The sky above Eldoria had turned a deep lavender as twilight bled into night. The stars blinked to life, one by one, as if responding to the pulse that now beat steadily inside Leora's chest. She hurried back through the city, the notes and symbols she had scribbled from the ruins still warm in her satchel. Every step echoed with meaning. She felt it—an invisible thread pulling her forward. Something had changed. Not just in the city. Not just in the ruins.
Inside her.
Her grandmother's cottage sat on the city's edge, a small wooden structure woven into a hill covered in lavender and moss. Vines crept up the walls like green veins, and windchimes crafted from bone and crystal clinked softly in the breeze. Warm candlelight glowed from the window. Familiar. Safe. But tonight, Leora hesitated at the door.
She didn't feel like the same girl who had left that morning.
The moment she stepped inside, her grandmother looked up from a book bound in worn leather. Her eyes—wise, tired, and impossibly sharp—narrowed at once.
"You found it," she said without question.
Leora nodded slowly and dropped her satchel onto the table. "I don't know what it is yet. But something… awakened in me. I saw things. Not with my eyes, but with—something deeper."
Her grandmother rose and walked over. She gently cupped Leora's chin and turned her face toward the candlelight. "Yes," she murmured. "It's starting. I had hoped you'd have more time."
"Time for what?" Leora whispered.
Without answering, the old woman turned, lit a second candle, and reached beneath the hearth. From the shadows, she retrieved a small wooden box inlaid with symbols nearly identical to those Leora had seen in the ruins. She opened it, revealing a silver needle, black thread, and a fragment of stone no larger than a coin—etched with a sigil that shimmered faintly.
"I never wanted this for you," her grandmother said, voice thick with emotion. "But the signs are clear. You've been called. The blood remembers."
Leora stared at the object, unsure if she was more frightened of it or of what it meant.
"That sigil," she said, pointing, "I saw it in the underground chamber. What is it?"
Her grandmother paused. "A seal," she said at last. "An ancient lock. One that holds back a power too great for most to bear. But our line was never meant to be 'most.' You carry the mark, Leora. The legacy of the Starborn."
Leora's breath caught. The word—Starborn—felt both foreign and intimate.
Then the burning started.
She gasped and clutched her chest. Heat, sharp and sudden, flared beneath her collarbone. Her grandmother rushed to her side, guiding her to sit as Leora yanked her tunic down to reveal the skin just below her throat.
A symbol was forming—glowing faintly like dying embers. It was the same sigil from the ruins. The same one in the box.
"The mark has awoken," her grandmother said. "There's no turning back now."
Leora clenched her teeth against the pain. "What is happening to me?"
"You are becoming what you were always meant to be."
The next morning came like thunder.
Word had spread fast across Eldoria. The old bell had tolled. Not for weather. Not for weddings. But for warning.
The elders convened in the Grand Council Hall, a towering marble structure in the city's heart. Leora, wrapped in a hooded cloak, walked among the crowds in secret. She listened. Watched. Waited.
Rumors flew like birds above the square.
"A tear in the sky, someone said," whispered a blacksmith.
"My brother swore he saw figures in the clouds," muttered a merchant's wife.
"Magic's waking up," said an old beggar. "And when it wakes, it hungers."
Leora kept walking. Her heart beat faster with each whispered theory. Something deeper stirred within her—not fear, not excitement—but purpose. Like a fire waiting to be unleashed.
She found Maren near the ivy-covered watchtower. He stood with arms crossed, eyes scanning the horizon.
"I thought you might be hiding under your bed," she said with a smirk.
He turned and gave her a crooked grin. "And miss the end of the world? Never."
They stood together in silence for a moment.
"You look different," he said.
Leora nodded. "I am different."
Before she could explain more, a commotion erupted by the gates. Guards were pulling back the iron doors, weapons raised. People scrambled to the sides as a caravan of cloaked figures entered, their horses draped in black velvet. Each rider bore the same silver emblem on their chest—a crescent moon cradling a flame.
Maren's eyes widened. "That's the Order of the Veil," he whispered. "I thought they were just stories."
"So did I," Leora murmured.
The Order was said to protect ancient knowledge. To hunt down forbidden magic. And to find those with "the mark."
She tugged her cloak tighter.
They were here for someone.
That night, thunder cracked over Eldoria. Leora sat by the window of her grandmother's cottage, watching the sky churn. The mark on her chest pulsed, not with pain now—but with energy.
Her dreams returned, stronger this time.
She stood in a field of stars, surrounded by burning trees and distant mountains that bled light into the sky. A voice whispered:
"The seal is broken. The forgotten awaken. You are the key. You are the flame."
When she woke, her palms were glowing faintly. She screamed.
Her grandmother rushed in, only to stop dead in the doorway.
"Oh no…" she breathed.
"What?" Leora said, panicked. "What's happening to me?"
But her grandmother didn't answer right away. She moved slowly, carefully, lifting Leora's left hand.
There, in the center of her palm, was a second symbol—new, sharp, and ancient.
"It's too early," her grandmother whispered. "You shouldn't have two marks already. Not unless—"
Leora grabbed her arm. "Unless what?"
Her grandmother looked her in the eye, fear and awe mixing in her voice.
"Unless the seal wasn't just broken…
It was shattered."
Leora now bears a second magical sigil, far earlier than expected, signaling that the ancient magic of Eldoria is not just returning—it's unraveling violently. The mysterious Order of the Veil has arrived in the city, likely hunting for her. Something beyond prophecy is stirring… and it's using Leora as its vessel.