No one knows where she came from.
She was discovered wandering the outer edge of the Wraithwood at five winters old - barefoot, silent, half-starved. Spirit beasts roamed around her, but none were brave enough to come closer. A scout from the nearby village found her and brought her back, shaken and unsure. When she was asked what her name was, she spoke with a voice that did not seem to belong to her, and said:
"Morivaen."
They gave her food, clothes, a roof - but never trust. She lived her life without any parental care or true affection. She was never adopted, never loved. She was fed like a stray and watched like a curse. Her unusual silence made them feel uncomfortable, just like her eyes did.
Grey. Dull. Cold.
Neither the illumination of the blessed, nor the burning of the awakened Path's. But when the light hit just right, some claimed to see a broken ring - a dull symbol faintly encircling her pupil like a fractured halo behind fogged glass. But they would not shine brilliantly like those of the gifted and the awakened Paths.
It was there from the start.
The elders checked the old scrolls, the Path tomes, the symbols recorded through generations. No match. No name. No Path. They came to the conclusion that since there was no designated name or symbol to be matched with any Path, they declared it a defect. Perhaps a shimmer of madness in a child's eye. Thus no one cared.
And neither did she.
***
She laboured for her place - hauling water, scrubbing moldy, foul-smelling bathrooms, and caring for the deceased whom no one else attended to. The children mocked her. The adults avoided her. She learned to make herself small, cold, and still.
At the age of ten, she fell to a fever that should have killed her. For three nights she deliriously spoke in her sleep, muttering in a voice older than hers. On the fourth morning, she awoke - quiet, calm, untouched. That night, a spirit-beast came to her. A shape made of ash and breath, shifting without form, whispering in her bones:
"You are the fragment the flame forgot.
The world will remember you."
She revealed it to no one.
***
At thirteen, during the Ceremony of Calling, she was brought before the elders just like every other gifted child. They chanted, the sigils burned. Others called beasts, lit the skies with symbols of power. Morivaen stood in silence. Her breath turned to frost. The wind died. Her eyes flared just briefly - the broken ring glowing faint and cracked.
No one recognized it. The elders called her path failed. Her gift corrupted. There was no applause, no beast, no legacy.
Two days later, she was sent to Outpost Thorne - the end of the line for those the world has no use for.
***
But even now, when she stands alone in the frost-bitten barracks, or watches the dead trees groan in the dark, she wonders about that whisper. That mark. That flame no one sees but never left her.
And when the old gods stir once more…
They will know her as Veilith.