Rain fell like ink from a torn sky.
It soaked through the tattered robes of the boy curled in the alley, trailing rivers of black down his skin. But the rain wasn't what drew the gasps from the cloaked figures watching from the shadows—it was what the rain revealed.
Words. Phrases. Sentences written in dark, writhing script, pulsing as if alive. They twisted across his chest and back, forming new lines with each breath. A living prophecy etched in flesh.
He didn't know his name.
The orphanage sisters called him "Soot" for the stains he left on everything he touched. No one dared call him by the word burned into the top of his spine—Prophet—the one mark that had never changed since he was found in the ruins of the Burned Library ten years ago.
He was ten when the first word moved on his skin.
He was thirteen when he predicted the death of Sister Halna a week before it happened, the words "The crow perches where her heart once beat" glowing faintly beneath his collarbone.
Now he was seventeen. And the words wouldn't stop.
The temple bells tolled five times before dawn.
Soot rose from his crouch, wiping his face with a sleeve that smeared ink rather than clearing it. The streets of New Caelum were mostly silent—only the city crows and ash-sellers moved this early, both skirting him as though he were contagious.
In a way, he was.
His body was a curse.
His prophecies didn't come by will. They bled through him—painfully, often cryptic, always true. Those who heard them found either salvation or ruin, never anything in between.
He ducked beneath a rusted grate and crawled into the Hollow—the forgotten tunnel beneath the city, where the ones like him gathered. Not prophets. Not marked. Just the broken. The tossed-aside. Children who'd survived the firestorms of the Great Silence and were left with nothing but their bodies and hunger.
Tali greeted him first, her shaven scalp gleaming, her one eye bright.
"You okay, Inkboy?" she asked.
He gave her a faint smile. "My ribs say no."
"Your ribs always say no. You eat yet?"
He shook his head.
She sighed and shoved a crust of ashbread into his hands. "Don't choke. We still need your skin readable."
He nodded gratefully and sat in the corner beneath a half-broken pipe, steam fogging the air.
Then the burning started.
It began in the base of his spine and climbed like wildfire, up his back, across his chest, coiling around his throat like a serpent of flame. He gasped, clenched his fists.
The children in the Hollow froze.
Soot's skin glowed.
Words inked themselves in painful arcs—flesh shifting like wet parchment—until the fire faded and a final word formed in sharp black strokes above his heart.
"Ink Prophet Dies Tonight."
Silence.
Tali stumbled backward, her hand going to her mouth. The younger ones began to cry, whispering prayers to gods who hadn't answered since the Silence.
Soot didn't scream.
He couldn't.
He just stared at the words with cold calm.
For the first time, the prophecy was about him.
The woman in white arrived before noon.
She wore no insignia, no crest of the Ministry, but everyone knew. Her presence was sharp, bladed—like a knife made of language itself. The city's watchmen parted for her as if afraid the very air might speak her name.
Her voice was smooth as ink over vellum.
"Bring me the Prophet."
The guards hesitated, glancing at each other.
"You know what happens if you delay," she said.
And so, they went into the Hollow.
When they dragged Soot out, his arms bound in metal bands, he didn't resist. His eyes were distant, locked on the words still flaring dimly across his chest.
Ink Prophet Dies Tonight.
"Do you want to live?" the woman asked, walking beside him as the guards hauled him toward the High Archive.
"No," he replied.
A pause. She gave him a side glance.
"You will. When you understand what you are."
"I'm a message no one wants to read."
"Incorrect," she said. "You are the last letter in a sentence written by the gods."
The High Archive sat atop the Hill of Memory, its spires clawing the sky like broken quills. It had once been a university, then a fortress, now a sanctum for the Ministry of Truth—a place where prophecy was kept, rewritten, buried.
They led him through stone halls lined with whispers.
He passed vaults filled with forbidden tomes, names that had been erased from history, and the chained remains of other prophets—those whose skins had spoken lies.
They stopped before a vast black door etched with symbols older than language.
The woman in white turned to him. "Inside, the First Ink waits."
Soot frowned. "The First Ink? That's a myth."
She smiled. "You were a myth, once."
The door opened with a groan.
Inside sat a man with no face.
Instead of eyes, mouth, or skin—his head was a swirling cloud of dark script, shifting and changing like Soot's own markings.
"I see you," the man said without a mouth. His voice echoed inside Soot's mind. "You are the last line."
The woman in white bowed. "He received his death prophecy an hour ago."
"Then the Ink has reached its final page," the faceless man murmured.
Soot stepped forward. "Why? Why now?"
The room shuddered. A tome rose from the floor, ancient and bound in flesh, its pages flapping wildly.
"Because the world is ending," said the First Ink. "And you are meant to choose how."
