"You have two hours," Kyra said, tightening the straps of the gear on Trey's shoulder. Her voice sounded distant, like someone who had already accepted they might not see you again. "Return before sunset. Or don't return at all."
He didn't answer. He simply looked into her eyes—without challenge, without fear. Only with understanding. They didn't expect him back alive. They had sent him as a test.
The village of Voren lay in a hollow where the fog never rose above the knees. It seemed frozen in time. Fragile, as if molded from clay, from a moldy memory of a past everyone tried to forget.
He entered along an empty path. No rooster crowing, no dog barking. Only the wind rustling dead leaves, as if reciting incantations.
House after house, street after street—and not a single living soul. Doors stood open, dishes on tables, bread—hardened like pumice. The fireplace was cold, but the ashes were still warm, as if people had vanished... yesterday.
Or instantly.
"What happened here...?"
He stepped into a house that stood at the edge of the street, closest to the well. On the wall, someone had carved words with a sharp knife:
"You think the mark makes you special?"
"It makes you a victim."
The mark on his neck flared with heat, but he held back. He took a deep breath. The words pressed on his psyche as if they hadn't just been written—but spoken directly into his ear.
Silence in the next room. But when he entered, his heart skipped a beat.
The entire wall was covered in writing. In blood. Not ink, not charcoal—real blood. It had dried, but the fresh pain still lingered in the air.
"He laughed when he started to burn. I heard the bone crack from the flames."
"The mark sings when the soul departs."
"I am inside everyone who bears the brand. I am watching."
He turned and looked in the mirror. For a moment—everything was normal. His face. Tired, tense, with sweat on his brow and a shadow of anger in his eyes.
And suddenly—his reflection blinked out of sync.
Smiled. Winked.
He stood motionless—but the reflection was approaching. As if the mirror had become deeper than it should be.
The sword appeared in his hand on its own. A flash from the mark—bright as a lightning strike. He struck—and the mirror shattered, leaving the room in silence.
But a phrase remained in the air. As if written in his head by a foreign voice:
"You are not the first. But you could be the last."
Outside, he saw it immediately.
The central square. Stones laid out in a circle. Inside—a word formed from shards of clay pots:
"Next."
He clenched his fists. His heart pounded in his ears. The mark pulsed like the heart of a beast in a cage.
"Who are you? What do you want from me?!"
Silence. Only the creak of the wind and the howling of something distant. Maybe not an animal at all.
He turned and walked away. Kyra should be waiting for him an hour's walk to the north. He knew—he couldn't stay here. Not with this... shadow.
And yet, when he left the village limits, he felt a gaze on his back.
Not physical.
Psychic.
And somewhere deep in his consciousness, beneath his own thoughts, like a layer of darkness under his skin, he heard:
"Your mark is not yours. It just hasn't chosen a side yet."