The Sky-Veil: Chapter 2
The Lament of the Forgotten
The Sky-Veil series is a mythopoetic journey through a forgotten realm where the divine brushes the mortal. A nameless man awakens beneath a veil of sorrow and memory, guided by three silent goddesses across a path of signs, silence, and sacred trials. His quest is not to rise in power, but to remember his name—and the order of Being itself. This is a story of longing, wisdom, and the quiet majesty that crowns the soul.
The Sky-Veil series was written and developed by Walter Emerson Adams with creative assistance from ChatGPT (OpenAI) as a language-shaping tool. All content and narrative remain original to the author.
The rose did not fade.
It pulsed gently in his satchel, its light steady, its warmth subtle—like rosy dawn’s blooming fingers remembered in a dream. And he believed he remembered. As the man walked, he felt the land around him begin to stir. The Sky-Veil and the land Beneath had not changed, not outwardly. The sky was still a dull dome. The moss still fractured beneath his steps. But something beneath it all had shifted.
He was no longer wandering.
He was being drawn.
He passed an ancient wall, half-crushed and overtaken by crawling vines. Across its crumbling face, glyphs shimmered briefly as he passed: spirals, interwoven circles, a stylized rose with a flame at its center. When he turned to look again, they were gone.
Farther on, he came upon a small shrine—no more than a circle of stones surrounding a broken mirror. It was set into the ground like an offering, the shards arranged like a shattered sun. When he knelt beside it, he saw not his face, but the eyes of a young man, wide with hope. Then the vision blinked away.
He left in silence.
The signs multiplied: three feathers in perfect line on a ledge; a stone cracked into the shape of an open eye; the remains of another harp, its one remaining string vibrating with no wind. He did not understand, yet each stirred something deeper than thought.
These were not random curiosities.
They were remembrances—echoes of something that wanted to be remembered again.
The air grew thicker. He began to descend a gentle incline into a basin surrounded by smooth hills. Mist gathered there—not like fog, but like memory—drifting low, circling the stones that rose from the ground like ancient sentinels.
And then he saw them.
Statues.
Four of them, arranged in a half circle around the basin’s heart.
Each was carved in exquisite detail. One wore robes, another armor. One carried books or scrolls. Another held a scepter and sword. But each one bore his face. Not quite as it was now—but as it might have been. Presented in ways he had never dared imagine.
He stood among them, his breath shallow.
The Field of False Kings.
He knew this place—not from memory, but from something deeper. It had waited for him.
Each statue offered a different version of him.
The one with books was tall and cold, wrapped in knowledge. The one in robes wept with grief, draped in regret. The one in armor grinned with charm, extending a golden goblet. The one with scepter rested on the hilt of his bloodied sword.
They were temptations, not in the sense of evil, but of misdirection.
“These are your echoes,” a voice said behind him.
He turned.
She was there.
She of the Grey Eyes and Light.
She was not as he had imagined her, cloaked in armor and finely woven cloth, her eyes flashing with ancient clarity.
“Not what you were, nor what you will be,” she said. “These are what you might choose to become.”
He looked again at the statues.
“You must walk among them. Not to claim, but to free.”
He stepped forward. With each statue he approached, a feeling welled up—desire, pride, fear, hope. One by one, he laid his hand on each and whispered two words he did not realize until they left his lips.
“Not me.”
And the statue crumbled.
Not violently. Not with anger. But like sand remembering it was never stone.
When at last he reached the center of the field, the mist cleared to reveal one more statue.
It stood with hands empty. No books. No armor. No sword. Only open eyes, and a bare chest where a rose glowed, carved in soft light.
“To walk further,” she said, “you must see what lies behind the every-man.”
She offered a small object—no larger than the book of empty pages in his strange new satchel.
A mirror-shard, set in olive wood.
He looked into it.
He saw a flame. Not blazing, but focused. Not consuming, but revealing. It was unprovoked hope.
She placed it in his hand and said:
“You will need this.”
And then she vanished.
Only the statues—crumbled and silent—remained.
The man turned. The rose pulsed. The shard radiated. The land beneath the Sky-Veil had changed.
The path of signs had opened.
Enjoy “Athena - The Gleaming Lamp” from my album The Sky-Veil, available on my music site.
Purchase the album, The Sky-Veil here.
Lyrics ©Walter Emerson Adams. Music and vocals by Suno ©Walter Emerson Adams.
A voice behind him cried unseen ’Twas She of the Grey-Eyes and Light who spoke “The echoes, ways that could have been” “Are not what were or ever woke” In armor dressed as brilliant dawn Athena’s eyes bright grey, renowned They flashed with blooms and shone upon The fields Athena’s sparkling crowned She handed him a mirrored pane Its edges wood and gold display Athena spoke in language plain “Look in—reflect, you choose the way” Athena disappeared in night The man looked first to her then low The mirror held a distant light A gleaming lamp to guide and show