Alex cast one last look at Dren Vokar's unconscious body, slumped against the control panel. The man's face had gone ashen, the veins around his eyes dark and prominent.
Whatever had happened when the Mark extraction failed had drained him completely. Or maybe because he was a shadow well user….
"I'm sorry," Alex whispered, unsure whether it was meant for Dren or himself.
The crow fluttered down from a ceiling beam, landing beside the control panel. Its obsidian eyes gleamed with an intelligence far beyond that of any ordinary bird.
With a precise movement of its beak, it pecked at a specific sigil on the panel. The chamber door hissed open.
"How did you—" Alex began, but the crow merely cawed softly and hopped into the corridor.
The surveillance runes were down; only emergency lighting flickered in the hallway, casting eerie blue shadows that danced along the walls. Alex stepped out, his heart hammering in his chest.
He needed to find the Fractured Light—his only way home, his only chance to understand what was happening to him.
The crow led the way, its movements surprisingly purposeful. Each time they approached an intersection, it would pause, head cocked as if listening, before indicating which way to turn.
"You're no ordinary bird, are you?" Alex murmured.
The crow made a sound that almost resembled laughter.
Suddenly, a piercing alarm blared throughout the corridor.
A voice echoed from the walls themselves: "Attention all Sunspire personnel. Unauthorized chamber access. Possible prisoner escape in Sector Seven. All available inspectors respond immediately."
Alex froze. "They know!"
The crow screeched in apparent frustration, flying up to a glowing rune embedded in the wall.
It scratched at the sigil with its talons, and to Alex's amazement, the rune dimmed and the alarm fell silent.
"How are you doing that?" Alex breathed.
The crow merely cawed again, more urgently this time, and flew further down the corridor.
Alex followed, his mind racing. If the crow could manipulate Sunspire technology, what else might it be capable of? And who—or what—was really guiding him?
They turned a corner and found themselves in a wider hallway. Moonlight streamed through tall windows, illuminating the polished marble floor.
Outside, Alex could see the towers of Velis Solara gleaming silver in the night.
"Almost there," he whispered to himself. "Just need to find—"
"Alex."
The voice stopped him cold. He turned slowly to see Caelia standing at the far end of the hallway, her expression a mixture of concern and caution. Her hand rested lightly on the hilt of her blade.
"Don't run," Caelia said, her voice gentle but firm. "Please. No one at Sunspire wishes to harm you."
Alex let out a bitter laugh. "Really? Is that why I was almost killed in that chamber you put me in?"
Caelia's eyes widened. "What are you talking about?"
"Dren Vokar," Alex said, the name bitter on his tongue. "Your Southern Branch Senior Inspector. He tried to extract my Mark."
"Extract your..." Caelia took a step forward, her face paling. "Alex, that's impossible. No one was authorized to perform any procedures on you tonight."
"Well, someone forgot to tell him that," Alex retorted, his voice shaking with anger and fear.
"He said he was going to take my Mark and use it. Said I was too dangerous to keep it."
Caelia was visibly shaken. "Alex, what exactly happened in that chamber?"
The crow cawed a warning from the windowsill, but Alex ignored it. Something in Caelia's expression told him she truly didn't know.
"He trapped me in some kind of extraction field. Said he was going to take my Mark because it didn't belong to me." Alex's words tumbled out in a rush. "He's not a Sunspire user, Caelia. He's Shadowwell."
Caelia's face went completely still. "Are you certain of this?"
"He used void energy," Alex said. "It was different from starlight. Cold. Empty. And he knew things—about the Mark, about me—things he shouldn't have known."
The crow cawed again, more insistently this time.
"I need to go," Alex said, backing away.
"Alex, wait—" Caelia began, but fell silent as footsteps echoed from both ends of the corridor.
Varrion appeared from one direction, his expression grave. From the other end came Aelren, accompanied by two other figures in Sunspire uniforms—one bearing the insignia of the Eastern Branch, the other the Western.
"The alarm was silenced," Varrion said, his gaze moving from Caelia to Alex to the crow perched on the windowsill. "What's happening here?"
"The boy was attempting to escape," said the Eastern Branch inspector, a tall woman with sharp features and eyes that reminded Alex of cut emeralds.
"I am Inspector Lirien. I came as soon as I heard."
"As did I," said the Northern Branch inspector, an older man with a silver beard.
"Inspector Thaelon. The South Branch chambers should not have been accessible to the child."
"He claims Dren Vokar attempted to extract his Mark," Caelia said, her voice carefully neutral. "He claims Vokar is Shadowwell."
A stunned silence fell over the group.
"That's... a serious accusation," Aelren said finally, looking at Alex with a mixture of disbelief and growing concern.
"It's the truth," Alex insisted. "Check the chamber if you don't believe me. He's still in there, unconscious."
"Unconscious?" Varrion's eyebrows rose. "You bested a Senior Inspector?"
"I didn't do anything," Alex said. "It was like... like the Mark protected itself. When he tried to take it, something happened. The energies collided and he collapsed."
The inspectors exchanged concerned glances.
"Alex," Varrion said, taking a step toward him, "I understand you're frightened. But please, trust us. We're trying to help you. Running away won't solve anything."
Alex felt anger rising in his chest. "Your chamber almost killed me. I'm done with Sunspire." The words came out with more force than he expected, echoing in the corridor. "I'm leaving Velis Solara."
