First-Person: Nyra
The ruins stretch deeper than they first appeared.
What looked like rubble and stone from above hides an entrance beneath — a staircase carved into the earth, swallowed by time and roots.
Kael finds it first, kneeling beside a half-buried pillar. "Here," he says, brushing away layers of dust until the symbols gleam faintly red again. "This is the seal of the Covenant."
The air feels heavier as we descend, each step taking us further from light. The walls hum with the same energy that burns beneath my skin, faint and restless.
The chamber below is vast, a hollow carved into the mountain itself. It smells of damp earth and something older — metal and smoke, the scent of old power.
At its center stands an altar. Not stone, but glass-like obsidian that ripples faintly as if it remembers movement. Etched across it are lines that shimmer faintly, pulsing like veins.
Kael approaches first. "This place shouldn't exist anymore."
"Then why does it?"
"Because someone wanted it found."
He lights a small flame in his palm, casting golden light across the carvings. The walls are covered in mural fragments — pairs of figures marked in red, their hands joined, their faces indistinct. Some are kneeling, others burning.
The further I look, the clearer it becomes that every story ends the same way.
"Kael," I whisper, "look."
He turns, following my gaze to the final mural. Two figures intertwined in light and shadow. One fading. The other burning brighter.
Underneath, a single line of script, old and sharp like a scar:
Only one shall bear the flame.
He stares at it, expression unreadable. "It's a sacrifice."
I shake my head. "No. It can't be that simple."
He steps closer to the altar, running his hand along the obsidian surface. "The bond draws from balance. Power shared between two lives. When it's complete, it consumes one to sustain the other."
My pulse quickens. "And how do you know that?"
He exhales, eyes shadowed. "Because I've seen it before."
I stare at him, the words heavy. "You've—?"
He nods slowly. "Years ago. A pair in the southern reaches. The woman was marked first. Her partner tried to save her when the bond began consuming her. Instead, it took him. His mark vanished the night he died."
A chill runs through me. "And the woman?"
"She lived. But she never used her power again."
I look back at the altar, at the faint light pulsing within the glass. It almost looks alive — waiting. "So one of us is meant to die for the other."
Kael doesn't answer. He doesn't need to. The silence says enough.
The mark beneath my ribs burns faintly, almost tender in its ache.
I step closer to the altar, drawn to the faint hum beneath the surface. Inside the glass, shapes begin to form — not words, but memories. Flashes of faces, flames, and the unmistakable sound of a voice whispering in my mind.
Power must have a vessel.
I stagger back, heart pounding. "It spoke again."
Kael catches my arm, steadying me. "What did it say?"
"That the power needs a vessel."
His expression hardens. "Then it's already chosen."
The realization settles between us like ash — heavy, quiet, inevitable.
For the first time since the mark appeared, I feel fear not of what I am, but of what I might take from him.