By morning, the glow on Emberlynn's shoulder had faded.
But the burn remained.
She sat at the edge of her bed, cradling her arm like it might betray her again. The mark—once barely a scar—now pulsed under her skin like it remembered something she didn't.
Her grandmother watched her from the doorway, ancient eyes narrowing beneath white brows. "You had that dream again, didn't you?"
Emberlynn glanced up. "It wasn't a dream."
A pause. Her grandmother stepped into the room, her cane clicking softly against the wooden floor. "You went to the forest."
It wasn't a question.
"I only stood near the edge," Emberlynn muttered. "Then… he found me."
Silence stretched like a shadow.
Her grandmother's voice turned low. "He?"
Emberlynn nodded. "A man. Tall. Pale. His eyes were—strange. He knew my name."
Her grandmother sat beside her, joints cracking as she lowered herself. "You should have told me sooner. About the mark. The dreams. All of it."
"I didn't want you to think I was cursed."
"You are cursed," she said bluntly, then softened. "But not the kind that kills. The kind that's wanted. Chosen."
"Chosen by what?" Emberlynn's voice cracked. "Who am I?"
Her grandmother sighed. "You were born under a sealed moon. Blood and fire guarded your soul before your first breath. We knew—one day—the seal would call to you. That something would come for you."
"I think… it already has."
Her grandmother looked at her with heavy sadness. "There is a name the old texts whisper. Malphas."
The name made Emberlynn's skin crawl. "He didn't give it. But… it fits. There was something wrong about him."
"Wrong?" her grandmother echoed. "Or too right in a world that's grown used to lies?"
They sat in silence, the morning light casting long shadows on the wall.
That afternoon, Emberlynn visited the old shrine behind their cottage—a forgotten place no one dared clean, with ivy-thick walls and a cracked statue of a goddess whose face had been burned away.
She knelt before it, her fingers brushing against cold stone.
"Why me?" she whispered.
The wind didn't answer this time.
But that night, the dreams returned. Only this time, they were clearer.
She stood in a hall of obsidian—dark, endless, gleaming. Fire flickered along the walls, but it gave no warmth. And at the far end stood a throne carved from bone and shadow.
He sat on it.
The man from the forest.
Malphas.
Not cloaked now—but cloaked in power. His hair fell past his shoulders, black and silver waves moving like smoke. His eyes glowed like embers. And when he looked at her, it felt like being seen through time.
"You are not ready," he said.
"I didn't come to you," she spat. "You came to me."
He rose from the throne, his steps silent. "You were born with a key inside you. A lock carved from the blood of angels. Your life is not your own."
"I won't help you."
He stopped before her, inches away, his voice low. "You already are."
She woke with a gasp.
Sweat clung to her skin. Her window stood open—though she remembered locking it. The air was thick with night. And outside, just beyond the trees...
Two red eyes watched her through the dark.