The sky above Varynth was a bruised shade of violet, streaked with veins of gold that shone through the crackling air like fire beneath cracked glass. It was the first sign of instability. Mirae stood alone on the high parapet, gazing into the distance, her fingers lightly tracing the iron glyphs on the staff she held. Each marking hummed faintly beneath her touch, as though alive, just as the Veil itself had grown restless.
The city below sprawled in disarray, the ancient spires of Varynth leaning toward the horizon, seeming to bend and straighten like drunken monuments under the influence of some invisible force. It was the Veil. It always came back to the Veil. The fabric between worlds was thinning, and Mirae could feel the familiar weight of the fracture pressing against her chest.
Behind her, the sounds of the Sanctum's bells rang out, deep and mournful, a warning to those within the city to prepare for the inevitable. To the common folk, they were mere chimes marking the hour. But to Mirae, the bells were a grave announcement—the city's last echo of peace before the Echoes descended.
Mirae's thoughts were interrupted by the hurried footsteps of Dain, the young acolyte from the Sanctum. His face was drawn, pale beneath his ash-blond hair, and his eyes were wide with anxiety as he ascended the steps to join her at the parapet. He was out of breath, but there was something more than physical exhaustion in the way he carried himself.
"You—You can feel it, can't you?" Dain gasped as he reached her side, his voice rising in pitch. He wiped his brow with the back of his hand. "The breach—it's widening faster than any we've seen. The Council—"
"I don't care what the Council says." Mirae's voice was sharp, cutting through his words like a blade. "They'll talk themselves into oblivion while the city burns. I'm going to stop it."
Dain flinched at her tone but didn't respond immediately. Instead, he stared out at the horizon, at the darkening sky where a fracture in the Veil had begun to glow faintly. It was a jagged tear, a wound in the world itself. Tendrils of energy surged outward, distorting the air around it in erratic waves. Mirae could feel the pull of it even from this distance, a coldness in the air that made her skin crawl.
"They're already coming," Dain murmured, eyes still fixed on the breach. "I can feel them. The Echoes are stirring." He glanced over at her, his voice lowering. "Are you sure you want to do this? You've never—"
"I'm sure," she said, her eyes narrowing, fixing on the darkening void in the sky. "I have no choice. You've seen what happens when the Veil falters. The last time it tore like this…" She trailed off, remembering the horrors that had followed the first breach. "We can't wait for the Council's orders anymore. If we don't act, Varynth will fall."
Dain's fingers twisted nervously around the hem of his cloak, and Mirae could see the hesitation in his posture. He had never been truly comfortable with the more… unorthodox methods Mirae employed, but that wasn't a luxury they had now. The Echoes weren't like anything else. They were fragments of the Veil itself—creatures, spirits, anomalies that warped reality. The only way to stop them was to use their own power against them. And Mirae was the only one who could summon them.
Her staff pulsed faintly in her hands, the glyphs glowing like embers. "Get ready, Dain," she said quietly. "It's time."
He looked at her, uncertainty still clouding his expression, but his words came out in a soft, resigned whisper. "I'll prepare the wards. You know this is dangerous, Mirae. Once you do this—there's no going back."
Mirae didn't answer. Her gaze remained fixed on the rift in the Veil, growing wider with each passing moment. She raised her staff and felt the familiar tug of the ancient language of the Echoes stirring within her chest, just beyond her reach. The glyphs on the staff began to glow brighter, more urgently now. The air thickened with power. And then, she spoke the words.
They were not words, really—more like the echo of words, fragments of syllables that existed before language itself. The air crackled with energy, a surge of soundless power that twisted through the atmosphere like an electric current. The rift in the sky responded. Mirae could feel it in her bones, the pull, the resistance, the hunger.
The first of the Echoes appeared before her, flickering into being like a mirage. A faint, translucent figure, its shape humanoid but shifting, like smoke trapped in a jar. Mirae felt the whisper of its presence in her mind, a thousand voices all speaking at once, each one pulling at her sanity in different directions. The words were incomprehensible, a jumbled mess of emotions, thoughts, and histories she could not begin to understand.
"You dare wake us again?" The voice echoed in her mind, and Mirae shuddered. "Do you think you are ready? Do you think you can control us?"
Her grip tightened around the staff, and she suppressed a tremor that threatened to overtake her. "I'm not ready," she muttered under her breath, more to herself than to the Echo, "but I don't have a choice."
Another Echo appeared beside the first, its form more solid, less flickering. It turned toward her with a kind of eerie deliberation, as though considering the wisdom of this summoning. Mirae closed her eyes briefly, centering herself. This was the moment. The one she had been dreading. She knew what would come next.
The words tumbled out of her mouth, ancient and forbidden, a chant that called to the very heart of the Veil. "You will protect this city. You will fight the darkness that comes. In my name, in the name of Varynth, I command you."
The moment the last syllable left her lips, a violent surge of energy shot from the staff, blasting her backward and slamming her into the stone wall of the parapet. The world spun. Her vision blurred. Pain shot through her, but she gritted her teeth and pushed herself to her feet.
The Echoes had obeyed. For now.
The first wave of them moved toward the fissure, gliding like shadows over the stone, but Mirae's gaze was still fixed on the sky, where the breach continued to widen. She had no illusions about the nature of what was coming through the rift. These creatures, these Echoes, were only a stopgap, a temporary defense. The rift was growing too large, too fast.
And then, she saw it.
A figure stepped through the breach, its presence making the air vibrate with a sickening resonance. It was not an Echo. No, this thing was something else. A being of solid darkness, its armor black as night, absorbing all light around it. The mask that obscured its face reflected no light, no emotion. Just cold, impenetrable void.
Mirae's heart thudded in her chest as it took another step forward. The Echoes hesitated, their movements slowing. Even they sensed it—this thing was no mere spirit.
Dain's voice trembled from behind her, whispering in disbelief. "It's not an Echo… What is it?"
The figure turned its head toward Mirae, though she couldn't see its eyes. The silence between them stretched unnervingly long. Then, its voice slithered into her mind, a rasping, cold sound that made her skin crawl.
"I am the harbinger," it said, and Mirae felt the weight of its words, the gravity behind them. "And you are already too late."
Before she could react, a wave of force slammed into her, sending her crashing into the parapet wall with bone-jarring impact. Stars exploded behind her eyes. When she managed to look up, the harbinger was gone, and the rift had grown wider still, more chaotic.
Dain was kneeling beside her, his face pale and drenched with sweat. "What do we do now?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, the words heavy with the weight of desperation.
Mirae struggled to sit up, her head throbbing, but she found her resolve. "We fight," she said, her voice steady despite the dread building in her chest. "No matter what it takes."
The city was about to be consumed. The Veil was breaking.
And they were the last line of defense.
End of Chapter 1