The token was cold in Kieran’s grip, heavier than it should have been.

Not in weight, but in significance.

He had been chasing whispers—rumors of his execution, the politics of noble houses, the forces that had erased his name. But the deeper he dug, the more he realized this wasn’t about who he had been in this life.

It was about something older.

Something that had returned with him.

Kieran turned the token over between his fingers, tracing the three carved slashes in the metal.

He had seen this mark before—on the slumlord’s door, in the Veilkeeper’s records. And now, someone had given it to him.

A sign. A message. A warning.

If someone had walked this path before him, where were they now?

The question lingered as he moved through the streets, his cloak pulled tight against the mist curling through the slums.

He had one place to start.

The slumlord would know.

The ruins of the old noble estate were quieter than usual when Kieran arrived. The fires that usually flickered in rusted barrels had burned low, and the usual crowd was scattered, half-hidden among the rubble.

But the slumlord was exactly where she always was—perched on a broken stone column, her dagger spinning lazily between her fingers.

She didn’t look up as he approached.

“Back again?” she mused.

Kieran pulled the token from his belt and tossed it toward her.

She caught it in midair.

Then, for the first time since he had met her, she froze.

Kieran saw it—the way her fingers clenched slightly, the way her usual smirk faltered for just a moment.

A flicker of something in her eyes.

Recognition.

Kieran crossed his arms. “I assume you’ve seen that before.”

The slumlord exhaled, rolling the token between her fingers. “Where did you get this?”

Kieran didn’t answer immediately. Instead, he watched her.

She wasn’t just recognizing it. She was remembering something.

Something she hadn’t planned to see again.

Finally, he spoke. “Tell me what it means.”

The slumlord was silent for a long moment. Then she tossed the token back to him.

“It’s not a map,” she said.

Kieran frowned. “Then what is it?”

“A mark.”

His fingers curled around the metal.

“A sign that someone walked this path before you.”

Kieran exhaled slowly. “And what happened to them?”

The slumlord smirked. “You wouldn’t be asking me if you didn’t already know the answer.”

Kieran’s stomach twisted.

He had suspected.

But now, he knew.

The ones who came before him had failed.

And no one knew what had happened to them.

Kieran left the ruins with his mind racing.

The slumlord’s reaction had told him enough. The people who had carried this mark before him were gone.

Erased.

But if the token wasn’t a map, if it wasn’t leading him somewhere—then why had it been given to him?

He needed to find someone who dealt in lost things.

Which meant the Whisper Market.

The market was not a place that could be found on a map.

It existed in the spaces between—the forgotten corridors of an old sewer system, buried beneath the weight of the city.

There were no lanterns here—only candlelight, only fire reflected against damp stone.

Kieran moved through the narrow passageways with ease, his hood low over his face.

The people here weren’t merchants.

They were dealers of secrets.

And Kieran was about to buy something far more dangerous than gold.

The man Kieran sought sat at the farthest end of the underground chamber, behind a wooden stall lined with faded scrolls and cracked tomes.

His cloak was deep crimson, his fingers adorned with rings carved with ancient symbols.

His face was hidden in shadow.

Kieran approached the stall and slid three silver coins across the wood.

The hooded man didn’t touch them.

Instead, he tilted his head slightly, studying Kieran from beneath the folds of his cloak. “What do you seek?”

Kieran pulled out the token and placed it on the table.

The man stilled.

For the second time that night, Kieran had seen the same reaction.

The merchant recognized it.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

A slow breath escaped his lips. “Where did you find this?”

Kieran didn’t blink. “Tell me what it means first.”

The merchant hesitated. Then, slowly, he reached into his cloak and pulled something free.

A second token.

Identical to the one Kieran held.

Except this one was broken.

The edges were jagged, shattered as if by force.

Kieran’s breath slowed.

He stared at the broken token. “What does that mean?”

The hooded man’s grip tightened.

“It means someone walked this path before you,” he murmured. “And they didn’t make it out.”

Kieran felt the words settle deep in his chest.

He had been searching for answers about his own execution. About the Council of Lords, the noble houses, the conspiracy that had buried him.

But now, he had proof that this wasn’t about him alone.

Someone had walked this path before him. Someone had carried the same mark. Someone had been erased before they could reach the truth.

And yet, someone had left this token behind for him to find.

Kieran exhaled. “Who were they?”

The hooded merchant shook his head. “I don’t know their name. But I know what they were looking for.”

Kieran waited.

The merchant exhaled. “They were looking for the Veil.”

Silence stretched between them.

Kieran spoke carefully. “You mean the legends? The ones that say there’s something beyond this world?”

The merchant smiled faintly. “You don’t believe it?”

Kieran’s fingers curled around the token. “I believe that people don’t kill to protect fairy tales.”

The merchant chuckled. “Then you understand the weight of what you hold.”

Kieran exhaled slowly. “Tell me where to go.”

The merchant hesitated. Then, after a long moment, he reached beneath his cloak and pulled free a folded parchment.

He slid it across the table.

