46. Kael
KAEL
The tunnels open into something vast.
For days we have moved through tunnels slick with fungus, breathing the reek of stagnant water and salt. And my body is waning.
Solan’s flame, which usually rages in my chest, has become a mere sputter; a weak, blue guttering flame struggling against a gathering draft. The longer I stay away from his brilliance, the quicker the wellspring becomes a stagnant pool. And the more my wrist burns.
I reach into my pocket for my crystal, desperate for its warmth. But my fingers find only lint and empty space.
Sun take me. It must have fallen out in the sluice.
My chest tightens, a vice-like grip squeezing the air from my lungs. A crazed hammering starts against my ribs—a trapped bird desperate for escape. I pause, clutching my tunic to feel for the furnace within. There is only an ember, dying at the edges.
Keep calm. It’s fine. What happened in the Hollow all those years ago, won’t happen again. The taste of copper, the way my veins went cold, the week I couldn’t strike a spark no matter how hard I prayed. I force a single command to my lungs: Breathe.
If I cannot use Solan’s light, I must find another way.
Think, Kael. Think.
At that moment, the mark on my wrist burns with white-hot agony. I roll up my sleeve. The edges are angry, the darkness stretching along my forearm as if it’s stitched itself to the very fibres of my skin.
The roar in my ears begins to subside, replaced by an urge that isn’t mine: Draw from the mark, Lightborne. You know you want to.
Nyx’s voice slithers across my mind, sending prickles along my skin. The choice sits in my gut like a lead weight, dense and cold. It’s a fundamental failing of what I should do versus what I must do. A necessary evil with a price tag I can’t see, but know I will have to pay.
I can’t carry on like this, I need power. By Solan’s grace, I’ll face his wrath when I’m out of this mess, but I can’t have history repeat itself.
I place my palm over the mark, stroking the broken skin. It’s chilled to the bone. I close my eyes, reaching for something that resembles my ember.
Something answers—and it’s hungry. Not light. Not warmth. A pull, like the mark is drinking from me to feed itself. The cold starts at my fingertips, tiny fingers of frost creeping inward. An icy hand wraps around my spine, squeezing until the light within shrinks to a ghost.
The iciness is an inkblot on parchment, spreading through my veins. I draw a breath that washes over my senses in an unstoppable, frozen flood.
My eyes snap open. The world is silent, and razor-clear. Heat has vanished. I see only contrast—light as splintered glass, shadows as roads. Every dark corner suddenly feels…usable.
I shove my spectacles higher, blinking until the new sharpness tastes of salt. Seren walks ahead, her silhouette a hollow thrum against the rocks waiting in the dark. The light from my palm barely reaches her.
I’ve kept my distance since she killed Daren. Every time I draw close, the air pales and thins, creating a pull so heavy it bruises the silence, making the mark burn like a shrill, crimson ache.
The ground slopes as the rock gives way to a cavern the size of the Lampas Cathedral. Stalactites hang like inky spears; a vein of obsidian water cuts through the floor, catching the shattered pulse of light above.
A thousand veins of violet light web the rock face like winding roads, all making their way back to the heart’s pool. Their lustre thrums, a low-frequency glow that makes the cavern feel like a giant, breathing lung.
Footsteps echo—then stop—though Seren and I haven’t moved. From behind the black teeth of rocks, ragged figures emerge in ebony robes. A single lantern cuts the dark, its blue flame steady in the still air.
A hunched figure stands beside it.
Seren drops. “Yara.”
The woman turns, lifting the lantern to expose her features. Age has carved deep lines into her face, but her eyes burn with a sharp familiarity I’ve felt before.
“You found me, child,” she says, her voice roughened by years underground. “And the Light didn’t stop you.”
Shadows detach from the walls as more figures circle, their movements a soft, velvet rustle. They drop to their knees, bowing before Seren. The sight makes my chest tighten like a knot of cold iron.
“It tried,” Seren answers.
I follow her, my boots scraping the grit blanketing the floor. The woman’s gaze finds me and lingers. “So this is the Lightborne scholar touched by shadow,” she murmurs. “We’ve been expecting you.”
I freeze. “We’ve met.”
Then it hits me—the scent. Dried sage and lavender ground into wool. The voice. The Hollow. The woman who thrust a book in my injured arms. All of the pieces clicking together in my mind to form a cohesive thought.
“Indeed, a long time ago.” She smiles, her features cracking like old parchment.
“Why have you been expecting me?”
