《where the morning never comes》 Chapter 1 – Echoes of the Forgotten Darkness. Stillness. Silence. The first thing Lysander notices is the warmth of her hand in his. It lingers¡ªsoft, fleeting, like the last glow of a dying star. Somewhere, petals drift through the air. A sky caught between day and night stretches overhead, frozen in its descent into darkness. The wind carries the scent of something familiar, something lost. "Lysander," a voice whispers. He doesn¡¯t turn. He knows¡ªsomehow¡ªthat if he looks, the moment will collapse. But the cracks have already begun. The warmth in his hand fades. The air stills. The petals stop midair, then begin to rise¡ªfalling in reverse, drawn back into unseen branches. The horizon flickers. The stars blink out, one by one. The last thing to vanish is the hand in his. There was never another path. Lysander wakes up. Lysander¡¯s breathing came fast and ragged. A moment ago¡ªwas it a moment? A dream? A lifetime?¡ªthere had been nothing. A vast, suffocating void. No thoughts, no form. Just the weight of existence folding in on itself, silent and absolute. Then, like glass shattering, reality surged back. He gasped. His throat clenched around the sound. He tried to move. Nothing. Dread coiled in his chest, slow and suffocating. His limbs¡ªdead weight. His hands¡ªnumb, unfeeling. His body¡ªtrapped inside itself. His heart pounded, hammering panic into his skull. Move. Nothing. Move, damn it! The more he fought, the less he felt. His fingers blurred at the edges of his vision¡ªdark tendrils bleeding into his skin, spreading, coiling, claiming him. No. No. A ragged breath tore from his throat. "I just need to stay calm¡­ Breathe. Just breathe." But the air was wrong¡ªthick, stagnant, humming with an absence that scraped against his senses. Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The silence wasn¡¯t empty. It was watching. Something brushed the edges of his awareness. A whisper¡ªtoo faint to hear, too close to ignore. Lysander¡¯s pulse staggered. He felt the presence before he saw it¡ªthe crushing weight of something unseen, vast and waiting. He was not alone. His fingers twitched. Slowly, the numbness receded, crawling back into the abyss it had come from. He clenched his fist, exhaling sharply. The black tendrils across his palm remained. A mark. Old. Familiar. Unwanted. He didn¡¯t want to remember. Not yet. Dust curled in the still air, twisting into ghostly spirals before fading. Too still. Lysander inhaled carefully, his vision adjusting to the fractured glow around him. A ruined temple. Or what was left of one. Time had bled this place dry. The towering pillars that once held the heavens aloft had crumbled, their shattered remains strewn across the floor like the ribs of a long-dead god. The air smelled of damp stone, old parchment, and something fainter beneath it¡ªburnt incense and dried blood. Beneath his boots, the floor was etched with symbols, some still pulsing faintly with a long-forgotten light. Veil inscriptions. The language of something beyond human. Something not meant for mortal eyes. His gaze swept the ruins, piecing together fragments of a forgotten past. Then he saw them. Statues. Dozens. Some headless, shattered beyond recognition. Others half-buried in dust, their features worn by time¡¯s cruel hand. But one remained untouched, standing at the far end of the temple. Watching. Lysander¡¯s chest tightened. The weight of its presence pressed against him¡ªnot physical, but suffocating all the same. He wasn¡¯t sure when he had started walking toward it. Or why he couldn¡¯t stop. His boot scraped against something. He looked down. Half-buried in the dust, beneath layers of time and neglect, lay a sword. Its blade¡ªfractured. Its hilt¡ªfamiliar. Recognition struck like a knife between his ribs. He had seen this before. Held it. Wielded it. Lost it. But when? His fingers hovered over the hilt, hesitation twisting in his chest. The last time he had held this weapon¡­ A sharp pain flared behind his eyes. Fractured memories, slipping through his grasp like sand through clenched fists. No. Not yet. His hand closed around the hilt. A whisper brushed the edge of his awareness. He froze. Not the same as before. Not inside his mind. This time, it was real. A voice. From beyond the shattered temple walls. Calling his name. A voice that should have been long dead. Chapter 2 - Who? Lysander¡¯s breath hitched in his throat. The voice¡ªhis name¡ªit had been real. His thoughts spun in chaotic circles, clawing for answers that didn¡¯t exist. His body remained frozen, his mind screaming for something, anything, that made sense. Who said my name? Where are they? Do they know me? Do they know where we are? Silence. Then¡ªlight. The gas lamps along the distant walls, long choked by dust and time, flickered to life. First one. Then another. And another. A corridor revealed itself, stretching deeper into the temple¡¯s ruins. The floor, layered with ash and shattered stone, groaned beneath an unseen weight. The air thickened, the stale scent of time replaced by something sharper¡ªiron, rust, blood. Lysander¡¯s fingers curled. It wants me to enter. The realization crawled under his skin. But he didn¡¯t move. He couldn''t. What should I do? His eyes flicked toward the entrance¡ªstill open, still possible. I could run. But even as he considered it, a sharp, searing burn flared through his arm.
