The air didn't change so much as it shattered.
One moment, Tadao was staring at the flickering screen of his laptop, the glow of another isekai anime finale painting his dark bedroom in shades of blue and white. The next, a soundless, weightless explosion of light wiped the world away. It wasn't a flash; it was an erasure. His desk, his poster of a grinning, overpowered hero, the faint smell of old pizza—gone, replaced by a void of sheer, screaming white.
His stomach lurched, a physical rip behind his navel. He couldn't scream. His throat was packed with cotton and static. He was falling up, down, sideways—direction was a dead concept. Pinpricks of color bled into the white: the burgundy of his mother's sweater as she reached for him, the flash of Penny's silver bracelet, the broad, hated shape of Dex's shoulders ahead of him. A jumbled, terrified chorus of voices—his mothers, his sisters, Leo's sharp curse—smashed together into a single noise of panic.
Then, with a thud that traveled up his spine and rattled his teeth, direction returned.
Down.
He hit solid, cool stone, the impact driving the air from his lungs in a pained gasp. He rolled, instinct taking over, his shoulder scraping against rough-hewn granite. Around him, other thuds, cries, the clatter of dropped things. The white faded, bleeding away like ink in water, revealing a world that was horrifyingly, breathtakingly not his.
He pushed himself up onto his elbows, his breath coming in ragged hitches. The air here was different. It tasted of cold stone, distant pine, and something else—a metallic tang, like ozone after a storm. It was clean, unbearably so, with none of the city's damp exhaust or the comforting dust of home.
He was in a vast, circular chamber. The floor was a mosaic of luminous white and gray stone, depicting a sprawling, complex sigil that pulsed with a faint inner light. Towering pillars of smooth, pearlescent rock soared upwards, meeting a domed ceiling so high it was lost in shadows. Light came from everywhere and nowhere—soft, sourceless, and cool, glinting off the metallic inlays in the pillars.
"Wha… where?" The voice was his sister Mia's, high and trembling. She was sprawled a few feet away, her school skirt dusty, her eyes wide with a fear that mirrored his own.
A low groan came from his left. Leo, his childhood friend, was already on his feet, stance defensive, eyes scanning the chamber with a warrior's precision he'd only ever practiced in video games. "Everyone okay? Sound off!"
"I'm here," his mother Fia's voice was steady, a calm center in the chaos. She was helping his other mother, Kaelin, to her feet. Kaelin's glasses were askew, her face pale.
"Sora? Elara?" Fia called out.
"Present," Elara, the eldest sister, said tersely, brushing grit from her jeans. Sora, the youngest, just nodded, clutching her arms around herself.
And Penny. Tadao's heart clenched. She was sitting up, her blonde hair a messy halo, her hands pressed to the stone floor as if to confirm it was real. Her eyes found his, and in them was a storm of confusion, fear, and a dawning, impossible wonder.
Then his gaze landed on the last figure, and the wonder curdled.
Dex.
He was already standing, of course. He always landed on his feet. The bully who had made Tadao's high school years a quiet hell of shoves in hallways, stolen assignments, and whispered threats that were just plausible enough. Dex was taller, broader, with a smirk that seemed carved into his face. He wasn't looking at the impossible architecture. He was looking at Penny, at Tadao's sisters, a slow, appraising gleam in his eyes.
"Well," Dex said, his voice echoing slightly in the vast space. "This is a hell of a field trip."
"This is not a trip," Kaelin said, her voice thin but sharp. She adjusted her glasses, her scientist's mind fighting through the shock. "The displacement was instantaneous. Non-Newtonian. The energy signature…"
"We were summoned," Leo interrupted, his voice tight with awe. He pointed.
At the far end of the chamber, on a raised dais, a figure coalesced from the light itself. It was neither male nor female, its form shimmering and indistinct, draped in robes of flowing starlight. Its face was a smooth plane of radiance, but two points of profound, ancient intelligence shone where eyes should be. The air hummed, a deep, resonant frequency that vibrated in Tadao's molars.
"Greetings, Chosen."
The voice was not a sound. It was a concept planted directly into his mind, cool and vast as a glacier. It carried the weight of epochs.
Everyone froze. Sora let out a small whimper. Penny scrambled to her feet and stumbled towards Tadao. He caught her hand. Her fingers were ice-cold.
"You have been brought across the Veil of Realms to the world of Aethel. A great Cataclysm approaches. The Threads of Fate have selected you, bonded by your shared origin, to be the bulwark against the coming shadow."
