They stepped into the Veil, and the world fell apart.

  David staggered, his knees nearly buckling beneath the sudden weight of this new space. The pressure wasn’t physical, but it draped across his body like heavy chains. He pushed against the strain, trying to ease the weight even by a fraction.

  He felt no relief. Even his perception dulled, halved as though the very air was muffling his senses.

  You have crossed the veil into an attached world!

  Your total attributes have been reduced!

  Your mantle has been suppressed!

  “Some kind of penalty?” Zoey asked, breathless and trembling under the strain. “I don’t think I can use any of my abilities here.”

  Her Vjognir appeared. Its color was faded, but its size remained the same. It stayed in front of her, eyes drooping. Gis and Carlos stumbled away from it, Gis frowning as it turned to regard them.

  Zoey pulled the Vjognir closer to herself. And with visible effort, she absorbed it back in.

  Elisha hissed softly. His change was the most physical. His armor vanished, leaving only his helm of shadows. The silver eyes flickered and stabilized. He crossed his arms over his chest as if trying to cover his nakedness. But he had his dark grey robe on. “And essence feels… sick.”

  David didn’t answer. His thoughts slowed as if swimming through tar. He reached out with his mind, trying to extend what he could of his perception, trying to feel out this new world. But it recoiled, flinching as if his senses were being eroded, smothered.

  The Veil rejected him.

  It was rejecting all of them. Or perhaps it was their bodies rejecting it. On the other side of the gate, the world had seemed reasonably decayed. Here, it was on a different level.

  The landscape sprawled before them in impossible silence. Floating fragments of terrain drifted like broken islands. Cracked earth hovered beside pieces of twisted forest, trees bent backward, growing down from the sky. Geometry made no sense here—paths looped into themselves, and hills bled into valleys that hung in the air like spilled ink. Gravity still pulled, but David could make no sense of the workings here.

  It was the essence that worried him. It caused a slight vibration in his head, a buzzing he wished would stop. He focused on it, trying to explore what he could until he found the source of the weirdness.

  David found nothing—only a blight in his perception. Whatever was blocking him, it overwhelmed him.

  “Are you alright?” David asked, finally turning away from the disarray in front of him to look at Gis. She crouched beside Zoey, her eyes closed to slits as if a pounding echoed in her head. Carlos wasn’t much better.

  “What is this place?” Zoey asked, looking up at the floating debris of dead and dying things far above them. The place was unmaking itself somehow. David couldn’t understand it either.

  “Trouble, I would say,” Carlos said without the usual good humor.

  “How do we find whatever we are supposed to find in all of this? Chloe asked, gesturing to the landscape before them.

  “Do you sense the essence here?” Aza asked, his voice contemplative, patient, and filled with the same worry David felt. “I don’t think I have seen something like this. Have you, Vith? Maybe Vala has? She is the oldest.”

  Vala? David asked the fragment

  “Yes,” Aza said. David heard the reluctance in the way he said the word. As if that was a name he didn’t want to discuss. Or perhaps not yet. David let it go. Instead, he focused on the Veil.

  “You should know when to hold your tongue, Aza,” Vith said aloud, her voice distant in David’s mind. The warning was harsh, but Aza said nothing in response. Perhaps in penance.

  David felt a surge of mild annoyance flood him, mixing with the growing brew of anxiety and curiosity welling in him. Vith’s emotions were clear, strong, and almost imposing. Even with their partial connection, he could feel her more than he felt Aza. Sometimes he wondered if it was because she was linked to his essence, or if it had to do with being a physical manifestation of the cosmic energy.

  She sighed, and David shuddered in anticipation of what she was about to say.

  “This is an unfinished piece of a world. The reality doesn’t align because there is no overarching rule governing it. It should have collapsed already.”David blinked, trying to focus. The color of the ground beneath his feet kept shifting—at first green, then rusted brown. The grasses he could see flickered, as if whoever controlled reality couldn’t decide what they wanted to do. The wind smelled like copper one moment, intense evergreen the next. Every breath grated his throat.

  “Then why hasn’—” David’s question died in his mouth, and he flinched from the touch to his arm. Zoey was looking up at him, her eyes probing his face.

  “You have not been listening,” she said with a nod. David frowned. “Your fragments know anything?”

  “Not much,” David said. “But we can’t stay here.”

