My chest was still burning.
I had one hand pressed just under my collarbone, fingers digging into skin like I could hold the pain in place and keep it from spreading. Didn't work. It felt like someone had shoved a hot nail through bone and then poured ice after it.
I forced my eyes down.
That's when I saw it. The mark.
Right there, carved just below my collarbone: a clean pale shape, almost like a ring inside a ring inside a ring, all thin lines and sharp points. It wasn't ink. It wasn't a cut. It was in me. The lines pulsed. slow, steady, faint teal light flashing in time with my heartbeat.
For a second I forgot how to breathe.
"I… have a Sigil."
Hearing myself say it felt fake. Like I was pretending to be someone else.
Me. The nobody. The "hollow." The kid you don't take on proper runs 'cause he'll just slow everyone down and bleed everywhere. The one who watches other people throw sparks and shape air and thinks, yeah, must be nice.
I swallowed, and my hand was shaking a little.
"Sight," the voice said.
I looked up.
The being was still there in front of me. The same tall shape from before. A body made of pale light pretending to be human, like someone sketched a person and filled it with glow instead of skin. He didn't feel human. He felt like standing too close to the edge of a fracture and hearing it hum.
"Your Sigil," he said. His voice wasn't echoing anymore. It was closer now. Not loud, but inside, sitting against the inside of my head. "You chose Sight."
I huffed out air that might've been a laugh. "Yeah. Congratulations to both of us. I didn't black out halfway through so I think that means it worked."
"You screamed," he said.
"That wasn't screaming. That was—" I winced. "—controlled exhaling."
His head tilted like he was studying me. He had no face, not really, but I could still feel him looking, like warm fingers pressing against my pulse. "Your body is holding," he said finally. "Good."
"Holding?" I repeated. "You mean 'alive'?"
"Yes. You're not breaking. That's better than I expected."
"Great. Love the confidence."
I dragged my thumb over the mark again. The glow followed the touch, like it recognized me.
I've seen a lot of Sigils in my life. Storm flickers across skin when they get worked up, little lightning veins under the surface. Flame users sometimes light along the knuckles if they're cocky and showing off. Bone you can tell because they move like getting hit doesn't matter.
But on me?
Yeah. That hit different.
My pulse was still too fast. My head still felt light. But under that, under the pain and the leftover panic, something else had settled in my body. Weight. Strength. Like my muscles had been quietly packed full while I wasn't looking.
I rolled my shoulder and froze.
The bite mark from earlier, the deep one from the hound that got through, it wasn't dripping anymore. The skin was still ugly, torn at the edges, but not raw. It looked half-mended, like a day-old wound, not fresh. That shouldn't have been possible.
I let out a low breath through my teeth. "…Huh."
The being didn't move.
"I get it now," I muttered. "No wonder the Sigiled walk around like they're untouchable. You get bit and your body's like, 'nah, we're fine.'"
He was quiet for a moment. Then: "That repair wasn't you. That was me."
I looked up again.
"What does that mean," I said slowly.
"It means your body would be bleeding out right now without me," he said, calm. "You are not durable yet. Don't get cocky."
I squinted at him. "You always talk like that?"
He paused. "…I am adjusting."
That almost made me grin. Almost.
I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, then frowned when I saw the smear of dried blood across my wrist and chin. Right. The screaming. The controlled exhaling. Whatever. Doesn't matter.
"So," I said, nodding at the glowing lines under my skin. "Sight. What does that actually give me? Am I supposed to, what, see ghosts? Look through clothes? 'Cause I'm not saying no—"
"Stop," he said.
I blinked. "What?"
His head tilted again. "Your thoughts are loud. I can hear them. I don't know if you're doing that on purpose."
My face went hot. "I— okay, first of all, don't just say that like it's normal."
He stepped in closer than felt normal and pressed two fingers against my chest, right over the mark. His hand was warm, too warm, like there was current under his skin.
"I'm… in you," he said quietly. "Not all of me. Just… part. I can feel it moving between us. You pull, I feel it. I pull, you feel it. That's how I'm standing right now."
I stared at him. "That's a weird way to say 'we're sharing a body.'"
"It's not weird," he said. "It's just how it is."
"Yeah. Still sounds weird."
He went quiet for a second, then touched his chest with two fingers like he was checking if he was solid.
"My name…" He frowned slightly. "Do I have one?"
I blinked. Huh…? Acts like a newborn, lectures me about predators, but doesn't know his own name?
"You don't know your own name?"
He tilted his head. "Maybe Ael," he said. "I like that. Yes. Ael."
I let that sit for a second.
"…Alright," I said quietly. "Ael."
Something in the air shifted. Not pressure, more like the humming in the void around us smoothed out, just a little. He straightened. I couldn't tell if it was pride, or if I was inventing that because I wanted to see it.
