In the world of Veritas, truth wasn’t just a virtue — it was the law of existence. At birth, every person was granted exactly three lies. Not four. Not infinite. Just three. After the third, any attempt to lie again would cause the speaker to fall into a permanent silence, their voice stolen by the world itself.

Elias had used two of his lies by the time he was ten. The first was to protect his sister from punishment after she broke their mother’s vase. The second was to save himself from a bully’s wrath by pretending he didn’t see who stole the lunch money. Since then, he had spoken with surgical honesty, calculating each word as if it might be his last.

At twenty-seven, Elias fell in love with Lira, a traveler with secrets in her eyes. She asked him one day, “Will you always love me?” Her voice was trembling, afraid of truth, maybe more afraid of lies. He looked at her — truly looked — and realized she needed a yes, even if it wasn’t certain.

“I will,” he said.

His voice cracked. A small shiver passed through his throat, and then silence. His third lie. His last.

But Lira smiled, kissed his cheek, and whispered, “Thank you. That’s all I needed.”

And though Elias could never speak again, his silence said more than any truth ever could.