"Agh!" The pain struck like a blade driven through his palm. Lysander staggered back, clutching his wrist, eyes widening as his skin pulsed with an eerie, shifting glow. The mark on his hand bled light. Not normal light¡ªsomething raw, unclean, unnatural. It pulsed. Once. Twice. A slow, deliberate rhythm, like a second heartbeat. "What the hell is this?" His breathing grew ragged. The pain burrowed deep, an ache that wasn¡¯t just physical¡ªit was something else entirely. He forced himself to look up¡ªto the ruins. Something moved. Soft. Deliberate. Footsteps. This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. His instincts screamed to run. But something held him in place. Fear? No. Something deeper. Something woven into the mark itself. Lysander swallowed hard. His pulse hammered against his ribs. A figure stepped into view.
Tattered cloth wrapped around its form, obscuring all but the faintest silhouette. Its posture was unnatural¡ªtoo still, too rigid, as if it did not breathe. It stood at the temple¡¯s threshold, silent. Watching. A sense of d¨¦j¨¤ vu clawed at Lysander¡¯s chest. "I know them." The thought came unbidden. But how? His fingers tightened around the air where a weapon should be. His broken sword was gone. The figure moved, its presence unnerving, like a painting staring back. And then¡ªit spoke.
"You were not meant to return." The voice¡ªwrong. It did not belong to a single being. It layered upon itself, one voice folding into another, overlapping in a chorus of echoes. "The Veil is not yet undone." "He still watches." Lysander¡¯s stomach turned to ice. Who? Who watches? The mark on his hand flared violently. Fire¡ªcold and searing at the same time¡ªripped through his veins. His knees buckled, his fingers digging into the dirt as his body convulsed from the shock. The figure did not move. The temple did.
Cracks split through the statues, their stone faces turning toward him in fractured, jagged motions. The air groaned, heavy with something ancient. Dust trembled, rising from the ground in delicate spirals, as if the ruins themselves were exhaling. The temple¡ªno, something deeper¡ªwas responding. Lysander clenched his fist, his hand trembling violently. "Stop. Stop. STOP!" The pain refused. The light from his palm pulsed brighter, brighter, blinding¡ª The figure was gone. Erased. One moment it had been there. The next¡ªthe air swallowed it whole. But the Veil had already shifted. The temple began to shake. The walls bent. Folded. Moved. The entrance¡ªgone. Lysander was trapped.
His breath came ragged. His vision blurred. His limbs felt less real by the second, as though the Veil had begun unraveling him, thread by thread. A moment of weightlessness crushed down on him. For a fraction of a second, he was somewhere else. A glimpse. Cold. Endless. Something vast. Watching. Waiting. Lysander gasped¡ªhis mind split between two places at once. Then, just as quickly¡ª A whisper. Clear. Unmistakable. Right behind him. "Wake up." Everything shattered.