The fire had gone out. Smoke hung in the corners of the cottage like a memory of warmth that refused to fade. Cael sat on the floorboards near the hidden trapdoor, listening to the world outside as if it could turn to flame again at any moment.
His father coughed from the cot, a sound that had grown rougher these last few days. His ribs were wrapped in linen that was stained red. The soldiers hadn't broken anything vital, but they had been thorough and cruel in the way only people with purpose could be.
"They'll be back," Darian rasped.
Cael didn't answer. He stared at the coals.
"Next time with dogs. Maybe with another Seer. Maybe two."
"Let them come" Cael muttered with anger.
"No." Darian shifted, gritting his teeth. "That's exactly what they want."
Cael finally turned to him. "They only felt the first one. The Bright Mark."
"Of course they did. That's what they were looking for. What they know how to see."
"They didn't even… hesitate. They didn't sense the second one at all."
Darian's expression was unreadable. "That's the point. That second mark it doesn't want to be found."
Cael fell quiet. He reached for the half-eaten loaf of bread on the table, broke off a piece, and tossed it threw the window too where their mule was tied. It blinked at him, then continued chewing.
"It's like it knows when someone's watching," Cael said after a moment. "The second mark. It goes still. Cold."
Darian closed his eyes. "It's not cold, Cael. Just quiet. For now."
There was a weight in the air neither of them spoke of. Something unspoken in Darian's eyes, a strain beneath the surface of his words. Cael had seen it growing since his twelfth year since the day he first felt the pulsing heat beneath his ribs, and his father had gone pale as parchment.
That day, Darian had taken him into the woods, built a fire, and told him everything.
Told him about the fight between gods, of the sky splitting open, of the moment when light and shadow collided and left the world broken in its wake. Told him that when he crawled back into the cottage, barely alive, he'd found Cael screaming next to his mother's body the blood still warm between them, the umbilical cord still connecting them.
He told him that ever since that day the world had never been the same, that he wished he could tell him more but couldn't.
And most important of all he told him that Cael had not been alone.
That something else had come with him into the world.
Not a voice. Not a shape. Just a mark. A presence. A hunger, wrapped in silence.
"I've seen marks" Darian had whispered. "Dozens of them, during the early years. The Bright Mark always feels like warmth. Like hope. Yours… is one of the brightest and purest one I've seen, but it's being held back by the other one."
Cael could feel it. Breathing beneath his skin. Not yet waking, but close. Too close.
They left at dusk the next day, to meet an old friend of his dad named Korr
They went west and stepped into an Erie white desert.
It was a silence unlike the hush of snow or the calm of forests. This was the silence of fallen soldiers and forgotten wars, of bones bleached beneath a sky that never closed its eye. The sand whispered under their foot, shifting like memory beneath the soles of Cael's boots.
They had to rely on the few drops of water delivered by the rain in order to not extinguish their supply of water to fast and they had to travel at night. The days were too dangerous not from heat, though the sun could boil blood from the bones but because that's when the Order searched. Their scouts moved swift across daylight on flying griffons, casting long shadows in their white cloaks. But at night, the stars offered camouflage. The cold kept voices low and steps careful.
Cael walked beside the mule, guiding the sled that carried his father, Darian, who lay swaddled in furs, his face pale and pinched from pain. Each breath from the older man was thin, drawn like thread through cracked lips.
"You're sure this is the right way?" Cael asked in a low voice.
Darian nodded without opening his eyes, and said in a tired voice. "East. Until the land breaks and the sand stops humming."
That was all the direction he'd given. And yet Cael obeyed even if seeds of dout sprouted in his brain.
The boy's eyes scanned the horizon with the hope of seeing something. Dunes rippled in the moonlight like frozen waves. No trees. No stone. No life. No hope. Only wind, and stars, and the soft murmur of something ancient buried beneath the dust.
Then he felt it in his chest. A dual heartbeat the Bright Mark, steady and warm, pulsed like a second sun. The other mark, the hidden one, moved differently. Slower. Deeper. Like an echo traveling backward through time.
Cael looked to his father. "You said Korr lives past the broken valley."
Darian exhaled a laugh that turned into a cough. "If he still lives."
"And if he doesn't?" Cael asked with a somber tone
"Then we keep walking."
Cael grunted and pressed forward, gripping the mule's reins tighter. He was seventeen, nearly a man by village standards, but the weight on his shoulders made him feel much older.
Behind them, the world they knew had burned. Greyroot was no longer safe. The Seer had searched their home. But they had only found a grumpy old man named Darian, they beat him but they did not found who they were looking for even if they felt him.
But they hadn't sensed the second mark.
They couldn't.
No matter how close they stood, no matter how long they searched, the presence of that second power slipped past them like smoke. Even the Seer, with her pale eyes and twitching fingers, had only muttered, "The boy was here. Recently. But the mark is faint."
They'd left, believing he was gone. And in a way, he was.
