The Gut's alleys swallowed light, their stone veins choked with thorns, shadows curling like wounds half-healed. Teon Grivalt led the squad through a jagged passage, his Rot Mark searing under his leathers, a claw scraping bone. The scroll, tucked in his belt, hummed—a thousand rusted chains, whispering Call them, wake them, burn them.
Mayla's lullaby echoed in his skull:
The rot that remembers… Alley shadows twisted, their edges thorned, like the scar his boyhood left carved in the frost—always tightening, never healed. Crows perched on sagging rafters, one with a third eye glinting, its thorned beak silent but watching.
Sura Lenhart clung to his shadow, her satchel heavy, the music box's thorns catching torchlight. Her blistered hand, wrapped in a blood-crusted rag, trembled, the spiral scar—visible only to Teon—pulsing, singing for release. Her eyes were hollow, her breaths sharp, as if the scroll's hum pulled at her blood.
Brik Roan trailed, his iron bat dragging, the Iron Dog brand on his glove pulsing, forge-born, flecked with frost.
Lune Roan matched his step, her silver eye piercing the dark, her blind one hidden, her knife a restless weight.
Doma Velk limped behind, his cane tapping a warning, his red-ringed eyes tracing the alley shadows, muttering, "The marked cast long shadows."
They ducked into a crumbling archway, its stone etched with faint, thorned scratches—not spirals, but close, like wounds never closed. Teon's mark burned, the scroll's whispers louder, clawing:
Burn them back into the flame.
He wanted to scream, to throw the scroll into the frost and cut the mark from his back with his own blade. Instead, he led.
The Clergy patrol's lanterns flickered in the distance, their three-eyed crow sigils glinting, like Gregor's ledger, like Kcel's shadow looming.
"Stay low,"
Teon whispered, voice raw, Mayla's voice faint: …name the world lost. The squad's trust hung by a thread, their scars—Teon's mark, Sura's sigil, Brik and Lune's pits, Doma's burns—binding them yet tearing them apart.
Brik crouched, his bat scraping stone, his brand flaring red, as if the forge remembered him.
"This is madness, Teon,"
he growled, voice frayed, eyes on Lune for her anchor.
"You knew the scroll was cursed. You led us into their jaws."
His fingers twitched, a pit-born scar—brands burned into his ribs—flashing in his silence: screams, iron, a forge that broke him.
"I was twelve,"
he said, voice low, cracking.
"They chained me to the pit's wall, branded me till I forgot my name. I won't be prey again."
Lune's silver eye softened, her hand reaching for his, subconscious, fleeting.
"You're not prey,"
she said, voice a blade, sharp but kind. Her pit brands itched, chains meant to be spirals, a memory of screams in the dark.
"But we're not free either."
Her blind eye fixed on Teon, seeing too much.
"What's the scroll saying, Teon? What's it want?"
Teon's mark roared, a vision flashing—snow, Mayla's lullaby, Why does it hurt? The scroll's hum grew, a thousand voices, not his, not hers, pulling at his blood.
"It's not words,"
he said, voice breaking, a boy's fear in a man's throat.
"It's… calling us."
He met Sura's eyes, her spiral scar a mirror to his mark, their blood too close, like fate wasn't his alone anymore.
Sura sank against the archway, her rag falling away. Her scar flared, blood seeping, curling into a noose on the frost, unseen by the others but burning in Teon's gaze.
"It's louder,"
she whispered, voice trembling, the music box humming:
Crows forget their wings.
Its melody was never broken—just waiting for the right blood to play it.
"It's not my mother's song anymore. It's older. It's… angry."
Her blood sang, each drop a note, a wound. She clutched the music box, its thorns biting her palm, a tear like blood on snow.
"What if we're not running from it? What if we're running to it?"
Doma's cane tapped, sharp.
"The Hollowreach doesn't chase,"
he said, voice cold, heavy with forbidden texts, his red-ringed eyes glowing faintly, like embers in a dying hearth.
"It calls. The marked answer."
His eyes flicked to the alley shadows, their thorned edges like the noose.
"Kcel's close. His spirals mark the dead. We're out of time."
The patrol's lanterns grew brighter, boots echoing, too close. A voice, low and cold, drifted through the fog, a metallic tang, like blood on a whetstone, trailing it:
"Alive, if possible. Whole, if necessary."
A patrolman flinched, muttering,
"Yes, Inquisitor Kcel."
Teon's mark burned hotter, recoiling, as if it knew the voice. He pulled the squad deeper into the shadows, his knife drawn, sap and blood flecked on its edge. The patrol passed, their cloaks bearing three-eyed crow sigils, thorned, their lanterns casting shadows—too many joints, too many eyes, like the whisperer in the mist.
Brik's bat rose, his voice a growl.
"We fight, Teon. No more running."
His brand pulsed, forge-born, angry. Lune's knife gleamed, her hand brushing his, a pit-born promise.
"Fight, and we die,"
she said, her silver eye sharp.
"We're marked, not martyrs."
Doma's eyes glowed, his voice a whisper:
"The flame doesn't care."
Sura's scar flared, blood dripping faster, the noose tightening on the frost.
"It's waking,"
she said, eyes locked on Teon's, raw, terrified.
"It knows where we are."
The scroll's hum was a rusted chain, a scent of burnt hair in the air. Teon's mark screamed, the whisperer's shape lingering—twisted, wrong, like memory carved into bone. The silence didn't matter. Their scars were louder.