Chapter One: The Skin That Speaks
Rain fell like ink from a torn sky.
It soaked through the tattered robes of the boy curled in the alley, trailing rivers of black down his skin. But the rain wasn't what drew the gasps from the cloaked figures watching from the shadows—it was what the rain revealed.
Words. Phrases. Sentences written in dark, writhing script, pulsing as if alive. They twisted across his chest and back, forming new lines with each breath. A living prophecy etched in flesh.
He didn't know his name.
The orphanage sisters called him "Soot" for the stains he left on everything he touched. No one dared call him by the word burned into the top of his spine—Prophet—the one mark that had never changed since he was found in the ruins of the Burned Library ten years ago.
He was ten when the first word moved on his skin.
He was thirteen when he predicted the death of Sister Halna a week before it happened, the words "The crow perches where her heart once beat" glowing faintly beneath his collarbone.
Now he was seventeen. And the words wouldn't stop.
The temple bells tolled five times before dawn.
Soot rose from his crouch, wiping his face with a sleeve that smeared ink rather than clearing it. The streets of New Caelum were mostly silent—only the city crows and ash-sellers moved this early, both skirting him as though he were contagious.
In a way, he was.
His body was a curse.
His prophecies didn't come by will. They bled through him—painfully, often cryptic, always true. Those who heard them found either salvation or ruin, never anything in between.
He ducked beneath a rusted grate and crawled into the Hollow—the forgotten tunnel beneath the city, where the ones like him gathered. Not prophets. Not marked. Just the broken. The tossed-aside. Children who'd survived the firestorms of the Great Silence and were left with nothing but their bodies and hunger.
Tali greeted him first, her shaven scalp gleaming, her one eye bright.
"You okay, Inkboy?" she asked.
He gave her a faint smile. "My ribs say no."
"Your ribs always say no. You eat yet?"
He shook his head.
She sighed and shoved a crust of ashbread into his hands. "Don't choke. We still need your skin readable."
He nodded gratefully and sat in the corner beneath a half-broken pipe, steam fogging the air.
Then the burning started.
It began in the base of his spine and climbed like wildfire, up his back, across his chest, coiling around his throat like a serpent of flame. He gasped, clenched his fists.
The children in the Hollow froze.
Soot's skin glowed.
Words inked themselves in painful arcs—flesh shifting like wet parchment—until the fire faded and a final word formed in sharp black strokes above his heart.
"Ink Prophet Dies Tonight."
Silence.
Tali stumbled backward, her hand going to her mouth. The younger ones began to cry, whispering prayers to gods who hadn't answered since the Silence.
Soot didn't scream.
He couldn't.
He just stared at the words with cold calm.
For the first time, the prophecy was about him.
The woman in white arrived before noon.
She wore no insignia, no crest of the Ministry, but everyone knew. Her presence was sharp, bladed—like a knife made of language itself. The city's watchmen parted for her as if afraid the very air might speak her name.
Her voice was smooth as ink over vellum.
"Bring me the Prophet."
The guards hesitated, glancing at each other.
"You know what happens if you delay," she said.
And so, they went into the Hollow.
When they dragged Soot out, his arms bound in metal bands, he didn't resist. His eyes were distant, locked on the words still flaring dimly across his chest.
Ink Prophet Dies Tonight.
"Do you want to live?" the woman asked, walking beside him as the guards hauled him toward the High Archive.
"No," he replied.
A pause. She gave him a side glance.
"You will. When you understand what you are."
"I'm a message no one wants to read."
"Incorrect," she said. "You are the last letter in a sentence written by the gods."
The High Archive sat atop the Hill of Memory, its spires clawing the sky like broken quills. It had once been a university, then a fortress, now a sanctum for the Ministry of Truth—a place where prophecy was kept, rewritten, buried.
They led him through stone halls lined with whispers.
He passed vaults filled with forbidden tomes, names that had been erased from history, and the chained remains of other prophets—those whose skins had spoken lies.
They stopped before a vast black door etched with symbols older than language.
The woman in white turned to him. "Inside, the First Ink waits."
Soot frowned. "The First Ink? That's a myth."
She smiled. "You were a myth, once."
The door opened with a groan.
Inside sat a man with no face.
Instead of eyes, mouth, or skin—his head was a swirling cloud of dark script, shifting and changing like Soot's own markings.
"I see you," the man said without a mouth. His voice echoed inside Soot's mind. "You are the last line."
The woman in white bowed. "He received his death prophecy an hour ago."
"Then the Ink has reached its final page," the faceless man murmured.
Soot stepped forward. "Why? Why now?"
The room shuddered. A tome rose from the floor, ancient and bound in flesh, its pages flapping wildly.
"Because the world is ending," said the First Ink. "And you are meant to choose how."