That night, Cael had crawled up from the trapdoor and looked his father in the eyes. "We need to leave," he'd said.
Now they walked under moonlight.
By the second night, the sand changed. It grew paler, as if bleached by something stronger than sun. The wind sang differently higher, sharper, with a strange cadence that pulled at the edges of thought.
Cael paused near the ridge of a dune and knelt, pressing his hand into the sand.
It was warm.
Not from sun. Not from friction.
From something below.
He looked up sharply. "It's singing now."
Darian's voice came faint from the sled. "You feel it now?"
Cael nodded. "Yes."
"Good," the old man rasped. "You're getting closer."
Cael frowned. "To what?"
Darian didn't answer.
On the fourth night, the wind shifted again. It blew from the east now dry and bitter, as if scoured by something lifeless. Cael saw shapes on the horizon: half-buried pillars, broken statues, the shattered spine of an ancient gate.
They camped at the edge of what must once have been a city, now devoured by the desert.
Darian sat up with Cael's help, propped against a ruined wall.
"This place…" the old man muttered, "I think it used to be called Sareth. Before the gods came. Before they turned on each other."
"Was this where they fought?"
"No. But it felt them. The whole world did"
Then they stopped to camp for the night
Cael gathered wood dead shrubs, dry roots, and splinters of ancient scaffolding and built a fire that burned low and smoky.
That night, as stars wheeled overhead and Darian slept, Cael sat by the flames, hand over his chest.
The Bright Mark pulsed gently, like a heartbeat in sync with his own.
But the second mark…
It shifted.
Just a flicker. A twist.
Like something turning over in its sleep.
Cael winced. He felt heat curl up his spine, then vanish. Felt something tighten in his fingertips. His breath fogged as if he were suddenly cold even though the air around him was warm.
Then he heard the whisper.
Faint.
Not from outside.
From within.
One word: "Soon."
On the sixth night, they reached the cliffs.
The desert cracked open in a long, deep wound, a canyon wide as a river, curving like a scythe across the landscape. Cael stared down at the chasm from the edge, the air rising hot and dry from the abyss below.
He smelled ash.
"Is this it?" he asked.
Darian nodded weakly. "Cross the bridge. Look for stones shaped like teeth."
Cael turned. "Bridge?"
Darian pointed west.
It wasn't really a bridge.
It was a narrow path of broken stone, winding downward into the ravine and then upward again toward the other side. Hardly wider than a man's shoulders. Wind howled through the gap.
Cael gritted his teeth felt his heart pounding and began to guide the mule down. The ground was unstable but held for now.
The air thickened as they descended. It pressed against his skin. The silence changed, too. It was no longer quiet it was held, like breath before a scream.
And then alfway through the ravine, the mark flared.
Cael stumbled, catching himself on the stone wall.
The Bright Mark pulsed fast. Anxious. Alive.
But the second mark… it awoke.
Not fully.
Not yet.
But it opened an eye.
And with that gaze, Cael felt things.
A memory not his own.
Heat. Fire. A falling star screaming across the sky. A voice of thunder made flesh. And a world of pain.
The ground shook beneath his feet.
The mule brayed, panicked.
Cael held tight, sweat breaking down his neck.
The mark inside him throbbed once. Twice. Then went still.
"Cael?" sccreamed Darian.
"I'm fine," Cael lied.
He guided the mule upward.
And saw them.
Five hundred meters away from the so called "bridge" stood around two dozen stone like pillars that looked like the maw of a terrifying beast and
between them sat a figure.
Bent. Cloaked. Motionless.
Korr.
The old man didn't speak as they approached. He was a lot taller than Cael was with an obvously muscular physique hidden behind his clothes. His face was hidden beneath a hood, but his presence was unmistakable the way the air bent around him, the way the marks in Cael's chest reacted.
Darian gave a pained laugh. "You look like death, old man."
"And you look like someone who's already shaken his hand," Korr replied in a deep voice.
Cael helped Darian down. Korr rose slowly and examined the boy. His eyes narrowed.
"I see one mark," he said.
"Most do," Cael replied.
Korr grunted. "And the other?"
Cael just met his eyes and reluctantly showed him.
Korr nodded once.
"Then it's true."
Darian slumped against the stone. "He's begun to feel it. It's close."
Korr turned to Cael. "You're already late. The boy is already on the brink of awakening."
"I'm not ready," Cael said.
"No one ever is and no one will ever be."
That night, they slept near the stones.
Cael lay on the sand, staring at the stars. The air was thick. His bones felt like they were vibrating.
He couldn't sleep.
Couldn't breathe.
His skin burned from within.
Then the mark exploded.
Not with fire but with light.
He sat up, gasping.
The marks surged.
The Bright one flared first a golden sun in his chest.
But the second… came slow.
Like a black star rising behind his eyes.
He fell to his knees.
The sand around him began to ripple.
Heat rose.
Korr turned, eyes wide.
Darian shouted.
And Cael screamed
As his awakening began.