The screaming started at three in the morning.
Elias jolted awake in the sanctuary, his mark burning with sympathetic pain. The sensation was wrong—not the familiar ache of his own cosmic wound, but an echo, a reflection, as if someone else's mark was crying out in agony across the city.
Marcus was already on his feet, weapons drawn, scanning the chamber for threats. But the danger wasn't here. It was out there, somewhere in Veridian's twisting streets, and it was getting closer.
"Another one," Elias whispered, pressing his hand to his chest. The tome's whispers confirmed his fears—he wasn't alone anymore. The Convergence was accelerating, and with it, more people were being marked. "There's another Marked in the city."
"That's impossible," Marcus said, but his voice lacked conviction. They'd both seen the impossible too many times in recent days. "The cursed tome was unique. The Grand Veridian Library's archives contained only one."
"Maybe there were others. Or maybe..." Elias paused, a terrible realization dawning. "Maybe the Veiled Society is making more."
The screaming stopped abruptly, leaving behind a silence that felt heavy with unspoken dread. Elias's mark pulsed once, twice, then settled into a low, constant burn—a beacon calling to its siblings.
"We have to find them," Elias said, already reaching for his coat. "Before the Society does. Before they turn another person into a weapon."
Marcus blocked his path to the exit. "It could be a trap. The Society could be using someone as bait, knowing you'd come running."
"Then we spring the trap carefully." Elias met the hunter's gaze. "But we don't abandon them. I know what it's like to be alone with this curse. I won't let someone else suffer that if I can help it."
They emerged from the sanctuary into Veridian's pre-dawn streets. The mist had thickened overnight, reducing visibility to mere yards and muffling all sound. Street lamps flickered with sickly yellow light, casting dancing shadows that moved independently of their sources.
Elias followed the pull of his mark through the maze-like city, Marcus trailing behind with growing unease. The hunter's supernatural senses were on high alert, cataloging every anomaly, every wrongness in the fabric of reality around them.
"The temporal distortions are getting worse," Marcus muttered as they passed a clock tower whose hands moved backwards. "Reality is becoming unstable."
"Four days," Elias replied grimly. "The Void Chronicler said we had four days left before the Convergence reaches critical mass."
They found her in Victory Square, at the center of the old merchant district.
She couldn't have been more than sixteen, a girl with auburn hair and pale skin that seemed to glow in the mist. She sat curled against the base of a monument, arms wrapped around her knees, rocking back and forth in a slow, hypnotic rhythm.
But it was her eyes that made Elias's blood run cold.
They were completely white—not blind white, but the white of fresh snow, of starlight, of things that existed beyond normal perception. And when she looked up at their approach, those impossible eyes saw everything.
"You're him," she said in a voice like breaking glass. "The First Marked. I can see your thread in the pattern, stretching back to the beginning, forward to the end. You started all of this."
Elias knelt down slowly, keeping his movements non-threatening. "What's your name?"
"I was Sarah Chen. Before." She tilted her head, studying him with those unsettling eyes. "Now I'm something else. I can see the connections, the web that binds all things. Do you know what you've done to the city?"
The mark on Elias's hand pulsed, and suddenly he could see what she saw—threads of light connecting every person, every building, every shadow in Veridian. But the threads were tangled, knotted, some severed entirely. The city's fundamental structure was unraveling.
"How were you marked?" Marcus asked, staying alert for threats.
Sarah laughed, a sound like wind chimes in a storm. "I touched a book. Just like him. But not the same book. There are others, you see. Hidden throughout the city, waiting for the right moment, the right person. The Society has been seeding them for decades, preparing for the Convergence."
"Where?" Elias demanded. "Where are the other books?"
"Everywhere. Nowhere. In the spaces between spaces." Sarah's form flickered, becoming translucent for a moment. "I can see them all now. The librarian who found one in the university archives. The antiquarian who discovered another in his private collection. The child who pulled one from a storm drain. Seven books. Seven marks. Seven keys to unlock the final door."
Elias felt sick. "How many others?"
"Besides us? Five more. But they're changing faster than you did. The later marks are more potent, more unstable. Two are already lost to madness. One has joined the Society willingly. One hides in the depths of the old subway tunnels. And one..." She smiled, an expression made horrible by those white eyes. "One is hunting you."