"Selected us?" Fia breathed, stepping forward, putting herself between the entity and her family. "For what? We didn't agree to this."
"Agreement is a mortal concern. Necessity is divine. Each of you carries a unique resonance. That resonance has been… amplified."
The being—the god, the summoner, Tadao didn't know—raised a shimmering hand. From its fingertips, seven motes of light spiraled out, each a different, brilliant color. They danced through the air, weaving between the pillars before homing in on the group.
One, a deep, passionate crimson, sank into Fia's chest. She gasped, staggering back a step, her hands flying to her sternum. A warm, rosy glow emanated from her for a second before fading.
A vibrant, nurturing green light found Kaelin. She flinched as it touched her, a cascade of emerald sparks dancing over her skin before disappearing.
A mischievous violet light shot towards Mia, who yelped as it vanished into her. A calm, steady blue for Elara. A playful, sparkling gold for Sora.
A brilliant, heroic white-gold light, so bright it was hard to look at, arrowed straight into Leo's chest. He grunted, dropping to one knee as power visibly crackled around his fists, his eyes flashing with raw, untamed energy.
The last light was not a single color, but a shifting, iridescent rainbow. It floated gently towards Penny. She watched it, mesmerized, as it touched her forehead. For a moment, her entire body shimmered with impossible, kaleidoscopic potential before it settled, leaving her eyes glowing with faint, prismatic echoes.
Tadao watched, his heart hammering against his ribs. He held his breath. He waited. The motes had danced around everyone, his mothers, his sisters, his best friend, his girlfriend.
None came for him.
The empty air where a light should have been for him felt colder than the chamber's stone.
"The gifts have been bestowed," the voice intoned. "Divine Skills, attuned to your essences. They will awaken fully in time. Use them to unite the fractured kingdoms of Aethel. Forge your legend. The world's hope now rests with you."
The luminous figure began to fade, its light retreating into the dais.
"Wait!" Tadao's voice ripped out of him, raw and desperate. It echoed, embarrassingly loud, in the sudden silence. "You… you forgot me. What's my skill?"
The fading paused. The celestial gaze seemed to settle on him, and for a fraction of a second, Tadao felt seen in a way that was utterly alien and profoundly invasive. It wasn't a look of pity. It was the look a jeweler might give a piece of flawed stone.
"The resonance was… inconclusive. The system finds no compatible divine template. You are a null-point."
The words hung in the air, meaningless and devastating.
"A what?" Penny whispered, her grip on his hand tightening.
"No skill?" Elara said, turning to stare at him. "That's impossible. We all came together."
The entity's final words were delivered with a chilling, impersonal finality. "The allocation is perfect. The script is written. Fulfill your destinies, Chosen."
With a final pulse of light, it vanished. The hum in the air died, leaving a silence so profound Tadao could hear the frantic, rabbiting beat of his own heart.
For a long moment, no one moved. Then the reactions erupted.
Leo looked down at his hands, where arcs of white energy still flickered. "I can… I can feel it. Strength. A purpose. It's called… The Hero." He said the title with a kind of reverent awe, as if tasting the word for the first time.
"Mine is… Skill XXX," Fia said, her brow furrowed as she accessed something internal. She didn't elaborate, but a faint, alluring blush crept up her neck.
"Mine as well," Kaelin murmured, touching her own chest, her scientific curiosity battling clear confusion.
"Same," Mia, Elara, and Sora echoed in unison, each looking at their mothers with a dawning, shared understanding of something Tadao was utterly excluded from.
Penny was staring at her own hands, her expression one of overwhelmed shock. "I can… I think I can make things. Just by thinking about them. Creation's Palette. It feels like… like everything is possible." She flexed her fingers, and a tiny, perfect crystal rose bloomed in her palm, its petals catching the light before dissolving into mist.
The joy, the shock, the excited chatter—it swirled around Tadao, a celebration he was cordoned off from by an invisible, divine wall. He stood frozen in the center of the mosaic, the empty one. The null-point.
Then Dex laughed.
It was a short, harsh bark of sound that cut through everything. He was looking at his own palm, where a dim, sickly yellow light flickered weakly before sputtering out.
