✦ CHAPTER THREE
The Laws of the Veil
The air inside the Citadel of the Veil tasted like frost and old secrets.
Eryndor's boots echoed against polished obsidian floors as Seris led him through a vast hall lined with towering statues. Each figure held a different weapon — scythes, chains, sickles — but all wore the same hollow expression beneath their hoods.
Reapers.
Silence pressed against Eryndor's ribs, as heavy as the night he arrived.
Seris glanced at him from the corner of their eye.
"You should stop staring. They don't like it."
"They're statues," Eryndor whispered.
"Not all of them."
Eryndor snapped his gaze forward, jaw tight.
Torches along the walls burned with pale violet flame — cold, without heat. Shadows flickered in unnatural patterns, as if they were alive.
At the end of the hall, an enormous circular door awaited — carved with sigils that mirrored the mark on Eryndor's palm.
Seris stopped.
"You speak only when spoken to," they instructed. "Do not startle him. Do not contradict him. Do not—"
"Who?" Eryndor asked.
Seris's violet gaze pinned him.
"The High Reaper."
The door split open down the center, gliding silently.
Cold wind spilled out like a sigh.
The chamber beyond was vast and dim — a cathedral carved into living shadow. Rows of soul-lanterns hung suspended in the air, drifting like stars trapped in glass. Each held a faint face inside — sleeping, waiting.
At the room's center stood a throne of bone and black iron.
And the figure seated upon it was wrong.
He looked young — younger than Eryndor — but his presence radiated something ancient. His skin was pale as candlewax. His hair fell like spilled ink across his shoulders. In one hand, he held a scythe carved from a single shard of obsidian, its blade rippling like water.
His eyes were endless.
Not black.
Void.
Seris knelt, fist to chest.
"High Reaper Kaelith. The boy has arrived."
Kaelith's gaze shifted to Eryndor, and the world became too small.
Eryndor felt exposed — like the Reaper was peeling his soul back piece by piece.
"You reaped your first soul," Kaelith murmured. His voice was soft, velvet against a blade. "Tell me what you felt."
Eryndor swallowed hard. "Fear."
Kaelith leaned forward slightly.
"Of death?"
"Of myself."
A silence — heavy, unreadable — passed between them.
At last, Kaelith stood. The room dimmed around him as though every shadow bowed.
He stepped down from the throne.
"There are three laws of the Veil," he said, circling Eryndor. His presence chilled the air.
"First: Reapers do not kill.
We only guide."
He brushed a finger against a passing soul-lantern. The spirit inside shivered and quieted.
"Second: A soul with chains must never be touched."
Eryndor froze. The chained soul beneath the Citadel… The one that whispered to him in the darkness of the bridge.
Kaelith's eyes sharpened, as though sensing his thought.
"Third: A Reaper may never reclaim a soul once it is released."
Eryndor frowned. "…Why would a Reaper want to reclaim a soul?"
Kaelith smiled — the kind of smile a wolf wears before it bites.
"Because some souls do not wish to rest. Some souls offer power in exchange for freedom."
He stopped in front of Eryndor. "Power corrupts even the dead."
His hand lifted — suddenly — and gripped Eryndor's marked palm.
Eryndor gasped. Pain seared through him like molten iron.
Symbols flared, crawling up his wrist, across his arm, burning beneath skin and bone.
Seris flinched but said nothing.
Kaelith's voice was a whisper in his ear.
"You are bound to the Veil now. Your soul, your breath, your future."
The mark stopped burning.
Kaelith released him.
"You belong to death."
Eryndor staggered back, clutching his palm.
"I didn't ask for this!" he hissed.
Kaelith regarded him with chilling patience.
"No one does."
His eyes flickered to Seris.
"See that he survives training."
Seris bowed. "As ordered."
Eryndor grit his teeth. "Survival sounds reassuring."
Seris gave him a thin, humorless smile.
"It wasn't meant to."
They walked back through the corridor in silence until Eryndor couldn't hold it in anymore.
"What did he mean by chained souls?"
Seris's steps paused only briefly.
"Forget you heard those words."
"I can't."
"You must."
Eryndor stepped in front of them, blocking the path. "Tell me."
Seris's expression cracked — just enough to reveal something beneath the ice.
Fear.
"There are souls in this world," they whispered, "that are not meant to be freed. Souls that would tear the Veil apart if released."
Eryndor remembered the voice beneath the Citadel.
You are not meant to serve them. You are meant to end them.
Seris leaned in close, voice low.
"If a chained soul speaks to you… do not answer."
Eryndor swallowed. "What happens if I do?"
Seris's eyes were cold galaxies.
"You won't remain human."
A tremor ran down Eryndor's spine.
Seris turned away.
"Welcome to the Veil, Eryndor Valen. From this moment on—"
They opened a door.
The training grounds stretched beyond — a massive arena surrounded by brutal obsidian walls. Reapers-in-training clashed with scythes made of moonlight.
Seris finished.
"—your life is no longer your own."
Eryndor looked at the arena.
And understood:
He hadn't been summoned.
He had been claimed.