A new sound cut through the night—footsteps, deliberate and unhurried, approaching through the mist. Marcus spun toward the sound, but Elias was already pulling Sarah to her feet.
"We need to go. Now."
"Too late," Sarah whispered. "He's already here."
The figure that emerged from the mist was tall and thin, wearing a long coat that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it. His mark covered half his face in spiraling patterns of silver and black, and his eyes burned with the same cosmic fire that Elias recognized from his own reflection.
But where Elias's mark brought whispers and visions, this one radiated pure, predatory hunger.
"Brother," the figure said, his voice carrying the weight of distant stars. "I've been looking for you."
"Who are you?" Elias stepped protectively in front of Sarah.
"I was Professor Edmund Blackwood. I taught comparative mythology at the university until I found the Crimson Codex in the restricted archives." He smiled, revealing teeth that had been replaced with crystalline fragments. "Now I am the Hunger That Walks. The Society was most impressed with my... transformation."
Marcus moved to flank the newcomer, but Blackwood raised one marked hand and the hunter froze in place, caught in some kind of temporal stasis.
"The Society sends its greetings," Blackwood continued conversationally. "They're quite eager to meet you properly. All of you. The Convergence requires willing participants, you see, and they believe you can be... persuaded."
"I'll never join them," Elias said.
"Oh, but you will. Because I have something you want." Blackwood gestured, and the mist parted to reveal two more figures—a woman in her thirties with a mark like flowing water across her neck, and a teenage boy whose mark had turned his left arm into something that resembled living shadow.
Both were clearly under Blackwood's influence, their eyes vacant and obedient.
"The Marked are stronger together," Blackwood explained. "I've learned to... connect with my siblings. To share our power, to coordinate our efforts. Join us willingly, and I'll teach you the same techniques. Refuse, and I'll simply take what I need by force."
Sarah's hand found Elias's arm. "He's lying," she whispered. "I can see the threads. He's not connecting with them—he's consuming them. Their marks feed his power."
The revelation hit Elias like a physical blow. The other Marked weren't cooperating with Blackwood—they were being drained, their cosmic energy siphoned to fuel his abilities. And if he'd already claimed two victims...
"You're a parasite," Elias said with disgust.
Blackwood's smile widened. "I'm evolved. The mark chooses the worthy, Elias Thorne. Some of us are meant to be leaders. Others are meant to be food."
Power erupted from Blackwood's mark, lashing out like tendrils of pure hunger. Elias barely managed to shield himself and Sarah with his own abilities, the collision of cosmic forces sending shockwaves through the square.
The battle was brief but devastating. Blackwood's stolen power was immense, fueled by the drained essence of his victims. Elias found himself being pushed back, his defenses failing under the onslaught.
Then Sarah stepped forward.
"I can see the pattern," she said, her white eyes blazing with inner light. "I know where to cut the threads."
She raised her marked hand, and suddenly Blackwood's control over his victims wavered. The connections he'd forced upon them became visible—threads of sickly green light that pulsed with stolen energy. Sarah began to sever them, one by one, with surgical precision.
Blackwood's scream of rage echoed through the square as his power began to unravel. The two controlled Marked collapsed, freed but unconscious. Marcus broke free from his temporal prison and immediately moved to secure them.
"This isn't over!" Blackwood snarled, his form already beginning to fade as he retreated deeper into the mist. "The Society knows where you are now. They're coming for all of you. And when they arrive, you'll beg to serve them rather than face what I've become!"
He vanished, leaving behind only the scent of ozone and the echo of cosmic malice.
Elias looked around at the unconscious Marked, at Sarah with her impossible eyes, at Marcus checking for additional threats. The situation had just become exponentially more complicated.
"We need to find the others before Blackwood does," he said. "And we need to figure out how to reverse what he's done to his victims."
"The patterns show the way," Sarah said softly. "But the path is dangerous. The Society isn't just collecting the Marked—they're preparing to sacrifice us all. Seven marks, seven keys, seven anchors for the Convergence."
She turned those white eyes on Elias, and for a moment, he saw the terrified sixteen-year-old girl beneath the cosmic awareness.
"They're going to use us to unmake reality itself," she whispered. "And I don't think there's any way to stop them."