Page 75 of The City Of Fractured Memory

“You have done well, sweet child.” She nods her head at Stryx with a warm smile and the three of them embrace each other before her attention settles fully on me. “So,” she says softly, “The lost one returns.”

My throat tightens. “You must be mistaken,” I manage, denial still scrambling to the forefront of my frazzled mind. “I’m no Echofae. My parents were–”

“Mortals?” the woman finishes gently. “Yes, so you were told.”

Stryx’s mothers both step closer, Esmarie’s hands glowing faintly as she lifts them toward my face. I feel warmth spreading through my skull, a deep, humming recognition stirring somewhere buried inside me, like a long-forgotten song returning to my lips.

She inhales sharply, whipping her hands back. “Veyrathi blood,” she whispers, turning to her partner. “Althea, my love, you were right. She carries it still.”

I blink. “Vey…rathi?” I’ve never heard of such a term.

Stryx looks at her mothers in awe. “You mean, she’s one of them?”

Althea nods. “Born of visions. A Veyrathi sees beyond the Veil—not just glimpses of fate like a seer, but the pure threads of what lies between worlds. Your mother, Lyara, was one of the last. She crossed into the astral plane and met your father there, a mortal whose heart was consumed by curiosity.” Her tone darkens. “He learned of her prophecy. Of the Faceless God.”

My pulse spikes. “The prophecy?”

She nods seriously, and a hush falls across the room, heavy with reverence as she speaks it, her voice turning otherworldly as if the very air is vibrating with her every word.

“When the sky is cleaved and the mists descend,

When light and shadow meet their end,

A child of silence, crowned in white,

Shall rise where two worlds collide.

Her hair shall bear no colour’s claim,

His eyes the storm the stars hath slain.

Through betrayal shall flow the sleeping god,

Through deceit shall flow what the fog forgot.

Two born of both worlds, of mirrored flame,

Bound by blood, yet split by fate,

Together they shall mend the Veil,

Or sundering, end all that awaits.

The end of Velmora shall begin with her breath,

And by her hand shall dawn decide,

To bind the heavens whole again,

Or cast them, fractured, open wide.”

Her words land on me heavily, a burden I never asked for, nor fully understand. But I can feel the weight of it pressing on me nonetheless.

“What does it all mean?” I breathe, replaying it over and over in my head.

Esmarie takes our hands and leads us to the fire, one of the elders gesturing for us to sit. I do as I’m bidden, numbness leaching my mind of all logical thought.

“It means,” says an old man I recognise as a Kaelvara, his skin black as pitch. “That you and another half mortal child will unite, bringing about peace to our two worlds…or destroying it.”