Kael's:
The bell rings, sharp and grating, pulling me out of the spiral.
Sunlight pours across the crowded hallway of Ashford High. Locker doors slam. Teenagers laugh too loudly. The mundane world swallows the night's horror whole.
I blink, forcing my breathing steady, staring down at my wrist. The mark is gone. Faded back into pale skin, nothing more than a phantom memory.
But I know better.
I shove my hand into my jacket pocket and move with the tide of students, blending in. To them, I'm just Kael Ashthorne, a quiet transfer who doesn't talk much, who sometimes stares too long at nothing. No one here knows the truth that their world brushes against another, darker one, and that my veins hum with something ancient.
"Yo, Ashthorne!"
A basketball thuds against my chest, nearly knocking me off balance. Marcus, the captain of the team, grins at me. "You coming to practice, or you gonna ghost again?"
I force a smirk. "Yeah. Later."
He laughs, slapping my shoulder before disappearing into the noise.
I watch him go, pretending to care. Pretending I belong here.
But I don't.
The glumur mark itches beneath my skin. Every time I catch a glimpse of my reflection, I see silver where there should be brown. Every time a girl's perfume drifts too close, I flinch, because it smells too much like hers like jasmine and smoke.
And sometimes, in the corners of the hallway, I swear I see them.
Shadows. Watching. Waiting.
My nights are battles. My days, a masquerade.
And the worst part? I can feel it building. The mark is not dormant anymore. It's awakening. And if it drags me back into their world again, I don't know if I'll have the strength to resist.
Because my body still remembers her touch.
And desire is harder to kill than chains.
.....
The classroom hums with the scratch of pencils and the faint buzz of fluorescent lights. Mr. Darius drones about history at the front, his voice little more than white noise.
I try to keep my head down, to appear normal, but the itch beneath my wrist returns.
And then, it happens.
The shadows slide across the floor. Not the ordinary kind cast by sunlight through blinds these move against the light, bending it. I freeze.
At first, no one notices. They slither along the walls, curling near my desk. A tendril flickers across my ankle, cold as ice. I jerk, my chair scraping the floor.
"Mr. Ashthorne?" Mr. Darius frowns.
"Sorry," I mutter, throat dry.
But the shadows don't stop. They creep higher, brushing my thigh, coiling under the desk like they want to drag me under. My pulse hammers.
No one else sees it. The whole class is blind, laughing, whispering, yawning.
And then the whisper curls into my ear, velvet and sharp:
"Kneel."
My body trembles. Instinct screams at me to obey, to fold like I used to, to bow my head to her bloodline. My hand twitches toward the desk edge, ready to brace myself as my knees weaken.
But then something burns.
The glumur mark.
It flares like fire beneath my wrist, burning bright through my skin. My eyes widen as I shove the desk forward, standing abruptly. The whole class stares.
"Kael?" someone whispers.
I clench my fists. The shadows recoil, twisting angrily.
"No," I breathe, loud enough for them. "Not anymore."
The shadows shudder and scatter, evaporating like smoke. Just like that, they're gone. Only silence remains, and thirty confused classmates staring at me like I've lost my mind.
"See me after class," Mr. Darius mutters, exasperated, turning back to the board.
I sink back into my seat, chest heaving. My cover's slipping. I can't keep pretending this world is safe from theirs.
But as the last bell rings, the question gnaws at me: If I can't kneel, then what am I supposed to do?
.....
Later
That night, I fall into sleep heavy as chains.
And the dream takes me.
The world is crimson... sky bleeding, earth cracking, shadows swirling in endless spirals. I stand barefoot on black stone, the glumur mark glowing like molten silver on my wrist.
And from the spirals, she comes.
Not Seraphina. Not exactly. Her bloodline her essence, her inheritance. A woman with eyes like burning rubies and hair cascading in waves of ink. Her presence fills the dream, intoxicating and suffocating at once.
