yuzen felt herself pulled back to the Veil, her mind reeling from the flood of emotion the memory had stirred—defiance, pride, and an aching sense of unfinished purpose. Her father had warned her, and yet she had followed the myth, convinced that the ancient mysteries held something that could change everything she knew.
And now, here she was.
The voice of the Keeper returned, soft and distant. "Your heart remembers. Even as the Veil claims you, it keeps you bound to the living. But beware—each memory you reclaim brings you closer to what you have lost…and to what the Veil itself desires."
"What does the Veil desire?" Yuzen asked, her voice wavering.
The Keeper's voice was as cool and remote as starlight. "It desires what it was created to hold: The Origin."
Yuzen's heart quickened. She'd read only fragments about the Origin, vague mentions in the classified archives of the Eistian royal libraries. The Origin was said to be the first act of creation, the spark from which all existence had flowed. To touch it, to know it, was to understand everything.
"Then take me to it," Yuzen demanded, her voice resolute.
There was a pause, then a whisper like silk unraveling. "If you seek the Origin, you will have to give yourself to the Veil completely. All of you, Captain Raiel."
Yuzen's jaw tightened. She had already lost so much—her memories, her connections, fragments of herself she could barely recall. But if the Veil held the Origin, if she could reach it, she would finally uncover the purpose she'd been searching for.
"Then I accept," she whispered, feeling a chill work its way through her.
The Veil darkened around her, and suddenly, the path was gone. She was falling, tumbling through void after void, each darker and colder than the last. The silence was absolute, a blanket that muffled even her thoughts.
And then, light.
She found herself standing on a plain of endless glass, beneath a sky that shifted with swirling, prismatic hues. Beneath her feet, she could see countless stars, galaxies swirling in vast clouds of gas, all locked in eternal motion. She had stepped into the heart of the Veil itself, a place beyond understanding, where existence unfolded like a tapestry before her.
In the distance, suspended in the empty space, she saw a shape—a massive, radiant sphere, glowing with a light that was almost painful to behold. It pulsed with energy, casting beams of pure white that stretched out like fingers, touching every corner of the endless plane. This was the Origin. The source of everything.
A presence loomed beside her. The Keeper, but no longer the veiled woman she'd encountered. Now she was something vast and unknowable, her form a silhouette rimmed in white fire, her face hidden behind an endless veil of shadow.
"The Origin holds the first memories," the Keeper intoned, her voice deeper, layered with echoes of countless voices. "What you see is the source of life, boundless and indivisible. Those who touch it are forever changed."
Yuzen felt her pulse hammering in her ears. She reached out, feeling the pull of the Origin, as if her very essence were being drawn toward it, pulled to be made part of it.
"I came here for the truth," Yuzen said, her voice almost lost in the vastness. "What is the Origin's purpose? Why does it exist?"
"The Origin is the memory of creation," the Keeper replied, each word resonant with age. "It was formed when the first star ignited, a spark in the void, and with it came all things—life, death, time. But it is not a creation for mortals. It was born beyond thought, beyond desire. It simply is."
Yuzen closed her eyes, absorbing the weight of those words. The Veil, the Forge, the mysteries she had followed for so long—they were not roads to answers, but to further mystery, to the endless ebb and flow of existence.
She opened her eyes, and the Keeper's gaze was fixed on her, her eyes burning with a question of their own. "Are you prepared to carry this truth back with you? To bear the memory of the Origin within your soul?"
Yuzen felt the weight of it, the vastness that would change her in ways she could not yet understand. The knowledge was not something to take lightly, but her heart held no doubt. She had come this far, and she could not turn back now.
"Yes," she whispered.
The Keeper's gaze softened, and she raised her hand. Light surged forward, a blinding wave that crashed over Yuzen, filling her with warmth, with understanding, with the memory of that first, endless light.
Her mind expanded, unfolding like the petals of a flower, stretching beyond her own thoughts, her own identity. She was the universe, bound to the stars and the dust between them. She saw the lives of civilizations as they were born and ended, the flickers of countless beings all dancing on the same vast canvas. She was connected to all of them, and they to her.
And at the heart of it all, she felt herself dissolving, her essence flowing into the Origin.
When Yuzen opened her eyes, she was standing back in the Veil, the Keeper gone, the Origin hidden once more behind the shroud of eternity. But something had shifted within her—she felt it in her bones, in the way her mind reached out, touching everything, connected to everything.
Rysara's face appeared before her, blurry but unmistakable, and Yuzen realized with a start that she was back aboard the Sable Crescent. Her first officer's eyes were wide, her expression one of shock and awe.
"Captain…are you…are you all right?"
Yuzen nodded slowly, feeling the weight of the Origin within her, an ember that pulsed with knowledge beyond words. "I am," she replied, her voice filled with quiet certainty.
The Veil's journey had changed her, given her a glimpse of the boundless, the eternal. She was no longer just Captain Yuzen Raiel—she was a part of something infinitely larger, a piece of a universe that breathed and remembered.
As she looked around the bridge, her gaze settling on each member of her crew, she knew they could not understand. Not yet. But she would guide them, she would lead them forward, carrying the memory of the Origin like a spark, a light that could guide them through whatever came next.
And she would remember.