  They were standing on flat ground, but he could see a drop in the distance. He was beginning to realize a problem when the world groaned like a waking cyclops, and then the ground shook beneath them. A piece of the distance tore, and David felt a rattling cold spread from his feet to his head.

  “David!” Carlos called.

  Gis had passed out. She was paler than she was before. Which confirmed David’s fear.

  “This place is feeding on us,” Zoey said before David could.

  “What? Carlos asked.

  “I can feel it too,” Chloe added. “I can gather as much essence as I could before.”

  “We should leave!” Carlos said. A single rune on the side of his face glowed faintly, but the man was close to passing out, too. “We can’t do this. We stay here any longer and we will all die.”

  David pointed past them to the solid glass reflecting nothing. What had been a gate on the other side was now blocked. There was no way out. The Veil was forcing them onward. They would either finish the task or die trying.

  Cruel, David thought. “We will have to be fast. Carlos, find a place to hide while you protect Gis. We will try to do this quickly. Can you do that?”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “No,” Carlos said. “How will I protect her if I am close to dying myself?”

  David couldn’t deny that. And yet, he wasn’t sure he could leave any of the others behind. He was confident in his power, but not while they were in a place like this. Even as they stood, he could feel the waning. He couldn’t guess with any certainty when he’d be affected, but it was inevitable

  “We have to move fast, David,” Elisha said, crouched low and scanning the ever-rearranging horizon. David agreed, but he was faced with a difficult choice now.

  “Balek built this?” Zoey asked.

  “No,” Vith answered instantly, and David voiced her answer to Zoey. “Balek is a tower god. Tower gods can build worlds like this easily, perfectly. This is an experiment. A stupid one.”

  David took a breath. A wrong move. He choked on it. His lungs trembled from the cold, even as sweat rolled down his neck. His eyes itched, and he had to fight the impulse to reach up and scratch

  “I will stay,” Chloe said. David’s frown deepened. A bitter taste filled the back of his throat. Chloe was the obvious choice, but she was also their wild card.

  She could heal them when they were in trouble, but she would be the best to protect the two. The place didn’t affect her as much as it affected everyone else, and she would be out of the way of whatever danger they were running toward.

  David smiled and nodded.

  “Thank you, Chloe,” David murmured. She shrugged. “Stay out of sight. And try to anticipate whatever is happening to this place. If I am right, then you can’t trust anything here.”

  “She can see that, David. Let’s go.”

  David didn’t answer right away. He looked ahead to where fragments converged like a jigsaw puzzle failing to finish. There was nothing to see yet until they reached the drop. Maybe they were on a hill. He doubted that, though.

  “Be careful,” David called. Then he broke into a slow jog. He glanced up, making sure the hanging debris wouldn’t fall. Whatever held them up there couldn’t be trusted. The ground still shifted, but the density remained.

  The drop wasn’t as far as he’d feared—though distance was meaningless here. When they reached the edge, David saw why no one returned from this Veil world.

  Below lay only an endless void. Shards of earth and debris drifted in the air, forming a broken path toward a massive upended landmass the size of an island.

  “We have to cross, don’t we?” Zoey asked.

  David nodded. “Gravity’s not… consistent here.”

  He picked the nearest chunk of stone, crouched, and leapt. His feet hit on hard stone and he displaced the force of impact by rolling forward. His eye bulged when he stood up at the edge, staggering forward into nothingness.

  Black, deformed hands wrapped around his waist, pulling him back. David could hear the sound of his heart thudding against his rib when Elisha appeared, taking the place of his shadow. David gave him a grateful nod before scanning for their drop spot.

  Zoey slowly landed beside Elisha. Her druid mark glowed faintly, fizzing off once her feet touched the stone. Elisha steadied her.

  “Was there a city here before?” Zoey asked, looking down at where they stood. The stones were dark and filthy, but they were cobbled together well. David shrugged.

  “Elisha, you can still use your shadows?”

  “Only one.”

  “Good,” David muttered absentmindedly. Then he leaped again, this time farther than before. A large clump of land attached to a tree, held together by its stretch of roots. The scent of wet shoots hit him once he landed. The leaves were fresh and green, which surprised David.

  He used the trunk to stop his fall, then began to scan the area again.

