CHAPTER SIX–What the Mark Remembers..
The folder felt heavier than it looked.
Its edges were soft with age, the paper inside yellowed and thin, like it might crumble if I breathed on it wrong. I held it against my chest as I followed Seraphina deeper into the restricted wing, past shelves no student was meant to see.
"You shouldn't have this out here," I said.
Her mouth curved into a humorless smile. "You shouldn't exist. Yet here we are."
She stopped at a narrow table beneath a flickering lamp and gestured for me to sit. The light hummed faintly, casting shadows that stretched too far across the floor.
"Open it," she said.
My fingers hesitated before lifting the cover.
The first page wasn't text.
It was a diagram.
Circles overlapped one another three primary symbols interlocked, with a fourth shape threaded through the center like a fracture in glass. I recognized pieces of it immediately. The crescent. The sigil I'd seen carved into stone in my dream. The faint echo of the mark beneath my collarbone.
My breath caught. "This is… me."
Seraphina nodded. "A schematic, not a prophecy."
I flipped the page.
Names followed. Dates. Marginal notes written in different hands, some neat and academic, others frantic, barely legible.
Unstable but viable.
Subject exhibits resistance to suppression.
Do not allow maturation.
My stomach twisted. "They experimented on people."
"Yes," Seraphina said calmly. "And then they buried the evidence."
I swallowed hard. "Were they… children?"
Her silence was answer enough.
The mark beneath my skin flared suddenly, sharp heat radiating outward. I gasped and pressed my palm to my collarbone.
Seraphina leaned forward. "It's reacting to recognition."
"Recognition of what?"
"Of truth," she replied. "Or memory."
My pulse hammered. "You said my bloodline was inconvenient. What does that actually mean?"
Seraphina folded her hands. "It means hybrids like you disproved the Covenant's central doctrine."
"Which is?"
"That order is natural," she said. "And deviation is dangerous."
I laughed weakly. "Sounds like every bad system ever."
"Exactly."
I stared at the diagram again. "So what am I supposed to do with this?"
"Survive," she said simply.
"And after that?"
She hesitated.
"That," she said quietly, "depends on whether you want the truth buried again."
Before I could answer, the lights flickered violently.
The hum of the lamp deepened into a low, vibrating whine. Books rattled on the shelves. The air thickened, heavy with that same metallic scent I was starting to hate.
Seraphina straightened sharply. "You need to leave."
"Now?" I asked. "Why does everyone"
"Because it's reaching," she snapped.
The pressure behind my eyes surged. The mark burned, no longer subtle, no longer patient.
I stood too fast, the room spinning. "Reaching from where?"
"Below," she said. "And closer than before."
A sound rippled through the floor not loud, not violent, but deliberate. Like fingers dragging slowly across stone.
I backed away. "It's awake again."
Seraphina grabbed my wrist. "Listen to me. Do not answer it. Do not push back. Let it pass through you."
"That's not how pressure works!"
"It is for you," she insisted. "You're not a wall, Aera. You're a door."
The words landed hard.
"I don't want to be," I whispered.
"No one ever does."
The sound deepened, threading into my bones. My vision blurred, shadows bending at the edges. I could feel it now, not beneath my feet, but inside my chest, echoing my heartbeat.
You are late, something murmured.
I gasped.
Seraphina's grip tightened. "Don't listen."
"I'm not" My voice cracked. "It's not speaking to me."
She went very still. "Then what is it doing?"
"Remembering," I said.
The pressure surged once more, then
Stopped.
The silence that followed wasn't heavy this time.
It was curious.
Seraphina slowly released my wrist. "That's… new."
My legs trembled. "That's bad, isn't it?"
"Yes," she said. "And no."
Before I could ask her to explain, hurried footsteps echoed down the aisle.
Caelen appeared at the end of the row, eyes blazing silver, breath uneven like he'd run the entire way.
"We need to move," he said immediately. "Now."
Seraphina's jaw tightened. "Already?"
"They've convened," Caelen replied. "Emergency session."
My heart dropped. "The Covenant."
"Yes."
"About me."
"About whether you're worth the risk," he said grimly.
I laughed, shaky and hollow. "That's reassuring."
Caelen crossed the distance in three long strides and stopped in front of me. His gaze flicked to the folder in my hands, then to the faint glow under my collarbone.
"They marked you," he said quietly.
"Yeah," I replied. "Apparently, I'm popular."
His mouth tightened. "This changes things."
"Everything keeps changing," I snapped. "I'd like one stable moment, please."
He softened. "I know."
"Then tell me," I said. "If they decide I'm not worth it, what happens?"
Caelen didn't answer immediately.
Seraphina did.
"They won't kill you," she said. "They'll isolate you. Bind you. Study you until whatever makes you inconvenient is gone."
My stomach churned. "You mean until I'm empty."
"Yes."
A low growl slipped from Caelen's chest before he could stop it.
"That won't happen," he said.
Lucien's voice drifted from the shadows behind us.
"Careful, Alpha heir," he said pleasantly. "Promises like that tend to provoke consequences."
I turned.
Lucien leaned against a shelf, unbothered, as if he'd always been there. His eyes gleamed with interest as they settled on the folder.
"So," he continued, "you've found the old mistakes."
Seraphina's voice was ice. "You were not invited."
Lucien smiled. "I rarely am."
He looked at me. "Do you know what that mark truly means?"
"I'm guessing you're about to tell me."
"It means the fail-safe no longer sees you as an error," he said softly. "It sees you as a variable."
My breath caught. "Is that better?"
Lucien's smile widened just slightly.
"No," he said. "It's worse."
Caelen stepped between us. "Enough."
Lucien raised his hands in mock surrender. "Relax. I'm not here to take her."
"Then why are you here?" I demanded.
"Because," he replied, eyes never leaving mine, "the Covenant has a vote tonight."
"And?"
"And votes can be influenced."
The mark beneath my skin pulsed once slow, deliberate.
Somewhere deep under Blackridge, something shifted in response.
Lucien's gaze sharpened.
"Well," he murmured, "that answers that."
"Answers what?" I asked.
"That the silence beneath this place," he said quietly, "has chosen you to speak for it."
My heart pounded.
"I don't want that," I said.
Lucien met my eyes. "It rarely asks permission."
Outside, bells rang across campus too early, too loud, echoing through the stone.
Not calling students to class.
Calling something else to attention.
And for the first time since all this began, I realized something terrifying:
The world beneath Blackridge wasn't waking up.
It had been awake all along.
It was just waiting for a voice.
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