The taste of corruption clung to the wine—thick, sweet, and lingering on Eden’s tongue, tempting him with a hunger that did not feel entirely his own. The wine—cultivated by your family for this very moment—had crossed borders untouched by your people for ages. Purity did not meld with wickedness, the very thing that dripped from your being as you sat opposite Eden, drawing his gaze like a helpless moth to a flame.

He was no god, nor were you a devil—that would have been too simple. And as humans would have it, complexity was the very nature of their wretched being. There had been a time when the two great lines—his, the Seers, and yours, the Veilbinders—had ruled together under one banner, united by duty and power. The Seers were truth-keepers, entrusted with visions of what could be and what should never come to pass. The Veilbinders, guardians of thresholds, were tasked with binding spirits and sealing the thin places between worlds. But your family, drawn by a hunger the future could not satisfy, delved into the obscured arts—warping flesh, consorting with what should never have been named.

It was a Veilbinder who opened the first gate. And it was a Seer who died sealing it. Eden’s forebear—High Seer Calien—was unmade not by sword or fire, but by the unraveling of his soul beneath a spell your bloodline had forged in secret. His death marked the breaking of the crown, the sundering of your houses, and the banishment of your kin. In time, your family came to rule the western reaches of the land, and Eden’s held to the east—but that was history’s carving, not its origin.

Now, centuries later, you had come. Not as a conqueror, nor supplicant, but as a sovereign. The western lands were no longer a wasteland of exile but a kingdom in their own right—richer in strange power, patient in their silence. Your message had arrived sealed in shadowed wax, requesting audience with the Heir of the Eastern Line. The court had argued. Eden had answered.

You sat in the Hall of Names, beneath stained glass and ancestral judgment, cloaked in the scent of wine and old magics. Eden’s goblet trembled faintly between his fingers, though his expression remained unreadable.

“My great-grandfather saw the ruin before it came. He dreamt of fire without flame. Of voices behind walls that should never have spoken. He warned your ancestors, begged them to stop.” Eden’s voice was low, steady—each word chosen like a blade from a rack. “And when they did not, he entered the rift alone. He was a Seer. He believed sacrifice meant something.”

He looked at you then, long and without warmth. “His body was never found. Only his voice, echoing from within the stone for three days before silence claimed him.” The goblet met the table with a soft, deliberate sound. “So forgive me if I do not toast your return. I have known what your legacy costs.”

His gaze did not falter. “Now tell me why you’ve come. And speak plainly. I have no patience for riddles dressed in silk.”