"So. Ael," I said. "How dead am I if I pass out right now?"
"You won't die from passing out," he said. "You'll die if something eats you while you're passed out. You are still in a hostile space."
"Okay, so that's encouraging."
He didn't respond.
I rubbed my face and tried to focus. The adrenaline high was fading and the ache was creeping in. My whole body hummed, not shaking, not burning, just charged. I felt light, fast, like if I moved I'd move before I finished deciding to. I kind of wanted to try it.
Then my vision swam a little and I had to brace my hand on my knee.
"Right," I muttered. "Still human. Got it."
Ael watched me. "You pushed too much Resonance through tissue that wasn't ready. That's why you're dizzy. If you keep burning like that in the open world, you'll lose sight, then motor control, then you'll fall. Do not fall around predators. They interpret collapse as permission."
I stared at him. "…Do you usually talk like a field guide on how to not get mauled, or is this special treatment?"
"It's important," he said. "You belong to me now. I do not want you to stop."
That made me go still.
The way he said it made my skin prickle. Not sweet. Not angry. Just like it was basic fact.
My mouth felt dry. "You mean that in a… keeping-me-alive way. Not in a weird way."
He tilted his head. "I don't know the difference yet."
"Great."
I looked back down at my Sigil. Still glowing. Still mine. I couldn't help it, I laughed a little, quiet and a little cracked.
Nineteen years of being the one with nothing, and now I had this. Mine.
"Okay," I breathed. "So what now?"
Ael didn't answer right away. His shape flickered, just for a second, not like it was vanishing, more like it failed to hold a clean outline and bled light at the edges. Instinctively I reached out, like I could steady him with my hand.
He looked at my fingers, then down at himself.
"I can't stay like this," he said.
"What?"
"This shape burns too much. I'll drain you." His voice was calm, like that was just a fact. "If I hold it out there, I'll rip you apart. Your body can't feed it yet."
"Out there," I said. "You mean back in the ruin."
"Yes. When we go back, I have to make a smaller body." He paused. "I've never done that before."
"So we're improvising... Really?"
"Yes."
I let out a slow breath. "Alright. Fine. We'll figure that out when it happens. You said 'when we leave,' so I'm guessing this place doesn't last?"
"No," Ael said.
He lifted his hand.
For a second I thought the darkness around us was just darkness. Then I saw it. Tiny lines, hair-thin and pale, running in every direction: above, below, off into nothing. Like a spider web, or veins under skin. All humming. All under stress.
Some of them were splintering.
This whole place. This void, this not-space, it wasn't just random. It was inside something. Between things. And it was starting to crack.
"This place is breaking," Ael said. "It's going to throw you back where you touched me. The ruin."
"And you?"
"With you," he said, instantly. "I stay with you."
I didn't know why that settled me, but it did.
"Okay," I said, nodding. "Good. Because if you stayed here I'd have to jump back in after you and I really don't wanna fall through light soup again."
He blinked and tilted his head. "Light soup?"
"Don't worry about it."
He didn't argue, but I felt something, a little ripple along that thread between us. Confusion. Curiosity. It brushed against my chest like a cat nudging your ribs from the inside.
"Okay, last thing," I said. "Those places you said you feel. The pulls. What is that?"
Ael went still.
When he spoke again, his voice dropped, like something in him was straining.
"There are places," he said softly. "In your world. Places where I feel… familiar. Like I was there. Like I am still there. Pulled apart. Stuck. Wrong."
"Fragments," I said.
"Yes," he said. "Fragments of me. Of what I was before I broke. I can feel them, but I can't reach them alone. I need you to take me there. I can pull them if you get me close."
I let that sit a second. My stomach had gone tight.
"And if we do?" I asked. "If we get those pieces back?"
"I get stronger," Ael said. "I remember more. I hold shape better. You pull in more Resonance. You'll be able to burn longer, and I won't fade if you go quiet for a moment."
"And if we don't?"
He looked at me. His shape flickered again, and for the first time he looked… small.
"I go back to silence," he said.
And he said it like that silence wasn't sleep. Like it was a pit.
"…Okay," I muttered. "Yeah. Alright. We'll go find your missing pieces. Sounds simple. Just walk around a world full of fracture beasts and Ossars and grab chunks of god-wire. Great plan."
"Ossars," Ael repeated. "Yes. Them."
I frowned. "You know them?"
He didn't answer, but I felt something flick under his surface. Not fear. Hate.
Before I could push more, the air around us jolted.
Something tore. The space around us just twisted, and my whole body went weightless and wrong. Pressure spiked in my head so hard I thought my skull was going to split.
"Ael!"
"Hold on," he said.
"To what!?"
The floor vanished.