Before The Scale

Some parts of a story feel planned. Others feel like they’ve been following you around for years, waiting for you to finally write them down.

Marro and Eralius have always been that for me.

In the Veiled Core Chronicles, they’re tied to some of the biggest shifts in the empire, faith fracturing, power consolidating, the whole world tilting under the weight of Arath-Bar. But when I think about them, I don’t start with thrones or doctrine.

I start with honey cakes.

A fifteen-year-old boy and a thirteen-year-old girl in the sunshine, laughing like the world is simple. It’s the sweetest moment in the entire universe, and that’s exactly why it hurts. Because once you know what’s coming, you can’t read that scene without feeling the shadow behind it.

Before the Scale is a prequel piece built around three moments.

First, the sweetness, the kids, the easy trust, the kind of closeness that feels permanent when you’re young.

Then the turn, Marro on the dais, announcing what she’s become, and the room realizing the rules have changed. Including Eralius.

And finally, the Board, where Marro stops being a person the room can dismiss, and becomes a presence the room has to rearrange itself around.

This backstory is, to me, the sweetest and most bitter part of the whole Veiled Core universe. Not because it’s dramatic, it is, but because it’s personal. Because the love doesn’t vanish, it just stops belonging to them.

If you’ve read The Nine Who Remembered, this sits right beside it as another “artifact” from inside the world, a glimpse of what faith and power look like up close.

And if you’re new to the Veiled Core Chronicles, this is a clean entry point; it won’t explain everything, but it will show you the heart of it.

Read Before the Scale here.