The High Steward’s cadence lowered further, older now, and Melvin realized with cold clarity that this governance didn’t only rule bodies.
It ruled paths.
This wasn’t leave.
It was control.
Reynolds moved first.
Mac held back.
Distance measured. Influence tested.
Mac didn’t touch them. He couldn’t. But his presence held like a hand anyway.
Melvin tightened his grip on Reynolds’ shoulder and drew a steady breath. The Circle beneath their feet brightened, the lines sinking into the tile as a pale fog began to rise.
Reynolds tensed beside him.
Melvin kept his voice low. “Stay with me.”
The haze thickened until the room blurred away, walls and light swallowed in the same quiet pull.
Then the Veil closed.
Chapter 13 - Mac
The room felt wrong without Melvin in it.
Not empty. Not quiet.
Wrong in a way that made Mac mistrust his own rules.
He stood after the Veil sealed, eyes locked on the spot where the circle had been, where it had sunk into the tile and then vanished like it never existed. The fluorescent lights buzzed. The monitor blinked its steady intervals. The bed Reynolds had lain on was stripped and ordinary again.
Everything looked exactly the way it had before. And he hated how normal it looked.
War usually left marks. Burned metal. Blood stains and broken equipment. Paperwork stacked three inches high explaining how it happened.
This left nothing.
Just absence.
Mac exhaled slowly and forced himself to move. There were medics outside the door, soldiers in the hallway, and an entire company that expected their XO to look like he understood what was happening even when he didn’t.
He stepped into the corridor. The base had already swallowed the event as if it had never happened.
Boots on gravel outside. Radios crackling. Someone laughing too loud near the supply cage. A forklift whining somewhere past the motor pool.
Routine closed over the truth like sand filling a footprint.
Marcus found him first. Of course he did.
Marcus Crawford leaned on the cinderblock outside the aid station, clipboard under one arm. He didn’t look surprised. “You good?” Marcus asked.
Mac nodded once.
“Reynolds?”
