They didn't mean to find it.
The path narrowed as they moved east, the ground breaking into stone and packed sand that cut between low ridges. Wind funneled through the gap, carrying grit that stung the eyes and scraped against exposed skin. It was the kind of place the camp usually avoided. Too tight. Too many blind corners.
They were already committed when the scouts stopped.
Mavin was near the back, adjusting the strap of his pack, when the signal went up. A raised fist. Sharp. Immediate. The line slowed, then froze.
Weapons came out without anyone saying a word.
Mavin's stomach tightened.
One of the scouts jogged back, face pale under the dirt. "We found something," he said.
"What kind of something?" the leader asked.
The scout hesitated. "Dead."
That wasn't enough.
They moved forward carefully, spreading out. No one rushed. No one joked. Mavin followed with the others, heart beating harder with every step. The wind shifted as they rounded a bend, and the smell hit him.
Burnt.
Not smoke. Not fire.
Burned flesh.
The carcass lay half-crushed between two slabs of stone, massive and misshapen. It might have once been something like a boar, or a lizard, or neither. Its body was split open along the chest, ribs peeled outward and blackened. Parts of it were charred down to bone. Other parts looked flash-frozen, skin cracked and pale as if the heat had been ripped out of it all at once.
The ground around it was scorched in uneven patterns. Stone had melted in places, then shattered like glass.
No one spoke.
Mavin stopped breathing for a second without realizing it.
The leader stepped forward, slow, spear held low. She didn't touch the body. She crouched and leaned closer to its head.
There, burned into the skull, was a mark.
Jagged lines spiraled inward toward a dark center, the symbol fractured but still visible. Around it sat a faint ring, scorched clean into bone.
One circle.
"That's marked," someone said quietly.
Fear rippled through the group.
"First circle," another whispered.
Mavin's chest tightened.
He didn't feel recognition.
He felt warning.
This wasn't like the hound. This wasn't something that hunted out of hunger or instinct. Whatever this thing had been, it had crossed a line. It had used something.
"What did this?" a scout asked.
No one answered.
The leader straightened slowly. "Not us."
"That thing wasn't weak," someone said. "Look at it."
"Non-marked don't leave damage like that," another added. "And marked ones don't die easy."
Silence followed.
Mavin stared at the scorched stone, the frozen fractures running through it. He thought of the pressure he felt in his chest when Rot Born stirred. Thought of how it had moved without asking him what he wanted.
If this thing had one circle…
What had killed it?
"We're leaving," the leader said. Her voice was calm, but her grip on the spear tightened. "Now."
No one argued.
They turned back the way they came, faster than before. The formation tightened. People glanced over their shoulders more than they watched the ground ahead. Mavin kept his head down, legs moving, every sense stretched thin.
The wind carried distant sounds.
Cracking.
Something shifting far off in the rock.
He didn't know if it was real or if his mind was filling in the gaps.
They didn't stop until night fell.
Even then, the camp was wrong.
The fire was kept low, barely more than embers. Tents were pitched closer together. Watches were doubled without discussion. No one complained.
Mavin sat with his back against a pack, arms wrapped around his knees, staring into the dirt. His chest felt tight, but he didn't move the cloth covering the mark. He could feel it there, steady and warm, like it was paying attention.
Jorren sat down beside him after a while.
"That wasn't good," Jorren said.
Mavin shook his head. "No."
"First-circle monsters don't just die," Jorren went on. "Not like that."
"What do they usually do?" Mavin asked.
Jorren exhaled slowly. "They survive. They learn. They kill until something stronger shows up."
Mavin swallowed.
"Safe Zones lose people to them," Jorren added. "Patrols. Ruin-marked guards. Sometimes whole walls get abandoned."
Mavin thought of the glow on the horizon. Of heroes standing tall on reinforced concrete, Ruins burning bright in their hands.
"What happens when something stronger shows up?" he asked.
Jorren didn't answer right away. "Then people stop pretending the world's under control."
Later that night, a sound rolled across the land.
It wasn't close. It wasn't far either.
It cracked through the air like stone breaking under pressure, long and uneven, carrying across the ridges. It wasn't an animal cry. It wasn't human.
The camp went still.
Mavin lay on his side inside his tent, eyes open, listening. His heart pounded hard enough that he worried someone might hear it. The mark on his chest felt warmer now, almost heavy.
Whatever made that sound wasn't hunting.
It was announcing itself.
No one slept.
By morning, the leader changed their route again. They moved west, away from the valleys, away from tight ground. No one questioned it.
As they walked, Mavin came to understand something clearly.
The hound he'd faced hadn't been the danger.
The thing they'd found hadn't been either.
The real threat was what came after the first circle.
And if something like that ever noticed him, hiding the mark wouldn't matter at all.