"You remember," she says, her voice both silk and blade.
I can't speak.
"You are bound to us. To me. To her. To what we made you. Each time you return, the mark pulls you closer. But this time—" she steps closer, fingertips brushing my jaw, "you will not kneel."
Her words cut deeper than any chain.
I stagger back. "You enslaved me. You fed on me."
"And yet," she whispers, lips curving, "you crave us still."
The shadows ripple. My body burns. She's right some part of me aches for that darkness, for the ecstasy it brings.
But another part, the part that remembers chains, humiliation, pain roars louder.
"No." My voice steadies. "If I return, it won't be as your servant. It won't be on my knees."
The woman's smile sharpens like glass. "Then how will you return, Kael?"
The mark pulses. The answer spills out of me, fierce, undeniable.
"I'll come back to rule. To make you kneel."
Silence.
And then, the woman laughs. Not cruelly, but richly, like thunder breaking the sky.
"Good," she says, fading back into the shadows. "Then be ready. Because your peace here will not last forever."
The dream crumbles.
I wake with my chest heaving, sweat slick on my skin. The glumur mark still tingles, faint but present.
For the first time in lifetimes, I feel it resolve.
I won't kneel again.
Not in this world. Not in theirs.
If they want me back, they'll face not a slave, but a king.
.....
The next week at school felt…different.
Not because the shadows were gone. I knew they weren't. They lingered, waiting, watching. But something in me had shifted. I walked through the halls lighter, straighter, as though the invisible weight had finally lifted off my shoulders.
And people noticed.
"Hey, Kael!"
"Yo, you joining us at lunch today?"
"You're pretty good at that history thing. Want to team up on the project?"
It wasn't like I'd turned into some social butterfly overnight. But suddenly, everyone's eyes seemed to find me. My classmates laughed at my jokes, even the ones I didn't mean as jokes. The guys nodded at me with that unspoken look of respect, and the girls whispered when I passed, their smiles lingering longer than before.
I wasn't invisible anymore.
At lunch, I found myself surrounded. Jacob, the joker of the class, clapped me on the back. "Man, you've been holding out on us. Where've you been hiding all this charisma?"
I smirked, shaking my head. "Maybe you were just blind before."
The table erupted in laughter.
And it felt good. Strange, but good. For once, I wasn't the outsider carrying secrets no one could see. I was just…Kael.
The carefree days slipped into a rhythm. Basketball after class, group chats buzzing on my phone, late-night snacks with new friends where we swapped stories about teachers and games and nothing that really mattered. For a while, it almost felt like I belonged here.
Almost.
.....
It happened on a Thursday.
The sun was spilling through the windows of the music room, painting everything in gold. I wasn't supposed to be there; I'd wandered in by mistake while trying to find the library.
And that's when I saw her.
She was sitting at the piano, back straight, fingers dancing across the keys. The melody was soft, almost shy, yet beautiful enough to stop me in my tracks.
Her hair spilled in loose waves over her shoulders, catching the light like silk. She didn't see me at first. Her eyes were closed, lost in the music.
When she did finally look up, her gaze caught mine and for a heartbeat, the world stilled.
Aimee.
I didn't know her yet, not really. But something in my chest tightened, like recognition. Not from past lives, not from Seraphina's chains—something purer, lighter. Human.
"Oh sorry, I didn't know anyone was here," she said quickly, her voice soft but warm.
I stepped forward, clearing my throat. "Don't stop. It's…beautiful."
Her cheeks flushed faintly, and she glanced back at the keys. "Thanks. I don't usually play for people."
"Maybe you should," I said before I could stop myself. "They'd be lucky to hear it."
Her laugh was small, almost disbelieving, but it reached her eyes.
For the first time in a long time, I wasn't thinking about shadows or reincarnation or kneeling. I was just a boy, standing in a sunlit room, staring at the girl whose music made everything else fade away.
And maybe just maybe that was more dangerous than the darkness itself.