Kieran took it without a word.

The hooded man watched him carefully. “This path will not be kind to you, Kieran Valtheris.”

Kieran’s lips curled into something not quite a smirk.

“It hasn’t been kind so far.”

He turned and left the Whisper Market, the parchment burning in his grip.

For the first time since he had returned, he wasn’t just reacting.

He had a direction. A true path.

But if the ones before him had failed…

What made him any different?

Kieran moved swiftly through the underground corridors of the Whisper Market, the weight of the parchment in his grasp heavy—not in mass, but in meaning.

It wasn’t just a map.

It was a path to something long buried.

And if the ones before him had failed, if their names had been erased from history, then what lay at the end of this road was something people were willing to kill to keep hidden.

His fingers traced the edges of the parchment as he emerged back into the city’s streets, slipping through the tangled alleys of the slums. The mist had grown thicker, swirling in ghostly tendrils beneath the flickering torchlight.

He reached a quiet corner beneath the ruins of an old aqueduct and unfolded the parchment carefully.

His breath slowed as he studied the ink.

There were no words.

No instructions.

Only a symbol.

One he had seen before—the same three slashes carved into his token, but now surrounding a circular emblem.

Something cold curled in his chest.

He had expected coordinates, directions, something tangible. But this wasn’t a map.

It was a test.

And he was being watched.

The air had changed.

Kieran felt it before he heard it.

A shift in the silence, like the weight of the night had deepened around him. His instincts screamed at him to move, to draw a weapon he did not have.

Instead, he turned slowly, his heartbeat steady.

The figure stood in the alley’s shadows, half-hidden in the mist.

Not a thug. Not a guard.

Something else.

Their cloak was tattered, frayed at the edges, the hood pulled low over their face. But Kieran could see their eyes.

Glowing.

Not with light, not with magic, but with something unnatural.

Kieran didn’t react immediately. He didn’t run. Didn’t reach for a blade. He waited.

The figure took a single step forward, slow and deliberate. The mist curled around their feet, shifting unnaturally in their wake.

Then—a voice.

“You should not have returned.”

Kieran’s breath slowed.

It wasn’t a threat. It was a statement.

And it sounded too familiar.

His fingers tightened around the parchment. “You know me.”

The figure’s head tilted slightly, as if considering him.

Then—“I knew what you were.”

Kieran’s blood ran cold.

What.

Not who.

What.

The weight of his own missing memories pressed against his skull, fragments flickering at the edges of his vision. The fire. The screams. The abyss swallowing the sky.

He forced himself to breathe.

“Who are you?” he asked, keeping his voice even.

The figure didn’t answer. Instead, they raised a hand.

Kieran barely had time to react before the air around him shifted.

Not magic. Not quite.

Something deeper.

The torchlight flickered—then died completely.

And the alley was swallowed in darkness.

Kieran’s body moved before his mind did.

He dropped low, rolling to the side just as the shadows surged forward. The space where he had stood crackled with an unnatural hum, the mist parting like something had slashed through it.

He landed in a crouch, breath steady, forcing himself not to panic.

No fear. Not yet.

The figure was gone.

Or rather—they had never truly been there.

Kieran exhaled, his heartbeat slowing despite the lingering pulse of wrongness in the air.

The shadows hadn’t been real.

Not entirely.

They had been a message.

A test.

Kieran’s fingers found the token at his belt. The one given to him. The one that marked his path.

The one that someone else had once carried—and failed to return from.

His grip tightened.

If they thought fear would stop him, they were wrong.

Kieran stood, rolling his shoulders. He had his answer.

The path wasn’t something he could find in the city.

He had to follow the mark.

The following night, Kieran left the city.

The roads beyond the slums stretched out in endless paths of dirt and stone, winding through the ruined outskirts where old fortresses had crumbled into the hills.

No one traveled these roads willingly.

Not at night.

The parchment in his grip was useless on its own. But combined with what he had learned from the Veilkeeper, from the slumlord, from the figures who had tried to erase him—it all pointed to the same thing.

He wasn’t searching for a place.

He was searching for a graveyard.

The remnants of those who had come before him.

His footsteps were measured as he moved through the old ruins of what had once been a watchtower. The stones were slick with moss, the air cold despite the lack of wind.

Then he saw it.

At the base of the collapsed structure—a door.

No, not a door. A passage.

Half-buried beneath the rubble, carved into the old foundations of a keep that had once been a guardian of the realm.

Kieran’s pulse quickened.

This was it.

The path he had been given wasn’t a road.

It was a descent.

He exhaled, stepping forward. The entrance was unmarked, untouched.

Except—

His breath caught.

There.

Carved into the stone just above the entrance.

Three slashes, etched into the surface like a scar.

The same mark on his token.

The same mark in the archives.

The same mark on the door of those who had vanished before him.

Kieran’s fingers traced the grooves lightly.

Someone had stood here before him.

Someone had walked this path.

And they had never returned.

He took a slow breath.

Then, without another word—he stepped inside.

And the darkness swallowed him whole.