The evening air was thick — not with warmth or chill, but with something weightier. The kind of stillness that made birds abandon their songs and left even the wind uncertain. Valaerius stood near the edge of the forest clearing, the sky overhead bruised with hues of violet and rust, clouds dragging across it like smudged ink.
He had not spoken much since Seraphyne's explanation earlier that afternoon. The truth — or what sliver of it she'd offered — nested in his mind like a thorned crown. Sealed. Hidden. Hunted. He was no longer just a boy awaiting a birthday. He was something else entirely — and whatever was coming would not be a blessing, but a reckoning.
The trees around the cottage creaked, not with wind, but as if shifting under pressure. Leaves had turned brittle though no season called for it, and a low tremor hummed beneath the soil, barely perceptible unless one stood still and listened. Valaerius did.
His palms were sweating, his breaths shallow. The marks on his arms — faint and colorless for years — now shimmered in the fading light. Not with brilliance, but with something darker, oil-like, as if shadows themselves had become liquid and clung to his skin.
Seraphyne had stepped inside to fetch the protective wards they had stopped using years ago. Her footsteps were quick, purposeful. She hadn't spoken of it, but Valaerius noticed her hand tremble as she placed salt at the door earlier. She who had never shown fear. Not when teaching him to fight. Not when he asked questions she refused to answer. But now, the cracks were showing. In her silence. In her sudden urgency.
A branch snapped somewhere deep in the woods.
Valaerius turned sharply, eyes scanning the tree line. The animals had stopped making noise. Not just the birds — even the insects had fallen into unnatural silence. No chirps. No rustling. Just a heavy, humming quiet. He could feel something moving, just beyond sight, like unseen fingers brushing the edge of reality.
He backed away slowly from the edge of the clearing and turned toward the cottage, but even that familiar place no longer felt safe. The glow from the lanterns inside flickered strangely, bending sideways though there was no wind. The shadows cast by the wooden beams stretched longer than they should, as though trying to reach for him.
Then came the scent — acrid, sharp, metallic. Like scorched iron and dying leaves. It clung to his throat and burned in his lungs. He stumbled, coughing, clutching his chest. His mark pulsed in response — once, twice — and then a searing wave of heat surged through his spine.
He collapsed to one knee, biting down a cry.
A voice echoed in his mind, not a word, but a pulse. A call.
He shook his head violently. "No—no," he whispered, fingers digging into the dirt. It wasn't his own thought. It didn't belong to him. And yet, it was familiar — like hearing your name in a dream you didn't remember having.
The sky groaned. Not thunder — something deeper, older. The very heavens above strained, as if something immense pressed against them from the other side.
Seraphyne appeared at the door, cloaked in a worn shawl, eyes scanning the forest with the practiced sharpness of a warrior.
"It's begun," she said, voice low and grave.
"What is it?" he asked, struggling to rise.
"The veil is thinning. The seal's collapse is no longer a future event, Valaerius. It's happening. Now. Your presence… it's bleeding through the cracks. They're starting to feel you."
He stood, trembling but upright. "Who?"
"The ones who were promised your death before you even took your first breath," she said. "The moment you were sealed, they lost your scent. Now it returns to them — faint, but growing."
Even as she spoke, the trees in the distance seemed to bend, not from storm or wind — but away from the cottage, as though recoiling.
"They'll find us soon, won't they?"
Seraphyne's silence was answer enough.
The sky darkened far too quickly. And in that unnatural twilight, the world felt like it was holding its breath — not in anticipation, but in dread.
And somewhere far beyond the trees, something ancient stirred.
Valaerius felt the ground thrum beneath his feet, like a slow drumbeat rising from beneath the earth. It was not rhythm—it was rhythm becoming. A warning whispered not in language, but in vibration. Every stone, every blade of grass, every fallen leaf bore the sound of something rising.
Inside the cottage, Seraphyne moved quickly. She took down old talismans they'd long buried in drawers—relics of a protection no longer certain. Ashwood charms, obsidian teeth, threads of sanctified iron. All of it too little, too late. But she placed them anyway, with hands that had not shaken even in war.
Valaerius stood in the doorway, unwilling to step inside, unwilling to retreat. The cottage, once home, now felt too small to contain the pressure building inside him. His skin crawled with invisible movement—like his blood had started to coil. His vision fluttered at the edges, darkness creeping inward like water soaking parchment.
