The first time Aldric tried to use Velocity Essence, he nearly shattered his own wrist.
He didn’t even hear the crack, just felt it. A jolt up his forearm, his elbow joint buckling, and then a tidal wave of pain.
"You idiot," Veylor snapped, catching him by the elbow just before he dropped to the dirt. "I told you. Pre-input only. Once it’s released, that’s it. No second chances."
Aldric gritted his teeth, sweat dripping down his temple. His fingers wouldn’t unclench. He’d meant to throw a rock. Just a rock. But instead the energy had backfired, channeling force into his bones instead of out.
The stone lay unbroken in the grass.
“I know,” Aldric bit out.
“Then act like it.”
He sat down hard, trying to breathe through the sting. Luminance never did this to him. It responded to will. It met him halfway. Essence just demanded, and punished hesitation.
He had to pre-calculate every movement. Predict angles, forces, vectors, all in an instant.
"How do you even do this?"
“Experience.” Veylor didn’t look back.
He walked off, like he always did.
Aldric stayed in the grass for a long time. Long enough to cool the pain with a layer of dull, white shame.
By midday, he had a new plan. He was shaking. Still sore. But the theory was sound.
Luminance woven into a glowing curtain just like what he did yesterday, but this time threaded with Essence vectors. Flow direction. Stability matrices. It took longer than he wanted. His fingers cramped halfway through. But finally, it stabilized.
When he stepped forward, the air curved.
Rocks arced sideways. Arrows veered off. Even a sling bullet spun away like gravity was playing favorites.
Aldric exhaled. Perfect.
Until Veylor walked straight through it.
Aldric’s jaw dropped. “You—what—how?”
Veylor held up a pebble, like that explained anything. “Too early for this. Focus on armor-piercing first.”
“You curved your path?”
“Of course not.” Veylor gave him a flat look. “I slowed mid-step, rotated through torsion, then resumed with adjusted momentum. That’s basic inertial grafting.”
“…You curved your path.”
Veylor walked away.
Again.
That afternoon, they sat by the riverbank.
For once, Veylor looked tired. Not irritated. Not injured. Just… worn.
He had his boots and helmet off, back against a willow trunk, eyes closed. His fingers twitched sometimes. Muscle memory, or maybe old pain.
Aldric didn’t speak.
He just watched the water, and the man beside it, and the way sunlight broke through the canopy.
Aldric wondered if he even had anything left to give.
Back home, Aldric wrote again.
Journal Entry #352:
“There’s a pattern in the failure rates. Luminance collapses at its weakest node, usually where belief wavers. Essence breaks at friction points: velocity shifts, momentum misalignments. They don’t fail for the same reasons, but they fail at the same threshold. Somewhere between the two, a hybrid exists. Something faster than will. Smarter than instinct.”
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
He underlined the last part. Twice.
Then wrote a single word beneath it:
Veil.
It felt like the answer.
The Bells Rang at Dusk.
It tolled once.
Low.
Final.
A summons.
Out in the square, white robes gathered. Some in masks, others with etched sashes and gloves dyed in a pale grey. There were no names. Only ranks.
The Ceremony of Flame and Oath.
The Sanctum’s quiet terror. The sorting of belief from dissonance.
Conducted in silence. Watched only by those who must not speak.
He stood at the edge of the square, the breath in his lungs suddenly heavier than his coat.
From the woods and alleyways, the villagers began to gather. Not all, but enough. Some watched with bowed heads, others with empty eyes, like this was a weather pattern they’d learned not to resist.
Then came the rest of the Sanctum.
White robes. Silent steps.
No guards. No declarations.
Just presence.
Graceful. Patient. Certain. Three Watchers strode ahead, staves slung across their backs like executioner’s tools. Behind them trailed Binders in tight formation, hands smeared with chalk and quicksilver ink. Further still, Wisps followed along the edges of the square, their faces hidden in cloth, their incense leaving a trail of something like rusted air.
And then came the Thorn, axe in hand.
His mask was obsidian and flame-shaped, his body covered in fractal tattoo.
