These words are inked for those who will one day take up our burden. If the Veil is torn by the time your paws touch this page, know that it did not happen quietly.

Before the dawn stirred the horizon, the seven Gates shivered. A tremor without sound. A breath without wind. The stone warmed underpaw — as if a forgotten heart beat once deep below.

We of the Unseen Paw felt it first. We always do.

For generations uncounted we have watched the seven Gates that bind the Veil — rising, faltering, returning with the tides of ages. They are older than our Order, older than our ink, older perhaps than Baast’s earliest breath.

Yet never in any scroll or shattered fragment have the seven stirred together.

The Council gathered beneath the Pillar of Shadows. Tails low. Voices hushed. Some claimed omen. Others feared intrusion.

And then — resonance.

A wave crossed all seven thresholds. Not sound. Not light. Something deeper.

Symbols we have never cataloged flared at the Gate edges, too ancient to survive ink, too swift for even our eyes.

The Fifth Circle calls prophecy. The Third commands silence. The First remains unreadable.

I, Quiet Paw, claim only this:

When one Gate shivers, the Veil adjusts. When two answer, we prepare. But when all seven lean toward the world at once — something is reaching back.

So we steady our quills. We lock our archives. And we wait — for what has awakened beneath the Veil now searches for its path.

Continued…