Chapter 68 – Whispers Behind the Veil
Darkness gathered where no sky existed.
It wasn't night — night was gentle, mortal, born of sunsets and rotation. This was older. This was the color of things that refused to be seen.
In that darkness, shapes sat.
Not around a table, not on a floor — around a point. A point where reality was thinner than breath. They floated in a slow ring, each on a seat that was more suggestion than furniture: a crown of thorns, a column of fog, a bruise in the air, a folding of shadows. Eleven… twelve… perhaps more.
No faces.
No names.
That was the rule.
Not even among themselves did they reveal shape. The ones who had once had bodies no longer kept the habit. A few were only voices. One was a smell, burned metal and salt. One was an outline of empty robes, stitched with symbols of long-dead kingdoms. Another was only a pulse in the air.
They did not gather often.
When they did, it meant something in the lower worlds had moved too quickly.
A ripple spread through the not-room — not a sound, not light, just permission.
"Report."
The voice did not come from above — there was no above — but it carried the weight of one who spoke more often than listened.
A shape on the far edge of the ring tilted forward. Their outline flickered, as if a hooded figure stood in wind. Even here, even among peers, the cloak covered everything.
"The lower desert node was compromised," the figure said. Their voice was neutral — carefully scrubbed of gender, age, region.
A faint disturbance passed through the ring.
The first figure did not flinch.
"How?" someone else hissed. Their outline crackled like burning parchment. "We placed rot there years ago."
"Because," the desert figure said, "he interfered."
The air changed.
They did not speak his name. That was another rule. Names drew threads; threads could be followed. But every presence in the circle recognized the unspoken target.
The host.
The boy with the broken star.
The one bearing the Eclipse Heart.
"He was supposed to be left alone," said a distant, almost bored voice. The speaker's outline stayed still, but frost crawled across the space around them. "We agreed. Let the heart mature, let the darkness ferment. Harvest later."
"He made himself relevant," the desert figure replied. "He is not only surviving. He is… gathering."
"Explain."
"He restored Revenak's remnant. He tore down a vessel of ours in the city. Koro."
The reaction was sharper this time.
Several presences turned — or felt like they turned — toward the speaker.
"Koro," one said, flat and cold, "was not expendable."
"He was an anchor," another added. "Even with his flawed loyalty, he held the desert array steady."
"He was the face of the City of Sands node," a deeper voice rumbled. It sounded old enough to remember drowned continents. "His aura shielded the lower inscriptions. His death exposes us."
"It delays us," the desert figure corrected, still calm. "It does not end the work."
Silence rippled. Not agreement — calculation.
"How long," the bored ice-voice asked, "does this 'delay' cost us?"
"Six months," the desert figure said. "At most a year. The circles beneath the city still breathe.
Some of the shadows relaxed.
"Then we proceed," murmured the parchment voice. "We do not unmake decades of work because a mortal boy learned to swing his arms."
"He is not just swinging his arms," another said reluctantly. This presence was closer to the center than the others; even in concealment, the weight of their essence was harder to ignore. "He has advanced twice within the projected span. His resonance with the Heart is ahead of schedule."
"That," the frost-voice said, "is what we wanted."
"Yes," the center-voice said, "but not while he is also unmaking our scaffolding."
A thinner, whispering presence spoke for the first time. It sounded like many voices speaking through one throat.
"Then break him."
The desert figure shook their hooded head.
"No."
A low hum — displeasure in twelve directions at once.
"No?" the gravel-and-silk one asked. "You refuse a culling order?"
"I refuse a waste," the desert figure said. "This one — this John — is ripening faster than the others. If we kill him now, the Heart will shatter. We will lose most of it."
"We can still harvest fragments."
"We do not work for fragments," the hooded one said, voice hardening for the first time.
That word changed everything.
The silence turned reverent — or hungry.
The center presence leaned back — or forward — or simply pressed more essence into the air.
"Then what do you propose?"
"Let him live," the desert figure said. "But increase the strain on the Heart. Push its darkness to the surface. Force it to bloom faster than his light can tame it."
"You would corrupt the vessel before retrieval."
"Yes."
"He might break," the parchment-voice said.
"He will break," the hooded one answered. "That is the point."
Another shape flickered, restless. "And the City of Sands?"
