The bone mark was quiet now.
Elowen moved through the woods with slow, steady steps, her wounded hand wrapped in a torn strip of cloth. The pain had dulled, but the weight of the mark pressed inside her like a second heartbeat. She could feel it pulsing beneath her skin—not hurting, not helping—just waiting.
The Bone Tree was far behind her now, lost in the fog and memories. Ahead, the forest had begun to change again.
The trees here were blackened, their trunks split and hollowed out like they had been burned from the inside. The air tasted of smoke, though no fire burned. Ash floated gently through the mist like dead snow, collecting in her hair, clinging to her lashes. The silence was thicker here. Deeper.
She was drawing near to the second mark.
The flame.
But there was no warmth. Only the ghost of heat long extinguished.
Elowen stepped around the corpse of a fallen tree, its center charred, its roots clawing upward like something had tried to drag it underground.
She paused.
There, in the clearing ahead, stood a ring of stone pillars. Each one cracked and blackened. Some were fallen. Others leaned crookedly. In the center, a fire pit—cold, empty.
But she felt it. Magic. Old, dangerous.
She moved toward it.
Her footsteps disturbed the ash. Beneath it, old bones peeked out—long, scorched bones. Dozens of them. Something had died here.
No.
Many things.
She knelt at the fire pit and touched the stone. It was warm.
Not with flame, but with memory.
A voice rose inside her.
"They burned the blood to keep it silent. But fire cannot forget pain."
Her head jerked up. The voice wasn't hers. And it wasn't in her mind this time.
Across the clearing, standing beside one of the leaning stones, was a figure—a man, dressed in a dark robe scorched at the hem, his face hidden beneath a hood of ash.
Elowen rose to her feet. "Who are you?"
The man tilted his head. "One who remembers when the flames were alive."
"Are you one of the forest's spirits?"
A low laugh. "Not spirit. Not anymore. Just shadow. Burned out, left behind."
Elowen stepped toward the fire pit. "I came for the second mark."
The hooded figure nodded slowly. "Then you must wake the flame. Feed it the truth."
She stared at the pit. "What does that mean?"
He raised his hand and pointed at her heart. "The fire is not in the pit. It's in you. Light it."
"But how?"
"Through memory. Through pain. Through what you fear most."
She looked down at her hand, still bandaged. She had bled already. Would that not be enough?
Apparently not.
The hooded figure vanished into smoke.
And Elowen was left alone.
She stared at the ashes. Cold. Silent.
And she remembered.
She remembered the night her world fell.
A throne room drenched in torchlight.
A man in black armor with eyes like molten gold.
Her mother screaming.
Her father kneeling—then not moving at all.
And her own voice, crying, "No!"
A flash of silver. A knife. Her mother's hand—pressed to her chest—blood, blood, and a whispered spell—
Hide. Forget. Sleep.
The memory tore through her, dragging her to her knees. Her breath caught. Her heart thundered.
And the ashes… glowed.
The fire pit flickered. Tiny embers stirred.
She raised her hand—trembling, scarred—and drew a line across her other palm. Blood dripped into the ash.
The flames roared to life.
Not gold. Not orange. But white and silver—cold fire, unnatural and beautiful.
Elowen staggered back as the flames curled upward, swirling into a shape—a sigil—drawn in flame. A mark of thorns and moons and a single eye in the center.
The mark of the flame.
It flew into her chest, searing through her skin without burning. Her body arched, her eyes wide.
And then... stillness.
The fire vanished. The pit turned cold.
But the second mark now lived inside her.
She stood up slowly, stronger somehow. The silver scars on her arms had spread, now pulsing faintly with both the bone mark and the flame.
But as she turned to leave, she heard it again:
"Two marks. One remains. And he draws closer."
A shadow passed overhead.
No bird. No winged beast.
Something far worse.
She didn't look up.
She ran.
Because something in the sky was now hunting her through the trees.