"Seraphyne," he murmured. "What happens if the seal breaks before midnight?"
She looked at him—truly looked—and her face was pale beneath the firelight.
"Then the world will see you before you're ready. And you'll burn from the inside out."
He swallowed hard. The pain hadn't stopped since the clearing. It now lived just beneath the surface, a constant throb in his bones and nerves. His marks—those strange patterns that had once seemed ornamental—now pulsed with each breath. Lines of inky black shimmered with depth, as though they weren't marks on his skin, but cracks through it.
And then came the scream.
Not from a human throat. Not from any creature of the earth.
It tore across the sky like a blade across flesh—a single, shrill note that made the air shatter around it. Birds that had been hiding in the trees dropped from their nests, lifeless. The fire in the hearth faltered, and for a moment, the entire world dimmed—as though a veil had been cast over existence itself.
Seraphyne drew a blade from beneath her cloak. It was old—more bone than metal—and its edge shimmered with something deeper than steel. Her face was unreadable now, all softness gone.
"They know."
Valaerius's throat was dry. "Where we are?"
"No," she said, stepping in front of him. "That we're not hidden anymore."
He felt a tremor rise up through his legs again. This one didn't fade. It built. The earth beneath them was beginning to crack—not physically, but spiritually. The protective circle they had once drawn around the cottage, reinforced with wards and salt and old rites—it hissed now like a wounded animal.
"Look at the sky," Seraphyne whispered.
He turned. The stars above no longer blinked gently. They flared. Brief, sharp bursts like sparks in a forge. But they weren't twinkling—they were responding. Aligning. Shifting into patterns that felt both alien and ancient. The moon itself had turned a deeper crimson, as though soaked in memory and fire.
"Your name is being remembered," she whispered.
He turned to her, breath catching. "By who?"
Seraphyne's eyes glistened—not with fear, but sorrow. "By the ones who were forbidden to speak it. By the ones who hunted your blood before you had shape."
From the treeline, a faint wind stirred—slow and wrong. It didn't pass through the trees. It parted them, like a hand brushing aside curtains. Between the trunks, shadows began to stretch. They didn't move with the breeze. They slithered. Crawled. Converged.
"Inside," Seraphyne snapped. "Now."
He obeyed, stumbling backward into the cottage. She sealed the door behind him and began muttering in a language he didn't recognize—harsh syllables that tasted like iron. The protective talismans flared briefly in response, but dimmed seconds later.
"They're weakening," she muttered. "Everything's unraveling too fast."
Valaerius could barely hear her. His head throbbed with pressure, his vision doubled. He pressed his back against the wall and slid down, curling his knees in. The marks on his skin burned now. His spine arched involuntarily.
And then—quiet.
Total, breathless quiet.
He looked up.
And saw a single crack in the ceiling.
It hadn't been there before.
From that crack, a thread of darkness oozed downward. Slow. Intentional. Not shadow. Not mold. Something else—like the memory of darkness, heavier than it had any right to be. As it dripped, the air grew colder, thinner. He gasped, struggling for breath.
Seraphyne rushed to his side, gripping his face in her hands.
"You have to fight it, Valaerius. Do you hear me?"
"I can't breathe—"
"You must not give in. The seal is breaking, yes, but it is still yours. It was bound to you. It must respond to your will."
He tried to focus. Tried to center the maelstrom within. But it was like trying to still an ocean by whispering to it. He screamed as the energy surged—brighter, deeper, louder than anything before. It rushed up his spine, flooded his chest, bloomed behind his eyes.
The lanterns shattered.
The ground split beneath the hearth.
And the cottage — all of it — groaned as if it too might come apart.
Seraphyne knelt in front of him, shielding him as sparks leapt across the walls, glyphs flaring and dying in bursts of red and black.
Then — the sky cracked.
Not with thunder. With something else.
A sound like the scream of a dying star ripped through the air.
Valaerius staggered, his eyes flying open.
The marks on his arms blazed — not light, but hunger. Power that knew his name.
In the distance, something answered.
A howl. A whisper. A scraping of claws on the fabric of reality.
Seraphyne froze.
Above them, the clouds spiraled into an eye.
Wide.
Unblinking.
And watching.
The seals hadn't fully broken.
But the world had seen him now.
And something else had too.
And it was coming.