"The ritual continues," the hooded figure said. "Even without Koro. We still control the rest of the nodes. The city is still in the palm of our hands."
"Then why are we here?" The bored frost-voice sharpened. "If the plan continues, why summon the circle?"
"Because," the hooded one said, "the boy has begun to gather people. That was not in the projection."
Mortal variables were always the worst.
"We have eyes on him," the hooded one said. "Closer than he thinks."
That stilled them.
One of the far presences — no voice, only a slow, hollow thud — finally spoke. It sounded like bone being tapped.
"You placed one of ours near him."
"Yes."
"Does the vessel know?" the parchment voice asked.
"No," the desert figure said. "None of them do."
A murmur of approval moved through the ring.
"Good," the center presence said. "Watch him. When the darkness in his Heart flares, I want it caught. Siphoned. Do not let it discharge into the world."
"It will not," the hooded one said. "I will make sure of it."
"See that you do," the frost-voice said. "You lost Koro."
"You knew he was careless," someone else muttered.
"He was useful," the parchment one snapped back. "Careless or not."
"He was dismantled by a boy who hadn't even touched Step Four yet," the frost-voice said, amused for the first time. "That is embarrassing."
The desert figure did not bristle. They knew better.
"It will be corrected."
"How?" the center presence asked.
"I will give him more weight than he can carry," the hooded one said. "There is already a crack in him. The Heart he carries is not dead — it is hungry. All I must do is feed it. Show it blood. Show it loss. Stir what sleeps in the shadow of his Light."
"And then?" asked the gravel one.
"Then," the hooded one said, "he either drowns… or becomes exactly what we need."
The center presence considered.
"Very well. The City of Sands ritual must be complete within a year."
"A year," echoed another.
"A year," murmured the rest.
That brought another kind of silence.
If the other faction inside the Alchemist Association — the clean-handed, light-worshiping fools — ever discovered that the desert city was being turned into a conduit, they would scorch it from the map. Quietly, of course. Officially, of course. But scorched all the same.
So the circle agreed
"Then disperse," said the center.
The outlines began to fade.
Not like bodies walking away — like thoughts ending. The darkness swallowed color, then texture, then sound. One by one, presences unmade themselves.
Only the desert figure lingered.
"And the Revenak remnant?" a voice asked him from the dark that remained.
"I will handle them," the hooded one said.
"Good"
The last echo died.
The world came back.
John woke with his hand on a knife.
He sat up too fast. The room lurched. The pale morning light leaking through the carved shutters washed the chamber in soft gold. The air was cool. Quiet. The mansion felt the way it always felt before dawn — breathing slow, walls warm, rune-vents humming.
But his heart was hammering like he'd been sprinting.
Ember was already awake.
The little bear stood at the foot of the bed, fur puffed, ears pricked, molten-gold eyes watching the door like he expected it to explode inward. When John didn't move, Ember padded closer and bumped his knee, rumbling low — not afraid, but alert.
John dragged a palm down his face.
He couldn't remember the dream.
That was the worst part.
He'd had bad dreams before — blood, sand, falling skies. That was normal. This wasn't that. This was like waking up from being watched.
He swung his legs over the side of the bed. His shirt clung to him, damp with cold sweat. The floor was cool under his feet. He stood, crossed to the window, and pushed the shutters wider.
The City of Sands yawned below.
Morning vendors were just starting to set up, carts creaking, kettles hissing. The eastern wall caught the first light and threw it back over the rooflines. The desert beyond was a slow, sleeping sea.
Everything looked normal.
Nothing felt normal.
Alaric's voice arrived like someone lighting a candle in a dark hall.
"You felt it," the spirit said — not a question.
John kept his hands on the window frame. "Yeah."
"You know what it was?" John asked quietly.
Alaric didn't answer right away. When he spoke again, his tone was lower than usual — not afraid, but respectful.
"Not exactly but whatever it is will not be good for us." he said.
John let the shutters fall half-closed.
In the courtyard below, someone laughed — Blake, probably. Sera's voice answered, warm and bossy. The house was waking. The desert was pretending to be harmless.
John flexed his right hand.
The Eclipse Heart pulsed, faint and cold, somewhere deeper than bone.
"Then we get ready," he said.
Ember huffed in agreement.
Outside, the City of Sands kept breathing — unaware that, far below its foundations, sigils were already waiting to drink it dry.