"Wow. Just wow," Dex said, shaking his head. He walked over to Tadao, his steps loud on the stone. He didn't look triumphant. He looked genuinely, contemptuously annoyed. "You think you got screwed? Look at this garbage." He thrust his palm out. The faint, puke-yellow symbol there was already fading. "Minor Aura of Gloom. Seriously. It's supposed to, I dunno, make people slightly sadder around me? What the hell am I supposed to do with that? Some legendary hero." He spat the last word, his eyes boring into Tadao's. "We get dragged to fantasy land and I get a participation trophy for being emo. And you? You get a big, fat nothing. Talk about bad luck. For both of us."
He clapped a heavy hand on Tadao's shoulder, a gesture that looked like camaraderie to the others but felt like a claim. The weight of it drove Tadao's knees a little deeper into the stone. Dex leaned in, his voice dropping to a venomous whisper only Tadao could hear. "Still a zero. Even the gods see it."
Then he turned away, addressing the group with a shrug. "So, mighty heroes. What's the plan? We gonna stand in this fancy cave forever?"
The discussion that followed passed over Tadao like a fog. Leo, embracing his new role, took charge. Elara, with her new calm, began analyzing their surroundings. Penny, experimenting, conjured a small, steady flame to provide warmer light. His mothers huddled with his sisters, speaking in low, concerned tones about their shared skill.
Tadao just stood there. The initial terror of the summoning had been replaced by a deeper, more intimate dread. This was his dream. The isekai. The new world. He'd fantasized about it through a thousand boring classes, a thousand quiet evenings. He was supposed to be the one with the glowing eyes and the impossible power, the one who would protect everyone.
He looked at his own hands. They were just hands. No light. No surge of mana. No divine template. Inconclusive.
The walk from the Summit Chamber, as Leo named it, was a blur of winding, crystalline corridors that eventually opened onto a staggering landscape. Aethel sprawled before them—towering, snow-capped mountains giving way to verdant, rolling hills and a distant, glittering sea. The sky was a deeper purple-blue, with two small, silvery moons already visible in the late afternoon light. The air was still thin and clean, scented with alien flowers.
They found a path, and by some unspoken guidance—perhaps a part of their gifts—they were led to a small, abandoned stone lodge nestled in a pine forest. It was basic, dusty, but shelter. That first week was a frantic scramble of survival and discovery.
Penny's power was their lifeline. With a focused thought and a shimmer of rainbow light, she could create. Not just illusions, but real, tangible objects. Fresh, crusty bread appeared on the rough-hewn table. Clear, cool water filled clay pitchers. Blankets, woven and warm, piled in the corners. Her limit seemed to be complexity and her own imagination, which, Tadao was realizing, was vast. Each creation left her momentarily tired, but with a proud, glowing smile.
Leo's power was pure, physical potency. He could shatter a boulder with a punch. He moved with a preternatural speed, practicing forms in the clearing that were a blur. He started setting up watches, making plans for scouting, his voice taking on a new, commanding edge.
The women of his family… their Skill XXX manifested subtly, at first. An effortless grace in Fia's movements that hadn't been there before. A captivating warmth in Kaelin's voice that made you want to listen. Mia's shyness began to be edged with a flirtatious confidence. Elara's sharp observations were delivered with a smoother, more persuasive tone. Sora's playful teasing held a new, magnetic pull. They were changing, becoming more present, more intensely themselves. And people noticed. Leo smiled more around them. Even Dex's usual sneer would soften when talking to Fia or Kaelin.
And Dex. Dex played his part perfectly. He complained. He mocked his own Minor Aura of Gloom, demonstrating it by standing near a squirrel and shrugging as it chattered angrily, unaffected. "See? Useless." He'd sigh, casting a glance at Tadao, the fellow sufferer. "At least you don't have a constant reminder of how pathetic you are stamped on your soul."
But Tadao saw other things. He saw the way Dex would linger near Penny when she was creating, his eyes not on the object forming, but on the concentration on her face, the slight tremble in her hands after. He saw how Dex would offer to help Fia fetch water, his movements deliberately strong and capable beside Tadao's clumsy, unaided efforts. He saw the way his sisters sometimes laughed a little too loudly at Dex's crude jokes, their eyes lingering on him.
Tadao was the ghost. He hauled water, but the buckets were heavy and he spilled half. He tried to chop wood, but the axe was unwieldy and he produced more kindling than logs. He offered to stand watch, but Leo gently suggested his senses weren't sharp enough to be reliable. His contributions were "helpful," met with patient smiles and reassurances. "It's okay, Tadao." "We've got it, dear." "Just rest."
