Atlas had been strange all day. Not like he hadn't been strange for the past couple of days but stranger than usual.
He'd stopped talking hours ago. Sat by the camp's edge, fingers pressed into the dirt like he was listening for something under it. His lips moved — slow, quiet, not words but patterns. Mutters that carried rhythm but no meaning.
By nightfall, the air had begun to hum. Not loud — just enough for the hairs on Ezra's arms to rise. Like sound without sound. Like the world itself had taken a breath and was waiting to see what he'd do next.
Soren watched from where he was sharpening his blade, pretending not to stare. Rowan had gone tense long before. Even Rin kept glancing over her shoulder.
"Been doing that since morning," she muttered under her breath. "Keeps mumbling numbers. Ratios. Like he's measuring something none of us can see."
Ezra's gut twisted. "Has he eaten?"
"Wouldn't touch anything," she said. "Didn't even blink when Cassian dropped that meat beside him."
Ezra stared at Atlas's back. The fire's light caught the faint shimmer of sweat on his neck. His breathing was shallow.
Something was wrong. Too wrong.
When the humming deepened — just slightly — Ezra moved.
He crouched beside Atlas, careful not to startle him. "Atlas. You hearing me?"
No answer. The hum rose again, almost a note now. It came from the ground, the trees, the air — but centered on Atlas. His fingers were drawing slow spirals in the dirt, tracing and retracing the same curve until the lines cut deep enough to fill with black water.
Ezra's throat felt dry. He hesitated, then reached out and put a hand on Atlas's shoulder.
"Hey. Wake up."
Atlas's head snapped up.
Ezra froze.
The boy's eyes were wrong.
Not just glazed — blank. White from edge to edge, laced with faint blue veins that pulsed like tiny rivers under glass.
For a heartbeat, neither of them moved. Then Atlas whispered something. It wasn't English. It wasn't any language Ezra knew. But the sound of it made the inside of his head ache.
A tone — too high to exist — cut through the camp. The fire guttered, bending toward them as though the air itself bowed.
Ezra tried to pull his hand back. Couldn't. His palm stuck to Atlas's shoulder like magnet to stone, and in that instant—
the world snapped.
Everything went white.
And then it wasn't the camp anymore.
Endless pillars stretched into a sky the color of molten gold. The ground wasn't stone but mirrors—slick, cracked, reflecting faces he didn't recognize. Between them, vines moved like snakes, glistening with amber sap that pulsed to some slow, obscene rhythm.
And in the center, she stood.
Tall, robed in layers of living silk that shimmered like water over skin. Hair black as ink in a storm. Her face was blurred, not hidden—like the world itself refused to define her. Wherever he tried to look, her outline shifted. Too beautiful. Too wrong.
He didn't know her, yet something in his chest reacted as if he should.
Every breath she took made the air tremble.
Ezra couldn't move. Couldn't blink.
His body screamed danger, but his mind—traitorous, helpless—whispered, closer.
She tilted her head, and though her mouth never moved, he heard her inside his bones.
"You carry her light. The boy who burns too clean."
He didn't understand. Whose light? What did she mean?
The mark on his chest seared—a pulse of white fire bursting through his ribs. His light flared instinctively, fighting to burn the image away.
The woman's smile was slow, not cruel—interested.
"Oh. So that's what you are."
The mirrors beneath his feet cracked. A thousand reflections stared back at him—each one of himself, eyes black, bleeding gold from the corners. He staggered back, his light lashing out like a desperate animal.
The vines snapped toward him, coiling around his legs, his arms—and from the center of her form, something reached out. Not a hand, not flesh, but a thought that felt like silk and knives both.
"You are mine. You just haven't learned it yet."
Ezra's mark flared white-hot, resistance clawing outward—instinct taking control. His light met her pull and fought. The ground shuddered. The air split with a scream too deep for sound.
She recoiled—not defeated, merely amused.
Her form flickered like a candle smothered under breath. She smiled—not cruel, but hungry.
"Soon, boy. When the moon bleeds again."
The sound imploded.
Ezra jerked backward with a shout, landing hard in the dirt. The fire roared back to life. His lungs clawed for air; his hand burned—frostbitten and scorched at once.
Atlas had collapsed beside him, limp but breathing, white eyes dimming slowly back to gray.
Rowan was already running toward them, shouting his name. Soren grabbed Ezra's shoulder, shaking him hard.
"What happened?"
Ezra didn't answer. Couldn't.
He just stared at Atlas, still twitching faintly.