Everyone stared at him, stunned by the authority in his voice—especially coming from a ten-year-old boy. But none of them underestimated him now. He was, after all, an Everborn.
"You don't understand what's at stake," Aelren said softly. "The Mark you bear—"
"Is mine," Alex interrupted. "And I'm keeping it."
The crow let out a low, approving croak.
"The bird," Inspector Lirien said suddenly, her eyes narrowing. "It's been manipulating our systems somehow. Silencing alarms, opening doors."
"That's impossible," Thaelon scoffed. "It's just a bird."
"Nothing about this situation is 'just' anything," Caelia murmured, watching the crow with newfound suspicion.
Alex took another step back, feeling tension building in the air. The inspectors were forming a loose semicircle, not quite threatening but definitely containing.
He glanced at the windows, wondering if he could make it outside somehow.
"Alex," Varrion said, his voice gentle now, "please. Let us help you understand what's happening.
The Mark you bear is ancient and powerful. If what you say about Dren is true, then you're in even more danger than we thought."
"Why should I trust any of you?" Alex demanded.
"Because we're not all like Dren," Caelia answered. "Most of us truly serve the Light."
Alex hesitated, uncertainty flickering across his features.
It was in that moment of hesitation that Lirien struck.
Without warning, Inspector Lirien's hands formed a complex sigil. A beam of concentrated starlight shot toward Alex—not to kill, but clearly meant to incapacitate.
Alex gasped, raising his arms instinctively in defense. The Hollow's Bargain Mark on his forearm flared to life, pulsing with an eerie glow. What happened next defied explanation.
The Mark *drank* the starlight—not absorbing, but *consuming*, the golden energy twisting into veins of blackened cosmos.—and then twist it, corrupt it, transform it into something else entirely.
Where there had been golden light, now writhed tendrils of darkness speckled with distant, dying stars.
Void energy.
Before anyone could react, Alex's Mark released the transformed energy in a shockwave that rippled outward.
The force struck several Sunspire guards who had just arrived, sending them flying backward.
Horror dawned on every face present. He was just a scared child—now he was wielding Void like a weapon.
"By the Light," Thaelon whispered, raising his own defensive sigils.
"Stop!" Caelia cried, but it was too late. More guards were rushing in, preparing containment sigils.
The crow swooped down from its perch, circling Alex's head frantically.
The crow's beak split the air—not with sound, but with 'thoughts' forced into Alex's skull:
"Blade. Now. Before the light remembers you.", causing everyone to freeze in shock.
Alex didn't stop to question how the crow was speaking or how it knew about the strange crimson blade he'd found earlier. He pulled it from his sleeve, gripping it tightly. "What now?" he called to the bird.
Suddenly, a second voice—eerie, calm, ancient—spoke inside his head.
"Use your Mark. Activate the blade. Strike—not at them, but there."
The voice directed his attention to an empty space beyond the guards, where only the corridor continued, lined with windows overlooking the grounds of Velis Solara.
Following an instinct he didn't understand, Alex channeled energy from his Mark into the crimson blade.
The weapon began to glow with an unsettling light, neither Void nor Sunspire, but something in between—something broken and reforged.
"Kill the variable!" Lirien hissed. The guards faltered—their blades wavering between duty and terror.
With all his strength, Alex struck at the empty air where the voice had indicated.
The blade 'screamed' as it split reality, the rift exhaling air that reeked of dying stars and the Void's static laughter. that pulsed with strange energies.
Through it, Alex glimpsed a landscape unlike anything in Velis Solara—a twilight realm where neither light nor shadow held dominance.
The voice and the crow urged in unison: "Step in. This is your path now."
The Sunspire officers watched in fear and awe, too stunned to intervene immediately.
Alex hesitated at the threshold of the impossible doorway, looking back at Caelia, whose face showed not anger but concern.
"Alex, don't—" she began.
"I have to find answers," he said. "And I can't find them here."
With that, he stepped through. The rift sealed behind him with a sound like shattering glass, leaving nothing but empty air where it had been.
Silence fell over the corridor.
After a long moment, Caelia and Aelren exchanged a glance and wordlessly rushed toward the chamber Alex had spoken of. The others followed, all thoughts of protocol forgotten in the wake of what they'd just witnessed.
They found Dren Vokar collapsed on the floor, pale and gasping for breath. Dren's body collapsed like a gutted puppet, his skin clinging to bones that now seemed too large.
Where his Mark had been—only a scar in the shape of a screaming mouth.
And when Caelia checked his wrists—where all Sunspire inspectors bore their Marks—she found only smooth, unmarked skin.
His Mark was gone—stripped away.
"He's powerless," Aelren whispered, shock evident in his voice.
They could sense traces of conflicting energies in the room—void energy and starlight, clashing and neutralizing each other. Evidence of a struggle beyond physical combat.
Despite his weakened state, Dren's eyes were filled with hatred. His lips moved, forming words too faint to hear at first. Caelia leaned closer.
"I will kill you, Alex," he was murmuring, over and over like a mantra. "I will kill you."
Caelia straightened, her expression hardening as realization dawned. Caelia's fingers trembled against Dren's Markless wrist.
The truth hung in the air like a executioner's blade:
Sunspire had been compromised from within.
Outside, the moons of Velis Solara continued their eternal dance across the night sky, indifferent to the revelation of a Shadowwell user in their midst, indifferent to the journey of a boy who had stepped through a tear in reality itself—The first note of the end's symphony had been struck.