  If only you could fly, Ignis taunted. The dragon’s voice in his head was a deep rumble. David smiled. He could tell there was no barb in it. When Ignis mocked him, it was one of friendship. Vith’s taunts came with thick, dark thorns pressing into him.

  Sometimes, David added

  “David,” Aza warned. But David could already feel it. He turned sharply to find Zoey taking off toward them. Elisha felt the coming wind almost too late. David swore, praying that she would make it. To his left, the reality trembled. The tremor was felt within, but the cold clung to his skin.

  “Elisha, undo your shado—”

  The wind howled past them, catching Zoey mid-air. David saw the moment she realized she was in danger. Her eyes searched for him, and when they did, she saw he was scared too. Then the gust plucked her and blew past.

  One moment.

  That was all it took for him to decide before leaping off the edge toward the void below. Zoey screamed, her hair blotting her view as she fell. She flailed wildly, not thinking.

  Fear had undone every fiber of courage in her.

  He angled his fall, cutting through the wind toward her. Months of Specter training took over—heart racing, mind clear, instincts already finding the simplest path.

  He caught her, ignoring the frantic slaps of her flailing arms as he curved his fall. He felt almost free, now that he had her in his arms.

  “David!” Zoey screamed. “We are going to die!”

  Fear. David saw it when he looked at her face. He cradled her. She had grown taller, harder. But she fit right in his arms.

  “Hold tight,” he warned just before they crashed into what had been a house once. The walls cracked and crumpled under the force of their fall. David felt a fraction of the impact; the rest was absorbed by the thin film of essence wrapped around him like a second skin

  He stayed still for a moment, groaning as the armor dissipated and essence sluggishly rushed to soothe his bruises.

  Zoey extricated herself from him. Her legs were bleeding, but she’d heal soon. She pulled away, curling until her face was hidden. Her body shook, the soft sounds of sobbing finally easing out of her throat.

  David watched her, uncertain of what to do. The fall hadn’t been her fault, but he understood that she wouldn’t see it that way.

  He looked up to find out they had a long climb ahead of them. Hopefully, Elisha would wait for them.

  “We have to go back up,” Zoey said, cleaning her eyes.

  David waited until she was ready. The healing was slower and uglier, but it was better than carrying her. The climb was harder, and it took longer than David thought it would. By the time they reached Elisha, a part of the sky was dark, and the destination seemed to have lost all the colors they had seen before. As if all the trees had shed, and it had suddenly become a different season.

  “I guess time is affected too?” Zoey suggested.

  “That would be dangerous,” David said, feeling tired. It was a refreshing sensation, but he didn’t want it.

  “So it goes faster there?” Elisha asked.

  “We will have to find out.”

  Yet, when they stood on the last strip of broken land, they hesitated to enter the island. David turned around to stare at where they had come from. It was so far away. Unseen through the floating debris.

  Zoey took the first leap. The brothers watched her, then gasped together when she was flipped sharply once she was close to the island. She landed, turned around, and waved at them.

  Elisha joined her next, and David jumped last.

  The rotten stench filled his lungs and mind almost immediately. The trees here were mangled, dry, or dying. What had looked lush once was revealed to be tainted.

  You have stepped into the Anchor’s Domain!

  All exists to feed the anchor!

  Your vitality has been reduced!

  Task: survive the hunger of the Veiled World

  Task failure: Loss of Life Force!

  Task completion: A tower clue and a gift

  “And it gets worse, David grumbled, staring out into the open, dying forest. Every foul smell he could think of was there, punishing them. But he could sense something else, too.

  And soon, they stumbled out from behind the cluster of rotting trees. With the came a different smell. Their skins hung off their bones, and saliva leaked from the edge of their mouths. Some held weapons, but dragged them along as if they were too tired and yet wanted to seem threatening.

  The chorus of growls and grunts and the unsteady way they moved told David what they were. But when they came close enough for him to strike them down, he saw something else.

  Agony.

  His sword cleaved a ghoul in two before stumping on the head of the moving upper half.

  Anton’s essence has returned to the Anchor!

  Cussad’s essence has returned to the Anchor!

  Heron’s essence has returned to the Anchor!

  Belisa’s essence has returned to the Anchor!

  David tried not to think about their names as his sword tore them apart. They were weak. Too easy to kill even in his weakened state. He felt no victory in it. Only the growing dread of what he was fattening up with his every swing.