The weight of his uselessness was a physical stone in his gut. He watched Penny's eyes light up with the thrill of creation, saw Leo's proud stance, saw his mothers and sisters blossom with their strange, alluring new power. He was happy for them. He was. And that happiness was a thin crust over a yawning pit of jealousy so profound it tasted like copper in his mouth.
His eighteenth birthday in Aethel arrived unmarked by any calendar but his own internal clock. A month since the summoning. The group had settled into a tense routine. They'd been discovered by a patrol from a nearby human barony, Barony Stoneheart, and given provisional asylum as "potential asset" Chosen. They lived in a small, provided cottage on the edge of the forest, a step up from the lodge but still a world away from home.
That morning, he woke with a sharp, stinging heat low on his abdomen.
He threw off the rough wool blanket, the cool air raising goosebumps on his skin. There, just above the line of his sleep pants, a mark had appeared. It was small, about the size of a coin, intricate and swirling. The color was a deep, bruised purple, like a fresh hematoma. It didn't look tattooed on; it looked like it had grown from within, a corruption of his very skin. It pulsed faintly with a warmth that was not entirely unpleasant, just… present. A claim.
He stared at it, a cold dread seeping into his bones. This was it. The delayed reaction. His "gift." A ugly birthmark. He touched it gingerly. The skin was smooth, no raised texture. The heat seeped into his fingertips.
"Tadao? You up?" Penny's voice called from the main room. "Leo wants to talk about scouting the northern ridge."
"Yeah," he called back, his voice rough. He quickly pulled his tunic down, hiding the mark. He didn't mention it. What was there to say? 'Happy birthday to me, I got a stain.'
The day unfolded with a special kind of agony. A knight-captain from the Barony, a serious man named Cedric, visited to assess the "Chosen." He tested Leo's strength, his eyes widening in respect. He witnessed Penny conjure a detailed map of the area from her memory, his skepticism melting into awe. He spoke with Fia and Kaelin, and within minutes was leaning forward, hanging on their every word, his posture relaxed, a smile on his stern face.
When the knight turned to Tadao, expectant, the silence was a living thing.
"And your divine endowment, young man?"
Tadao's mouth was dry. "I… I don't have one."
Cedric's eyebrows raised. "None? The summoning was selective. There are no bystanders."
"The entity said I was a null-point," Tadao mumbled, the words ash in his mouth.
From the corner of the room, where he was sharpening a knife with theatrical nonchalance, Dex let out a sympathetic sigh. "Rough break, man. At least my Gloom thing is… something, you know? This guy got skipped entirely." He shook his head, the picture of commiseration.
Cedric's look shifted from expectation to polite, distant pity. "I see. Well, every group needs steadfast support. The backbone." He clapped Tadao on the shoulder, the gesture identical to Dex's but devoid of malice, just empty consolation. Then he turned back to Leo, discussing defense protocols.
Later, in the training yard behind the cottage, Leo was practicing. His movements were a dance of devastating power. He swung a practice sword, and the air cracked. Tadao watched from the fence, the purple mark on his stomach burning with a sudden, sharper heat. A wave of frustration, of pure, impotent rage, washed over him. Why him? Why Leo? He's just a friend from down the street. I'm the one who wanted this. I'm the one who dreamed of it.
As the thought peaked, the mark seared. A jolt, like static electricity but hot and invasive, shot up his spine. For a single, glorious, terrifying second, he felt it—a surge of something in his veins. Not magic. Not mana for spells. It was raw, physical potential. He felt his muscles coil with unseen strength, his senses sharpen. He could see the individual threads on Leo's tunic, hear the rustle of a leaf fifty yards away.
He flexed his hand. Power, his power, buzzed under his skin.
Then Leo, finishing a devastating spin-slash, lost his grip on the practice sword. It flew from his hands, a clumsy, un-heroic mistake. It cartwheeled through the air, straight towards where Mia was sitting on a stump, mending a tunic.
She looked up, eyes widening in alarm.
The surge in Tadao crested. He moved.
He didn't think. He pushed off the fence, and the world blurred. He crossed the distance in two strides that felt like one, a speed he'd never possessed. He reached out, and his hand snapped the wooden practice sword out of the air an inch from Mia's face. The impact stung his palm, but he held it, the wood quivering.
Silence.