“You should know, Shadow-scholar. You’ve read the prophecy.”
“It doesn’t—” Thoughts scramble in my mind; information that used to be so easy to recall, now feels like grasping at smoke. “I’ve studied the text for years. There’s nothing mentioning a Lightborne touched by shadow.”
Her mouth twists. “Clearly your gods have been untruthful.”
The blasphemy should stoke the fire within, but it doesn’t. It’s smothered by the chill now coursing through my veins. My eyes stare through her, my face devoid of emotion.
She rises, stepping closer until she reaches for my branded arm. Her grip is a gentle, warm weight against the cold of my skin. “Light’s own child carrying a shadow brand, shall bridge the worlds by unwilling hand.”
My brow creases. I look inward, my mind a carousel of library and ink. I see the books stacked on my desk, the hand-drawn diagrams blurring past in a whirl of cream and black.
Then, there. I see the scripture as clearly as if I held the vellum.
My gaze travels back to her, the air suddenly thick with the rich, loamy scent of damp earth, sliced through by the silver sting of sage.
“That line…it wasn’t in the text I read.”
She looks to Seren and passes her a ragged, moth-eaten satchel. Seren’s eyes widen, her expression softening into a warm, golden hum of gratitude.
“Look within, child. Find the parchment I left for you.”
Seren sets the bag down. The parchment she removes is old, stained yellow from the years. It unrolls with a thirsty crackle.
“Read it aloud,” Yara demands.
“I—I tried to read it before, but I couldn’t. It’s in a language I don’t recognise,” Seren says, her voice tight. But as she looks, creases at her eyes smooth out, her pupils widening until the whites are swallowed with shock.
“I can read it now,” she whispers, the words laced in awe. The ink on the page seems to squirm, recognising her, the letters clicking into place.
“Go on, child,” Yara urges.
Seren reads, her voice carrying a low, purring resonance that vibrates in the cavern walls:
“When the daughter walks in borrowed flesh,
The stars shall bleed, the light confess.
Three doors shall open, bound by one,
Moon to Mother, Shadow to Sun.
Beneath the world, the heart will wake—
And what was buried, the dark shall take.
Light’s own child carrying a shadow brand,
Shall bridge the worlds by unwilling hand.”
The final line hangs in the air, the cavern walls listening with sharp intent. Seren’s eyes search mine for answers I don’t have—answers that feel like shards of glass in my mind.
This can’t be true.
Yara steps closer. Her proximity forces my vision to anchor on her sightless eyes—clouded skies where flecks of blue perform a restless, chaotic dance. Suddenly, the dancing stops. Her gaze becomes a vacuum, drawing me into the very core of her.
Your gods edited you, Lightborne. Her voice doesn’t hit my ears; it speaks in the dark corners, tasting of old copper and secrets.
I flinch, but the connection is a vice of cold silk. Why is everyone able to access my mind so easily?
Her head tilts, catching the unspoken shape of my question.
Your shadow-mark is growing, the stronger our Divine Mother becomes. The words echo, reverberating through my flesh, and twisting a thorny chill around my spine.
What will happen to me? My voice is a soundless white flare at the surface of my consciousness.
What is destined of you, my boy.
She lets go, untethering my soul. The sudden silence of the cavern is thundering, amplified by the mercury-drip of a thousand hidden leaks. I stumble back, my gaze snapping to the ceiling.
There, scorched into the blackened rock, is the brand. The brand I’ve seen adorned on the white marble walls of Seren’s cell. A crescent swallowing an eye.
It isn’t just a shape; it’s a scream of black light.
To my left, the sound of shifting stone marks Seren’s movement as she embraces Yara. They fit together like a memory I was never allowed to taste. Their voices begin to drift, turning a muffled blur as a parade of unwelcome moments march across my vision.
A crushing weight settles on my shoulders.
“Kael?” Seren’s voice is a thin thread struggling against the unbroken drum of my heart. I clench my fist, the fabric of my tunic feeling coarse and foreign.
She touches me. Her hand is a prickle of ice down my back. “I didn’t know either.”
I shrug her off. I am a Lightborne shadow-scholar—I should be the master of this logic. But the hollow of my chest feels raw and scraped, a wound left by phantom fingers.
The ground beneath my feet shifts, the texture of the world turning slanted and strange. My internal compass spins, the needle snapped and sparking.
The person who entered this cavern is gone; the person who stands here holds a key that smells of the unknown.