The silence didn't last.
By nightfall, the clearing was no longer a graveyard, it was a crucible. Survivors had split into camps, lines drawn in the ash. One side built fires in a ring, whispering prayers to the flame-born queen, their voices ragged but fervent. The other side gathered steel, muttering blasphemy and plotting to cut the curse from their midst before it spread further.
And she, the center of it all, sat with Kael's head in her lap, smoke clinging to her hair, her veins dim but restless. Every chant, every curse fed the mark like oxygen.
Her body betrayed her. The whispers of worship made her blood pulse brighter, her hands sear the earth until it blistered. She tried to smother it, pressing her palms into the ash, but the fire hummed like a heartbeat that wasn't hers.
"Mine," it murmured again. But this time it didn't stay inside her head. The air itself seemed to ripple with the word. Several of the kneeling worshippers flinched, hearing it.
