They call themselves the Veilborn.
A faction that has risen like smoke from cracks in the west.
Wearing white veils and no names, they travel in silence—and wherever they go, memories disappear.
Not buried.
Not lost.
Erased.
Kael hears of them a week after leaving Thorne's Hollow.
A caravan of Reawakened goes missing.
When they're found, the people are alive—but their minds are empty husks.
No names.
No languages.
No fear.
Only silence.
Like blank pages with legs.
Evan curses under his breath as he reads the report.
"They're using forbidden Blueprint codes."
"Rituals designed to overwrite thought at the structural level."
Naia slams a dagger into the table.
"So they're brainwashing people now?"
"What kind of monster wants that?"
Kael's voice is quiet.
"Someone who remembers what remembering cost them."
The trail leads them across the Ashsteppe—a blackened land where no wind blows.
Here, memory itself behaves strangely.
Kael speaks, but his voice doesn't echo.Naia forgets the name of her own sister.Evan keeps checking a watch that's no longer ticking.
The Door's influence is growing thin here.
Or rather…
Something else is replacing it.
Then, on the seventh night, they see it.
A caravan of pale figures, walking two by two.
Faces covered. Feet bare.
They carry no torches, no weapons.
And at the center, a banner woven from shredded journals.
A symbol stitched in blue fire:
☐ The Empty Circle.
Kael steps forward alone.
The caravan halts.
From among them, a tall man emerges.
Veiled in silk, voice emotionless.
"You are the Keybearer."
Kael nods.
"You don't have to do this. You can remember. You can heal."
The man tilts his head.
"You misunderstand."
"We are not victims of memory."
"We are its executioners."
Evan steps beside Kael, whispering:
"He's been overwritten. Look at the sigil burned into his hand."
Kael does.
And sees it: the mark of the Archivist.
Inverted.
"They've turned memory suppression into faith," Evan growls.
"This is a cult."
Kael raises his voice.
"You're hurting people."
"We are saving them from suffering," the Veilborn leader answers.
"Memories are shackles."
"We are here to burn the chains."
He extends a hand.
"Come. Let go. Forget Evan. Forget Naia. Forget pain."
"We can make you whole."
Kael hesitates.
Not because he's tempted.
But because he sees something in the man's eyes.
Not peace.
Not joy.
Terror.
Like he's begging Kael to say no.
Then—
A soft voice cuts the air.
"Your name is Lior."
Everyone turns.
Iskra.
The child, seated on Naia's shoulders, eyes glowing.
She speaks again, louder this time.
"You were Lior. You had a wife named Kessa."
"You loved the sound of rain."
"And the Veil made you forget."
The man shudders.
His hand falls.
Kael steps forward—
"Lior… come back."
But something else moves first.
A pulse of invisible force erupts from behind the Veilborn ranks.
Lior screams.
And disintegrates into static.
Like a corrupted file being deleted.
Naia grabs Iskra and runs back.
Kael stares as the caravan scatters, vanishing into smoke.
Evan curses."That wasn't their doing."
Kael nods, whispering:
"It was the Archivist."
"It's cleaning up its mistakes."
Later that night, Iskra sits by the fire, silent.
She looks at Kael with eyes far too old.
Then says:
"It knows your real name."
Kael freezes.
He's never told her that.
Iskra continues, in a voice not her own:
"Do you want me to say it?"
"The name even you forgot?"
Kael trembles.
Because deep down, he knows—
If she says it…
Something inside him might wake upthat he's not ready to meet.
Chapter 34 End