And in the back of his skull, the woman's voice lingered—
not echoing, but waiting.
When the moon bleeds again.
Morning came wrong.
Too still. Too quiet.
The jungle usually hummed — insects, birds, the slow chatter of the wind through wet leaves. Now it was all muted. Like the world had been muffled overnight.
Ezra woke late, his hand still throbbing from where he'd touched Atlas. Every time he blinked, that white light flashed behind his eyelids — the woman's voice curling through his skull like smoke. You shouldn't have looked.
He didn't tell the others.
Couldn't.
Rin had checked his wrist at dawn and said nothing, just frowned and passed him a strip of dried meat. Her eyes still had the ringed shadows from last night's chaos. Rowan looked like he hadn't slept at all. Atlas was quiet again — breathing shallow, colorless, still unconscious but alive.
Soren stood by the camp's edge, arms crossed, gaze sharp. Watching the tree line like it might start whispering.
"Rowan wants a perimeter check," Nora said, breaking his thoughts. She'd been ready since dawn, two short blades strapped to her thighs, hair tied back with a strip of torn cloth. "Soren's staying with the kid. You and I take east."
Ezra pulled himself up. "And Rin?"
"She's coming," Rin said before Nora could answer. She was already adjusting the strap of her satchel. "Someone has to make sure you two don't trip over your own paranoia."
Nora rolled her eyes. "We don't trip."
"You do," Rin said evenly.
Ezra almost smiled. Almost.
They left camp under a gray sky. The air was thick, heavy with the kind of humidity that made breath feel like work. The ground squelched under their boots, soaked from last night's brief storm.
They walked in silence for a while — moving through the undergrowth, past thick vines and ruined stone markers. Ezra kept his light buried deep, just a faint warmth under his ribs. He didn't want to draw attention. Not out here.
After an hour, Nora raised a hand, signaling stop.
The path ahead curved around a small ridge. She crouched, peering over it, then hissed, "Ezra."
He joined her — and froze.
At first, it looked like people sleeping.
Four figures. Maybe five. Kneeling in a half-circle around a tree.
Then the light shifted.
Their skin wasn't skin. It was gray — marble-gray, smooth and cold-looking, catching the sunlight where it cut through the canopy. Their eyes were open. Mouths half-parted. No color. No movement.
Stone.
Rin's voice dropped low. "They're not statues."
Ezra swallowed, throat dry. "What are you talking about?"
She pointed to one of them — a man whose arm was raised mid-motion, fingers frozen in the act of reaching for his throat. The expression carved across his face wasn't calm. It was fear.
"They were alive when it happened," Rin said. "Look at the detail. That's muscle strain."
Ezra stepped closer despite the prickling in his gut. The air here felt different — cooler, sharper. He crouched, ran his fingers near the stone without touching it.
Static crawled up his arm.
"Don't," Nora said sharply.
He pulled back. "I wasn't—"
The words died in his mouth. The stone was cracked near the base — like something had tried to move afterward. A faint shimmer lined the split, as if light still lived in it.
"They're fresh," he murmured.
Nora frowned. "How can you tell?"
"Because they're still humming."
It was true. The faint vibration ran underfoot, barely there, like the memory of a sound you shouldn't hear.
Rin bent down beside him, her braid falling over one shoulder. "I saw this once before. Near the pyramid. When one of the keepers disobeyed a command. He didn't turn to dust. He turned like this."
Ezra looked up sharply. "And?"
"They said it was the mark of Her eyes." Rin's expression flickered
He stood abruptly. "Let's move."
"Wait—" Nora started.
"No." He glanced back at the petrified figures — their faces locked in silent screams, the sunlight cutting across the stone like old scars. "We're too close to something we don't understand."
They turned back toward camp. The path felt longer than before. Every shadow had edges. Every sound felt delayed — like the forest was holding its breath again.
Halfway back, Rin slowed. "You feel that?"
Ezra did. The same faint pulse he'd felt from the shard back in the city. But this time it wasn't coming from an object. It was coming from below.
The ground under his boots vibrated — once, twice, like a heartbeat.
The trees ahead bent slightly toward the direction of the pyramid.
Ezra's hand went instinctively to his chest. His mark was warm again.
Rin caught his arm. "Ezra?"
He forced a steady breath. "Something's waking up."
The jungle didn't answer.
But the wind carried a whisper through the leaves — soft, almost tender.
"Soon."
The same word from his vision.
Ezra stared into the green shadows, the pit in his stomach twisting tighter.
Something in this forest had eyes. And it had just turned to look back.