Mia stared up at him, her mouth a perfect 'O'. Leo stood frozen, mid-recovery. From the cottage doorway, Penny watched, her hands clasped under her chin.
Tadao stood there, breathing hard. The power was fading, draining away as quickly as it came. The vibrant sharpness of the world dulled. The coiled strength in his limbs softened into his usual weary ache. But for that moment… he had beensomething.
"Tadao!" Mia breathed. "That was… you were so fast!"
Leo walked over, a strange look on his face—surprise, reassessment, a flicker of something else. "Nice catch. Really nice. Where did that come from?"
Tadao opened his mouth, but no explanation came. He just shrugged, dropping the practice sword. "Got lucky, I guess."
As he turned, he caught Dex's eye. Dex was leaning against the cottage wall, arms crossed. He wasn't smiling. He was studying Tadao with a cold, calculating intensity that made the fading warmth of the mark turn to ice. He gave a slow, almost imperceptible nod, as if confirming a private theory.
That night, the dreams started. Not dreams. Fragments. Sensations.
He was in the forest, but the trees were blurred, the colors washed out. He saw Penny. She was talking to Dex by the old well. Dex was smiling, not his usual smirk, but something softer, more persuasive. He reached out and brushed a strand of hair from Penny's face. She didn't pull away. She leaned into the touch, just slightly, her eyes closing for a second. A flush of warmth spread from the mark on Tadao's stomach, a sickening, pleasant heat that pooled lower, followed immediately by a wrenching twist of betrayal so acute he gasped awake.
He sat up in his cot, sweat-drenched, heart pounding. The cottage was quiet. Across the room, Leo snored softly. It was just a dream. A stupid, anxious dream.
But the heat from the mark lingered. And the feeling—the twisting nausea mixed with that traitorous, physical thrill—felt more real than the rough blanket under his hands.
Days bled into each other. The pattern solidified. Any spike of negative emotion—frustration, jealousy, fear—would cause the mark to flare. He'd get a brief, intoxicating surge of physical prowess, a window where he wasn't completely helpless. He could lift heavier logs, run faster, his reflexes sharp. But it was always tied to a moment of emotional pain.
He saw Elara laughing with Dex over some private joke. Heat. A surge of strength. He squeezed the handle of the water bucket so hard the wood groaned.
He heard Fia praising Leo's leadership to Cedric. Heat. A surge of clarity. He could suddenly see every flaw in the cottage's thatched roof.
He noticed Kaelin asking Dex, not him, to help identify some strange herbs. Heat. A surge of speed. He finished chopping the week's wood in an hour.
And the dreams, the fragments, continued. They grew more vivid. He'd see Mia practicing walking, a new sway in her hips, when she thought no one was looking. He'd see Sora asking Dex about combat stances, her hand lingering on his arm to "feel the muscle tension." He'd see Penny, late at night, staring out at the stars, a troubled, lonely look on her face that she never showed him anymore.
He began to dread sleep. The mark was a parasite, and his emotions were its food. The clearer realization came during a driving autumn rainstorm.
A conflict had arisen with a neighboring barony over hunting rights. Tensions were high. Leo, as the de facto leader, was invited to a parley at Barony Stoneheart's keep. Cedric strongly suggested he bring a "consort" to ease talks—a common diplomatic practice.
"Penny should go," Leo said, over a tense dinner. "Her creation ability is our most impressive asset. It shows infinite potential."
Penny looked from Leo to Tadao, conflict in her eyes. "I… I don't know. Tadao, what do you think?"
Before he could form a word, Dex spoke up, his tone casual. "Leo's right. It's smart. You need to show strength. Penny's power is peaceful, but it's undeniable. Besides," he added, glancing at Tadao with that false sympathy, "it's not like Tadao can go. What would he do? It's a diplomatic meeting, not a furniture-moving contest."
The words were a dagger. The mark on Tadao's stomach ignited, a fierce, branding pain. A wave of jealousy, hot and black, washed over him. Jealousy of Leo's position. Jealousy of the respect Penny commanded. Fear of her being away, in a castle, with Leo and Cedric and who knew who else.
The heat spread, and with it, the now-familiar surge. His senses exploded. He could hear the individual raindrops hitting different parts of the roof. He could smell the wet wool of everyone's clothes, the stew in the pot, Penny's faint, floral scent. He could see the tiny scar on Leo's chin from a childhood fall, the nervous tremor in Penny's lower lip.
