Kingdom Snippets

Elijah’s Journal

Jul 07, 2025

They say the Crossfall only comes once in a lifetime. That the Orb and the noctorb are never meant to meet.

And yet here they are, about to do the unthinkable

The prisoner was young. Seventeen cycles, perhaps. No formal robes, no runes inked across her skin—just the brand of Kahru-el carved into her palm like a vow. I thought she would be frightened, or fragile. My father’s men had spent some time with her, “questioning” her before she demanded my presence. I shuddered to think what might have taken place.

But the moment I stepped into the cell, she smiled. Not warm or welcoming. It pulled her cheeks toward hollowed eyes, but stopped short before reaching them. Something cold and sinister stared back at me through orbs of muddy brown.

Then she spoke.

Not in any dialect I recognized. Her voice fractured as many tones layered beneath one tongue, as though I were hearing the voices of many when she was but one before me. She sputtered syllables so twisted and venomous, I felt them settle into the back of my throat like ash. I did not need to understand the words to know they were curses.

Directed at me.

At everything I stand for.

And yet I felt no fear.

I know I should have. I felt the chill creeping up from the cell floor she was shackled to. Fine hairs along my neck straightened toward the Avarin and the presence of another felt palpable. But I remained calm and focused on the task at hand.

She openly entertained lunafel, worshipping Kahru-el as though he could give her meaning and purpose. I almost felt a pity for her. Did she know the dark figure that enchanted her thoughts and actions bore no consequence in the kingdom of Veya? That his power was only delusion in the form poisonous whispers of destruction?

I could almost hear the lies he spewed.

“Kill him. Kill everyone he loves. Destroy them before they destroy us.”

Us versus them. Keepers of the Light versus those of pride who sought to take power that never belonged to them, and never would.

I have never understood the appeal of seeking direction from powerless crents whose most well known claim to fame is the moment Veya cast them out of the Avarin. When that was not shame enough, they attempted to steal paradise from the very being who formed them. They launched an assail, entirely in vain, vying for the very dust we walk upon. They cling to that fall like its glory, like the moment they lost everything made them something worth remembering.

That kind of pride—to exalt oneself as god in the presence of the only true One, the Almighty Veya—is not mere arrogance. It is madness wrapped in blasphemy. A delusion so vast it dares to challenge the hands that shaped the stars. I cannot fathom it, only grieve for the soul consumed by it.

Because Veya is the author of my days. No breath drawn against me can undo what He has already spoken or what He has written in the stars long before He formed the dust.

Still… I left shaken. Not because of what she said, but because she waited to say it to me. She would not look at Masseh, refused speak to the guards.

Not even my father, the King of the realm.

And this was just one among many recent encounters with a mage offering prophecy as though it were written in stone.

But in the moments after I entered, she lifted her head and whispered:

They see you.
The lunafel.
The ones cast down like ash, left to rot beneath the Orb.
They see you. A boy in Veya’s shadow, reaching for a throne to write his name upon.

Her voice took on a lower pitch. Something dark and sinister, something not Veyari.

This dust orb belongs to the lunafel. Veya has abandoned it and we have taken what belongs to us!
Follow the many, lest many bring ruin upon your reign.

Foreboding laced through me like a blade against flesh. It was no longer a question of if they planned to come for my father, but when. Whatever my father had done to paint a target on his back for the mage paled in comparison to the hatred they would feel for a King that worshipped the being who cursed them

⸻

There is a kind of peace that comes with submission to Veya. But peace is not the absence of conflict, quite the opposite, in fact. The closer I draw to Him, the more the dust stirs to drive me back. Father would say I am given to superstition, that i am merely grasping for meaning and patterns in the sand because I did not have a mother to coddle me. He always did prefer politics over prophecy. And emotion of any kind.

Tomorrow night, every Caldrith and Virethen born daughter from here to the western border will be laced and powdered and paraded before me like ceremonial grain. Father calls it a “delicate dance of diplomacy.” I call it what it is—a breeding auction with finer music. He wants heirs. A future secure in the House of Clover, legacy. I understand his concerns.

But I also see the irony in them.

