The mountain path bled into the night, slick with mist that clung to Leo's skin like cold fingers. Pebbles scattered beneath his bare soles as he stumbled down, half running, half falling, his right hand clutched tight against his chest. The heat of the shard had not faded. It pulsed there still, steady and unnatural, like a second heartbeat hidden beneath his flesh. When he dared glance, he swore his skin glowed faintly, as though something beneath it waited to break through.
Every sound struck sharper than it should. The rasp of crickets scraped against his ears like filings dragged across iron. The creak of pine branches bending beneath moonlight made him flinch, as if they whispered warnings he could not decipher. Sometimes he thought he heard voices, faint and curling within the rustle of the leaves. But when he stopped, holding his breath until his ribs ached, only silence answered, vast and watchful.
Below, the village lanterns shimmered in the mist like scattered stars caught on earth. Smoke trailed from a hearth, carrying the scent of millet and charred onions, the familiar breath of home. It should have soothed him. Instead, it pressed at him like something distant, unreal, as though he had stepped outside the world and now only mimicked belonging.
"Leo!"
The call split the mist, clear and sharp. A girl's voice.
Mira. One of the baker's daughters. She stood near a low gate where chickens rustled uneasily in their pen, a shawl thrown across her shoulders against the night chill. Her dark hair caught the lantern glow, and her eyes narrowed as she spotted him.
"You've been gone since afternoon," she said, suspicion already lacing her tone. "Don't tell me you climbed the shrine path again. Mother says those stones curse the foolish."
Leo froze. His hand throbbed against his chest, heat biting beneath the skin. For a heartbeat he thought she must see it, must see the fire bleeding faintly through his fingers.
"I was… gathering wood," he answered, voice hoarse, throat dry as sand.
Mira tilted her head. "Then where's the bundle?"
"I dropped it." The words left him too quickly, too sharp.
Her brows rose. "Dropped it? On the mountain? What, did the trees chase you off?"
He managed a thin smile that did not reach his eyes. "Something like that."
Her gaze lingered, questioning. For a moment he thought she might press harder, but her younger brother tumbled out from the doorway behind her, arms wrapped clumsily around a jug of water. He tripped on the step, half the contents sloshing across his tunic.
"Mira! I-"
She groaned, shoving him back toward the house with both hands. "Idiot. You'll drown yourself before you quench anyone's thirst."
Leo used the moment, slipping past before more questions could snare him.
The village was little more than thirty homes, clay and mud patched with straw, sagging roofs bowed from years of rain. Dogs lay curled beneath carts, their paws twitching as though they hunted in dreams. From one hut drifted the wet rasp of an old man's cough, rhythmic and brittle, a sound Leo had known since childhood. Farther down, the squeak of a loom rose and fell, steady as a heartbeat.
He passed it all with chest tight, every step wary, convinced someone would turn and see the mark blazing through his hand. Yet no one spared him a glance. Perhaps the shard veiled itself. Or perhaps the villagers, bound by fear and habit, simply refused to see what they did not wish to.
At the far edge of the settlement, his hut waited. The reed hinged door gave a tired groan as he pushed it open. Inside, the air smelled of clay and old smoke. A rolled mat lay against one wall. Near it, a wooden bowl sat where he had left it, the same one he had carved last spring. The rim still bore the uneven nick where his knife had slipped.
He stared at these small, ordinary things until the pounding in his chest slowed. Here, at least, was something he knew. Something unchanged.
Only then did he open his hand.
The shard was gone.
In its place, a pattern lingered upon his palm: two serpents twined together, their bodies etched in faint lines of pale light, dimming whenever he blinked as if shy of being seen.
Do you want to hide me?
The whisper slid into him, dry and amused.
Leo flinched. "You can speak whenever you want?" he hissed under his breath, glancing around as if someone might overhear.
Not want. Need. I am within you now, and your silence is mine as well. But… if you deny me, others will hear instead. Do you wish for that?
The voice had no edge of gender, no warmth of tone. Only pressure. Like a thumb pressing into soft clay, molding.
Leo clenched his fist tight until the mark dimmed. "I don't want any of this. I didn't ask for it."
And yet you touched me, the whisper replied. That is asking enough.
His breath hitched. He snatched a worn blanket from the mat, wrapped it tight around his hand as though cloth could bind the thing buried within him. Then he slumped down, body trembling, heartbeat drumming so hard it seemed to rattle the hut itself.
The whisper faded, curling back into silence.
Hours crept past. The village fell into sleep, and only the soft drip of dew from the eaves broke the quiet. At last, weariness dragged at his eyes.
When he dreamed, he stood once more within the shrine. The basin brimmed with water, moonlight trembling across its surface. But when he looked, the reflection was not his own.
The face staring back was older. Harder. Eyes like shards of glass, lips carved into a cruel certainty. When they moved, the whisper moved with them.
You are not enough, Leo. But I can make you more.
He woke with a sharp gasp, chest damp with sweat. Darkness pressed close around him, broken only by the faint glow seeping through the blanket. His hand burned with light, as though embers smoldered just beneath the skin, waiting to be fanned into flame.