The center of the square had already been chalked.
Two figures were led forward. Robes. Hoods. Faces hidden.
He didn’t recognize them.
Not at first.
The villagers around him barely breathed. One whispered a prayer. Another turned away. The entire town felt like it had been pressurized.
The Chanter stepped forward then. Her robes a dull pearl-white, hands etched with sigil-burns up to the elbow. She knelt and lifted her palms.
Light fell. No chanting. No thunder. Just a quiet bloom.
A Luminance lattice spun downward, complex and beautiful, like snow and script woven together. It wrapped around the two cloaked figures, casting cages in the shape of hexagonal light.
“This is the lie,” Aldric remembered writing once.
“They say it’s mercy. A test of soul. But it’s a ledger. An audit. A ritualized purge.”
He watched the lattice settle. Hold.
And then blink.
Once.
Twice.
The left figure passed. Their cage dissolved, clean and quiet. No fanfare.
The right cage—
—fractured.
Not shattered. Not collapsed.
Just cracked.
A slow, spider-web fissure through the upper ring, followed by the faintest flicker of destabilization.
Enough to be seen.
Enough to fail.
The air chilled.
A Harrow stepped from behind the Chanter, gliding across the stone. Wrapped in crimson veils, they bore just a long hook of blackened steel.
The failed figure was seized. Lifted.
And as the robe fell back,
Aldric saw his face.
Merrin.
The woodsmith. Tomas’s father. The one who handed him the poster. The one who refused to kneel to liars.
“No,” Aldric whispered. “No, no...”
He didn’t recall moving.
Didn’t remember drawing the Luminance sigil in the air with his fingers.
He just was there, stepping forward through the crowd, through the dead-silent village, voice rising before he meant it to.
“Stop!”
It rang louder than the bell.
Every head turned.
The Watchers did not.
They moved.
Fast.
Aldric’s shield came up just in time. A hard-cast Aegis, narrow and domed. Two staves struck it like iron thunder, pushing him back two steps on stone. He held. Barely.
“This is illegal!” he shouted, voice cracking. “There was no accusation! No record! He’s not even—he never took the Oath!”
The Chanter said nothing.
The Thorn tilted its head.
The villagers?
They did not move.
Some looked away. Some closed their doors.
And some—God help him—just watched.
Veylor’s voice came from somewhere behind him.
“Aldric, stop—”
He didn’t. He couldn’t. He raised his hands again, channeling the Veil he’d just finished shaping.
Essence twisted into the air around his Luminance construct. Not a shield.
Not this time.
A repulsion fabric. Something between a redirect and a push-field. He could feel it forming. This time, it would work. It had to—
The Thorn raised a finger.
One.
A single Watcher advanced.
The staff wasn’t just a weapon. It ringed. Some inner tuning fork began to vibrate as the end of it scraped through the veil, unraveling Aldric’s construct like it was made of paper. His vision blurred from the resonance recoil.
His knees buckled.
And then—
A stone flew from the crowd.
Small. Fast. Untrained.
It clacked harmlessly off the Watcher’s mask.
Aldric turned.
“Tomas,” he breathed.
The boy stood alone. No one near him. Just a child with tears on his face and a second rock in his hand, ready to throw.
Everything moved.
The Watcher turned.
The Chanter’s hand lifted.
The Thorn pointed.
Luminance flared.
Aldric screamed.
But he was too slow.
The Radiance pierced the square, a streak of divine white meant to silence resistance.
It hit where Tomas had stood.
It hit where he no longer was.
Merrin had moved.
He had moved.
The father, chained, failing, condemned, lurched between.
The light hit his back.
And he folded.
The second bell rang.
No villagers dared to cry out.
No one ran.
Just a breeze.
And a boy’s scream.
Aldric couldn’t hear anything after that.
He tried to stand. Failed. Tried again. Shapes moved in his vision. Veylor pulled him back. A hand over his mouth to silence him.
Tomas knelt by his father’s body, whispering something no one could hear.
Then the Thorn’s axe struck.
