The forest beyond the Sanctuary was dead silent—no wind, no birds, no life. The trees stood like ancient sentinels, blackened by the storm that had torn through the world hours ago. Mael and Aria moved through the ash and broken roots, breathless, their boots sinking into the wet soil.
Behind them, the Sanctuary burned.
Neither spoke for a long time. The glow on Mael's hands still pulsed faintly beneath the gloves he had stolen from a fallen soldier. Every heartbeat made the symbols flare brighter, as if they were feeding on his pulse.
Aria broke the silence first.
"You can't hide it forever."
"I'm not hiding," Mael said.
"Yes, you are." She stopped walking. "You think if you keep pretending, it won't be real. But it is. That thing—whatever it is—it's changing you."
Mael turned toward her. His voice was low, steady, dangerous.
"Maybe that's the point."
Aria looked into his eyes and saw something she hadn't before—not just anger, but clarity. The boy she had met in the archives, curious and kind, was gone. What stood in front of her now was something sharper. Something awake.
> "You are the bearer of the unbound fragment."
The words of the being echoed in Mael's head. He clenched his fists until his knuckles cracked.
---
They reached an abandoned outpost at the edge of the Wastes—half-buried in sand and dust, its roof half-collapsed. Aria scanned the area, then nodded for Mael to enter. Inside, everything smelled of rust and old blood.
She lit a small lantern. Its weak flame flickered against the cracked walls.
"We'll rest here," she said. "Just for a few hours. They'll be searching the valley by dawn."
Mael sank down onto a broken bench. His head throbbed. Every sound felt too loud. The mark on his arm pulsed in rhythm with a distant vibration—something like a heartbeat in the earth itself.
"Aria," he said quietly. "That man back in the hall… who was he really?"
She hesitated. "His name was Kael Draven. He was a war hero. Some say he was chosen by the gods to defend humanity during the first ruptures. Others say he caused them."
"And now he wears the same mark I do."
"Yes," she whispered. "Which means either the gods lied… or you're both on the wrong side."
Mael leaned forward, eyes shadowed.
"Then maybe the wrong side is the only one telling the truth."
---
The door suddenly shook.
Both of them froze.
A metallic clang. Then another.
Aria reached for her sword. Mael rose silently, eyes narrowing as the mark under his glove flared with light.
The door burst inward—three armored figures stormed in, their armor engraved with the sigil of the Seal: a circle bound by thirteen thorns.
"By decree of the High Order," one of them declared, "the marked are to be purged. Surrender now and you may yet die clean."
Mael smiled faintly. "Clean?"
He raised his right hand. The glove disintegrated into ash. The glowing veins beneath his skin expanded, crawling up his wrist and neck.
The soldiers hesitated.
Then everything in the room bent.
The lantern's light warped, the air vibrated, and gravity itself twisted for a heartbeat. The floor cracked open beneath the intruders, and a shockwave of pale energy sent them crashing against the walls.
One tried to rise—his face half-melted by the blast.
"What… what are you?"
Mael's eyes gleamed with white fire.
"I'm what your gods forgot."
He stepped forward. The man tried to crawl away, but the ground beneath him rippled—stone turned to dust in Mael's shadow.
"Stop!" Aria shouted, grabbing his arm. "Mael, don't!"
Her voice cut through the haze for a moment. Mael froze, breathing hard. His hand trembled. The power retreated slowly, like a tide withdrawing from the shore.
He looked down. His arm was smoking, the mark throbbing violently.
"I didn't mean to—"
"You did," Aria said softly. "And it's getting easier every time, isn't it?"
He didn't answer. He couldn't.
---
When the last soldier stopped breathing, Mael stepped outside. The horizon burned red under a fractured sky. The cracks in the clouds shimmered with pale lightning—another rupture forming, far in the east.
"They won't stop hunting you," Aria said behind him.
"Then let them come."
"You don't understand—these aren't just soldiers. The Believers of the Seal think your death will end the cycle. They'll burn the world to make it happen."
Mael turned his head slightly. "Good. Then I'll give them something worth burning for."
---
Far away, in a temple carved into the bones of a dead god, a hooded figure knelt before an altar.
A messenger approached. "The reports are true. The Mark has awakened in the boy."
The hooded figure's voice was a whisper wrapped in thunder.
"Then the prophecy of the Fifth Rupture begins."
"And the others?"
"They will awaken soon. Prepare the vessels. And find the girl—before he learns the truth."
The messenger hesitated. "The girl? You mean—Aria?"
The hooded one smiled.
"Yes. The one who carries the second mark."
---
Mael stared at the horizon, unaware of the mark faintly glowing on Aria's back as she stood behind him.
Two lights pulsing in rhythm.
Two destinies bound by the same curse.
The light that should not be…
had begun to multiply.