The Gut bled, its alleys a maze of thorns and ash, shadows stitching wounds that wouldn't close.
Teon Grivalt led Sura through a shattered seam, his Rot Mark searing under his leathers, a claw tearing deeper.
The scroll in his belt sang—a dirge of rusted chains, whispering Call them, wake them, burn them.
Mayla's lullaby clawed his mind:
The rot that remembers… Blood trails snaked behind, their edges thorned, like the scar his boyhood left stitched in the frost—never healed. Crows swarmed above, one with a third eye glinting, its thorned beak chanting:
Forget their names.
Sura Lenhart clung to his side, her satchel dragging, the music box's thorns biting her hip. Her spiral scar—visible only to Teon—flared, blood stitching the frost in a shape that tightened with each heartbeat. Her eyes were wild, her breaths ragged, the dirge pulling her.
Brik Roan, Lune Roan, and Doma Velk trailed, their west-cut path converging as the patrol's lanterns closed in.
Brik's Iron Dog brand pulsed in sync with the blood trails, forge-born, silent.
Lune's silver eye cut the dark, her blind one hidden, her knife trembling. Doma's red-ringed eyes flickered like a dying torch, his cane sinking into ash, muttering,
"The flame names the marked."
They stumbled into a hidden shrine, its walls carved with jagged spirals, glowing under ash, like the noose, like the blood. Corpses littered the floor—Gut runners, throats cut, their blood stitching spiral patterns, thorned, alive.
Teon's mark roared, the scroll's dirge a blade in his skull. His fingers grazed the scroll, trembling, its voice calling his name—Teon, burn them. He nearly tore it open, soul fraying, but he gripped his knife, sap and blood flecked, his choice to split them burning:
Wrong or not, I decided.
Their scars—Teon's mark, Sura's sigil, Brik and Lune's pits, Doma's burns—screamed louder than the Gut's silence.
A shadow moved, too many joints, too many eyes. Vraek emerged, his cloak thorned, a spiral sigil carved into his chest, glowing red, like Sura's scar, like Teon's mark. His eyes were dead stars, his blade humming the dirge.
"Children of the flame,"
he said, voice low, broken.
"You think you lead them now? I thought that too. Before the mark started speaking for me."
His hand trembled, a scar on his palm clutching a broken locket, its thorns like Sura's music box, etched with a girl's name—Mira.
"My sister,"
he whispered.
"Her blood sang. The Hollowreach took her."
Teon surged forward, blade raised—but froze. Vraek didn't move, didn't flinch, his spiral scar glowing red, the same thorned curl that lived under Teon's skin.
"Why us?"
Sura asked, voice trembling, a tear like blood on snow. Vraek's face didn't change—not anger, not pity, just recognition, like he'd asked the same question and hated the answer. The music box hummed:
Crows forget their wings.
Its thorns drew blood, not just from her flesh, but from the air—a price paid in echoes.
Lune's knife rose, her pit brands itching, chains meant to be spirals.
"You did this,"
she hissed, her silver eye wavering.
"I swore I'd never run, but you're the fire."
Her voice cracked, the Burnpit's screams echoing: chains, fire, a vow broken. Brik stood frozen, his bat limp, his brand pulsing with the shrine's spirals.
"You're no man,"
he whispered, his silence heavier than rage. Doma's cane fell, his eyes dimming.
"The scroll doesn't mark you,"
he whispered, voice raw.
"It remembers your name."
His Clergy scars burned—texts burned, lives lost.
The patrol's lanterns flared outside, boots crunching ash just beyond the shrine's threshold. A voice cut through, a metallic tang, like blood on a whetstone, trailing a whisper of steel:
"Alive, if possible. Whole, if necessary."
A patrolman glanced at his hand—two fingers missing, badly healed. He hadn't flinched when they were taken. He flinched when Kcel spoke, muttering,
"Yes, Inquisitor Kcel."
Teon's mark recoiled, the scroll's dirge deafening. Vraek's eyes flickered, a spark of fear.
"They hunt me too,"
he said, voice soft, a man betrayed.
"The crow sees all."
Crows swarmed, their third eyes glinting, chanting: Forget their names. The shrine's spirals glowed, blood trails stitching tighter. Sura's scar bled faster, her music box screaming.
"It's waking,"
she said, clutching it, thorns biting. Teon's hand hovered over the scroll, reckless, his name a fire in his veins. He didn't know if he was stopping Vraek—or becoming him. Their blood was too close, like fate wasn't his alone.
"Run,"
Vraek said, his blade sheathing, his shadow stretching too long, too thin, before snapping back into the dark. The patrol's lanterns closed in, Kcel's voice echoing. Teon led the squad out, past the spirals, past the crows.
He didn't run from the shrine. He ran from what it said he could become.