Shroud

486 Watchers. They have been observing you longer than you have been alive.

The Nith do not exist. Everyone knows this. The Mind Track has said so.

But someone feeds them intelligence. Someone marks the targets. Someone knows which door will be unlocked and which guard will look away.

That is us. The Shroud.

We do not disappear like the Nith. We do not bend space or fold attention. We simply become unremarkable. We stand in the corner of rooms where secrets are spoken. We walk through crowds that forget us the moment we pass. We watch for years. Decades. Centuries if necessary.

I once observed a planetary council for two hundred years. I sat in the same chamber where they made decisions that would shape their world. No one ever noticed me. Not once. I was simply there, the way walls are there. The way air is there.

I learned the name of their emperor's secret heir. I watched him grow from child to regent while his father pretended he did not exist. I knew he would inherit before he did. I knew he would refuse before the thought ever crossed his mind.

When the harvest came, I knew everything. Every defense. Every weakness. Every leader and their private fears. I transmitted it all.

To whom? I do not ask. The information goes where it needs to go. The Nith do not exist, but somehow the impossible happens. Doors unlock. Guards look away. Worlds fall quietly.

Look at me. My amethyst formations are muted. Soft. Nothing sharp. Nothing memorable. My violet light pulses at the exact rhythm that eyes slide past. I am built to be overlooked. I am designed to be forgotten.

We are not invisible. We are something worse. We are forgettable.

There is a cost to this. A Shroud who is remembered—truly remembered—begins to solidify. The forgettable quality fades. The muted amethyst brightens into something that catches attention. They become seen. And a Shroud who is seen is no longer a Shroud.

Some are reassigned to the Shade. The baseline. Back where they started. But some refuse. They choose to dim completely. To fade until there is nothing left to remember.

The Nith get the credit. If credit is the right word for something that does not exist. But we are the foundation of every operation that never happened.

I am watching you now. You have already forgotten.

486 Watchers. They see everything. You will remember nothing.