And then, the world folded.
His vision grayed at the edges. The cottage, the worried faces of his family, the smell of stew—it all stretched, thinned, and snapped away.
He wasn't in his body.
He was floating, a point of consciousness with no form. He was in a long, torchlit stone corridor. Rain lashed against narrow, slit windows. Ahead, he saw them. Leo, in a borrowed tunic that fit his new heroic frame too well. And Penny, wearing a simple but elegant blue dress she must have created, looking small and nervous beside him.
A man emerged from a doorway—Cedric, but in finer robes. He greeted Leo with a warrior's clasp, then turned to Penny. He took her hand, bowed over it, his lips brushing her knuckles. It was formal. Courtly.
But Tadao saw what others might not. He saw the way Cedric's eyes lingered on Penny's face a moment too long. He saw the faint, flustered blush that spread up Penny's neck. He saw Leo watching, a satisfied look on his face, as if this was all going to plan.
He tried to scream. No. Don't. Come back.
He had no mouth. He had no lungs. He was a ghost. A peephole into a moment he was never meant to see.
The vision held for an eternity that lasted perhaps ten seconds. He felt everything. The cold of the stone he wasn't standing on. The searing jealousy, now magnified a thousand times by helplessness. And beneath it, coiling through the heat from the curse-mark, a dark, unwelcome thread of arousal. The sight of Penny, blushing under another man's attention, her beauty highlighted in the torchlight… it sparked something in the void where he floated, something shameful and hungry.
Then, with a nauseating lurch, he was back.
He was slumped in his chair at the cottage table. A thin line of drool connected his chin to the rough wood. The stew in his bowl was cold.
Everyone was staring at him.
"Tadao?" Fia's voice was edged with concern. "Are you alright? You just… zoned out. For a full minute."
He blinked, his eyes gritty. His body felt leaden, drained. The surge was gone, leaving a hollow, bruised exhaustion. The mark was a dull, throbbing ache.
"I'm… tired," he rasped. "Just tired."
He looked at Penny. She was watching him, her earlier conflict replaced by worry. "You don't look well. Maybe I should stay."
"No," Tadao said, the word tearing out of him. He couldn't look at her. The memory of her blushing for Cedric was seared onto his mind, intertwined with his own physical reaction. "You should go. Leo's right. It's important."
He sounded reasonable. Calm. Inside, he was screaming.
Penny hesitated, then nodded. She came over, knelt beside his chair, and placed a cool hand on his forehead. "You're burning up. Get some rest. I'll be back soon." She leaned in and kissed his cheek.
Her lips were soft. She smelled of rain and the crystal-clear air of her creations. And all Tadao could think about was the phantom feel of Cedric's lips on her hand, and the traitorous, cursed heat that flared in response low in his belly.
He sat there, frozen, as they made preparations to leave. Leo gathered a cloak. Penny created a glowing orb of light to guide them through the storm. Dex clapped Leo on the back. "Don't get all noble and sign us up for a war," he joked, but his eyes followed Penny.
As the cottage door shut behind them, plunging the room into a gloom broken only by the fire, the silence was absolute. The storm raged outside. His mothers and sisters began to clean up, speaking in hushed tones. Sora glanced at him, then quickly away.
Dex lingered by the fire. He poked at the logs with a stick, sending up a shower of sparks. He didn't look at Tadao when he spoke, his voice low and conversational.
"Rough, huh? Watching her walk off with him. To a castle. While you sit here in the dark." He shook his head slowly. "She's something special, your Penny. That power… it's a king-maker. And Leo's got the look of a king, doesn't he? Or at least, a legend." He finally turned, his eyes catching the firelight. They held no mockery now. Just a flat, knowing certainty. "Some guys are just born to be the main character. Others… well, others get to watch the story happen. Guess we're both in the audience, Tadao."
He threw the stick into the fire, where it caught with a hiss. "Get some rest," he said, echoing Penny's words but with a completely different meaning. "Something tells me you're gonna need it."
Dex walked to the ladder leading to the loft where he and Leo slept, leaving Tadao alone by the dying fire. The curse-mark pulsed once, a final, ominous beat, like a second heart. It was no longer just a mark. It was a witness. A hungry, silent witness. And as the wind howled outside, Tadao knew, with a certainty that turned his blood to ice, that the story Dex was talking about wasn't Leo's hero legend.
It was something else entirely. And he was trapped on the first page.