The rains began before dawn.
Not gentle rain, but a torrent, a downpour that turned forest trails to mud and bent trees with its weight. Thunder cracked overhead, and lightning peeled across the skies like a blade tearing the heavens.
Seraphira and Elena found shelter beneath a rock ledge halfway up a moss-covered ridge. Water dripped from every edge, and the fire refused to stay lit, even with dried bark.
They huddled together beneath their cloaks, damp and cold.
Does it always storm like this in the Forest of Teeth? Elena asked through chattering teeth.
No, Seraphira said. This is unnatural.
She looked out into the wet gray beyond, brows furrowed.
Storms in these woods were rare. But this one carried more than water.
It carried warning.
On the second day...
The river overflowed.
Trees groaned and snapped in the wind. Branches fell like spears, piercing the earth with unnatural force.
Elena, pale and feverish, had developed a strange burn across her left shoulder faint, spiraling, matching the mark on Seraphira's wrist.
Is this from… me? she whispered.
I don't know, Seraphira admitted.
But she did know one thing: the magic inside Elena was waking faster than it should.
And the world did not like it.
On the third day...
The storm stopped.
As if a switch had been thrown.
No wind. No rain. Only silence.
Seraphira stepped out of the ledge's shadow into sunlight for the first time in days. The world felt washed, scrubbed raw. Even the birds hadn't returned.
She turned then froze.
In the clearing, something stood.
Not a beast.
Not a witch.
Not a man.
But a figure wrapped in smoke, faceless, draped in torn robes that hovered above the ground. From its fingers dripped strands of silver flame cold and bright.
Elena, Seraphira hissed. Back.
The creature turned.
No eyes. No mouth. But it saw.
"You carry the mark," it said. "You are not meant to live."
It lunged.
Seraphira moved before thought could form, blade flashing upward only to be caught mid-air by one smoky arm that felt like iron beneath fog.
She gritted her teeth, forcing heat into her limbs.
Nothing.
No fire came.
The thing hissed, not in pain, but recognition.
"The cursed blood has returned..."
A blur moved beside her Elena, eyes gold-bright, screaming.
A wave of force exploded from the girl's body, slamming into the creature and hurling it backward into a tree. The bark cracked like bone.
It didn't rise again.
Seraphira turned, wide-eyed. Elena…
The girl collapsed.
Seraphira caught her before she hit the ground.
Elena's skin burned cold. Her veins shimmered faintly beneath her skin silver and gold.
The mark had spread to her collarbone.
Something ancient was awakening within her.
And something darker was trying to stop it.
🌑 Far below…
Kaelreth stood beneath a sky of stone.
He had felt it.
The surge.
The scream.
The awakening.
"Another," he whispered.
Malkor stepped forward. "Two now walk the waking path."
Kaelreth closed his eyes.
"Two is only the beginning."