He has spent decades holding this kingdom together with clenched fists and shallow alliances, dragging us further from the Veil with every compromise. I have watched him wear the weight of Kavareth like a chainmail shroud. His actions always heavy and righteous in his own eyes. I cannot pretend I lack respect for the burden he has carried, but his decisions have driven Kavareth further away from the Veil and towards destruction.

Mage now practice openly and fervently, when in cycles past they clung to the shadows and the noctorb for their heinous acts of depravity. He tolerated them. Allowed them to move in and build their own temples. Now they seek to canonize their absurdities, dressing them in robes of logic while the ones who still follow Veya are mocked as the deranged.

Their worship spreads like rot beneath the surface, blackening our lands from the inside out. They burn holy books, histories, manuscripts and paintings, all of which depicting a time before time itself.

Not once has my father questioned them or their motives, why they seek to obliterate all traces of Veya from history.

He never bothered to learn the ways of the Veil, preferring to call it a young man’s fantasy. The notion that destiny moved without his guiding hand had simply never occurred to him.

That is just one of many places where he went wrong. His education preferences consisted entirely of war manuals and histories of the most deranged dictators from the Sea of Nuro to Lureth Ocean.

When my time comes, I will not rule like him. I will not cling to power with bloodstained hands and call it strength. I will recall the time that Veya mandated Kings rise, to set them apart in purpose and destiny. I will remind my people that a Kings calling is first submit his own will before the Creator of all, and to rule it according to the law. I will teach them the law, once more. And I will love them fiercely. Because a king that does not love his nation is a king intended for ruin.

I have already given my oath to mighty Veya. When the crown comes, I will give Him that too.

And still, with all that righteous clarity pulsing in my chest, I cannot stop thinking about her.

Father says I will dance with fifty tonight.

That I will smile and nod and pretend not to care who was invited or why. I am to show interest. “Feigned or otherwise,” his exact words. He thinks my silence is tactical, and in a way, it is.

Because I have already chosen. I have intended.

My mind was made up nearly 10 cycles past.

It was gravity, inevitable as the oceans pull to shore. Long before she ever learned to carry herself with the kind dignity that the Strata were born to refute. Before I knew what it meant to carry expectation like a weapon tucked beneath ribs. I chose her.

I have never told her—not plainly, anyway. I am certain that she knows. when I gaze into pools of blue I swear that I see desire reflected back to me. She is impossible to read on the best days—hot and cold like the wind on the cliffs.

But I do not mistake it for disinterest. I believe it is fear, or hesitation at the very least.

Choosing me would cost her. Choosing me would make her the most hated Veyari in all of Kavareth.

It vexes me how they have labeled her soilborn, as though her birth father and all of his contributions to science left her in poor standing. I would place the blame squarely upon her mage of a mother for bedding my father, but I know better than to give credit where it is undue. This land is fraught with empty minds that believe themselves worthy and higher simply because they were rocked to sleep in gold threaded cradles.

Sometimes I wonder if she would even want this life, if I dared to ask. Would she stand beside me beneath the light of a Crossfall and say yes—before Veya and the whole of Kavareth? But that’s just a dream. One I haven’t earned the right to speak aloud.

Not yet.

Still… I will carry the hope in my chest tomorrow. Like a secret vow that only Veya knows.

⸻

Veya,

You see the kingdom. You see its cracks. You see mine.

If tomorrow truly marks the Crossfall—let it be more than spectacle. Let it be a sign.

I thank You for the light that is coming, for the truth it will reveal. Guide my steps. Quiet my pride. Remind me that the throne is not the end goal, it is merely a tool.

I do not want power without Your presence.

Protect my father. The fool that he is, Veya keep him in your sight. Show him who you are and that it is never too later to turn from folly.

And if You are taking requests…

I would the one with hair like stormlight and eyes like the first crack of dawn through ice.

But You already know that.

Yours for now and always,

Elijah

Thank you for reading and supporting this journey. We are so close to the launch of chapter 1, I can hardly contain my excitement!

You’ve officially met Elijah—heir of House Clover, chosen of Veya, and deeply, dangerously convicted. His words are sharp, but his soul is sharper.

What did you think of his journal entry?

Do you trust him?

What questions do you have about what he wrote—or what he’s not telling us?

Veilborn

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