I didn't dream that night.
Or if I did, the dreams stayed where they belonged—deep in the dark, behind the bones that now pulsed with heat whenever I breathed too hard.
I didn't bleed. There were no wounds. But my body felt wrong.
Not broken.
Just different.
Like I'd been stitched back together in a shape no one else could see.
The seal didn't throb. It didn't scream. But it made its presence known in quieter ways.
A twist behind my ribs when I turned.
A soft vibration in my spine when I tried to focus too hard.
A strange, almost imperceptible hum in the base of my stomach—just beneath the skin, just above the bone—when I walked too close to the East Wing.
Where I knew he was.
Kael hadn't appeared since the ritual.
No one said his name. No one dared.
But the palace moved differently now.
Slower.
As if the stone itself was waiting.
The queen hadn't held court in three days.
The king hadn't been seen at all.
And the servants… they moved with their eyes down, their mouths closed, their hands too careful with even the smallest of tasks.
Something had shifted.
And everyone knew it.
My tasks hadn't changed. I was still assigned to clean the lesser halls and outer sanctum corridors. But the guards no longer watched me like they used to.
They didn't mock me.
They didn't trip me.
They didn't speak.
They just… stood back.
And sometimes, I could feel them watching as I passed.
Not with contempt.
With something quieter.
Recognition?
No.
Fear.
The robe they gave me after the ritual hadn't been taken away.
It wasn't royal. But it wasn't servant-made, either.
Dark slate-blue. High collar. No embroidery.
It fit too well.
As if someone had made it before I'd grown into it.
On the fourth day after the ceremony, I was ordered to clean the Hall of Ancients.
I'd only been inside once before.
That time, I wasn't allowed past the threshold.
This time, the guard opened the door without speaking.
And didn't follow.
The hall smelled like incense that had burned out years ago.
Stale paper. Iron dust. Old wax.
The air was dry, but not empty.
The weight here was different.
Not oppressive, not sacred.
Just… expectant.
As if the walls themselves were remembering things no one was allowed to write down anymore.
The statues lining the center of the hall were older than the palace.
That's what the tutor once told Kael, when we were small.
"They predate the First Fire," he'd said. "Before the gods made bloodlines. Before the elements chose sides."
They weren't gods.
They weren't demons.
They were something in between.
Tall, androgynous. Faces beautiful and strange, carved with eyes too wide, lips too soft.
Wings folded behind them.
Chains carved beneath their feet.
One of them held a mirror.
Another held a sword.
The third—the tallest—held a mask in each hand. One white. One black.
I stopped in front of that one.
There was something about it that made my breath catch.
The runes at its base were in a language I didn't know.
But the shape of them…
It felt familiar.
Too familiar.
I didn't touch it.
But I stepped closer.
And for one terrifying second—I saw its eyes glow.
Just faintly.
A trick of the light, I told myself.
I looked away.
But the moment stayed lodged behind my ribs.
Like a secret that had seen me first.
When I returned to my room that night, there was no message under the pillow.
No new robe.
No ring.
But I knew he had been there.
The hum behind my navel began the moment I entered.
A quiet, aching awareness.
Kael was near.
I didn't know where.
I didn't know why.
But the bone seal reacted to him like a compass pointing home.
And I hated that I now understood what that meant.
They didn't give me new orders the next day.
I waited.
And waited.
And when no summons came, I wandered.
Carefully. Quietly.
The palace was too quiet.
No court.
No guests.
Not even the foreign prince.
Had he left?
Had he said goodbye?
Or had I been kept away?
I didn't ask.
Because there was no one left to ask.
Near dusk, I found myself standing in the Western Tower library.
It had been locked for years.
But the door wasn't locked now.
Inside, the room had been stripped of dust.
Scrolls laid out across a blackwood table.
Not paper scrolls.
Not sacred texts.
But clay sheets.
Carved with sharp instruments. Sealed with wax.
They weren't from this kingdom.
I knew that instinctively.
They smelled wrong.
Not bad—just ancient.
And powerful.
And curious.
Someone had broken one of them open.
The fragments were scattered in a basin filled with saltwater.
The runes inside shimmered faintly—just once—before sinking to the bottom.
On the far wall, someone had drawn a figure in chalk.
Not rough. Not rushed.
Beautiful.
Almost reverent.
A man with silver horns.
Long white hair.
Eyes like knives.
And beneath him—kneeling—another figure, faceless, branded across the chest.
The same place as mine.
I backed away before I understood what I was looking at.
And bumped into something.
Not a wall.
Not furniture.
Someone.
I turned.
He was there.
Kael.
No robe.
Just him.
Tall now—taller than I remembered.
Still. Pale. Silent.
His eyes met mine.
Not with anger.
Not with warmth.
Just the same calm, chilling weight he always carried.
But something behind it had changed.
Not what he saw.
How he saw.
His gaze flicked to the drawing on the wall.
Then to me.
Then lower—to the center of my chest.
I froze.
He didn't move.
Didn't speak.
But the seal inside my body sang.
A low vibration, like a string being pulled across bone.
And I knew.
He'd done it.
He hadn't ordered it.
He hadn't watched it.
He'd performed it.
Carved it.
Burned his name into me himself.
He stepped forward.
Not fast.
Not looming.
Just closer.
The hum behind my ribs grew sharper.
The brand beneath my chest ached.
But I didn't step back.
I didn't speak.
Because what could I say?
He stopped a foot away.
Studied me.
Tilted his head.
Then reached out—very slowly—and pressed two fingers to the center of my chest.
Right over the mark.
I didn't flinch.
I didn't breathe.
I just waited.
And when he removed his hand—
I felt the pulse return.
But softer.
Almost… satisfied.
He left without a word.
That night, I didn't sleep.
Not because of fear.
Because of a feeling I didn't understand.
A new kind of quiet.
Not peace.
Not safety.
Resignation.
And somewhere far beneath the palace, I dreamed of a voice whispering in a tongue I didn't know—
"You bear his mark now."
"But soon, he'll bear mine."