Chapter 4: The Price of Desperation
Mariam's fingers curled around the flask, her milky eyes never leaving Konah's face.
"You carry the mark," she whispered after a long silence. "Not of the gods… but of something older. The Stone remembers you."
Konah shifted uncomfortably. "What does it mean?"
Mariam didn't answer right away. She took a slow sip from the flask, then leaned back, closing her eyes. "Long before the deities came and offered gifts, there were others who listened to the voice of the earth. They didn't bend it with arrogance. They became it. But their kind were hunted, erased by the early Blessed. All that remains are echoes… and dreams."
Konah's heart pounded in his chest. "Why me?"
"You were born during a shifting season. Between sun and storm. That's when cracks form. That's when things… slip through."
Before he could ask more, Mariam rose suddenly and shuffled to the back of the room. She returned carrying a small bundle wrapped in weathered cloth. Inside was a fragment of blackstone etched with the same spiral symbol he'd found in the mine.
"The voice that called to you is not gone," she murmured. "It is waiting."
Konah took the fragment, the stone oddly warm against his skin. When he looked up again, Mariam's gaze was far away.
"Be careful, boy. Power without understanding is a blade without a hilt. It will cut you just as easily."
Later that night, hunger gnawed at his stomach, but his mind churned with more urgent hunger: truth. He returned home to find his mother feverish again, her breathing shallow. The root tea did little now. It wasn't enough.
He couldn't watch her slip away.
And so, under cover of night, Konah crept through the maze of alleys toward a merchant's stall near the edge of the middle sector. The medicine there was stolen, potent… and heavily guarded.
His hand trembled as he snatched a vial and turned to flee—but he wasn't fast enough.
Shouts rang out. A Blessed guard caught him and slammed him to the ground. Pain exploded in his ribs as boot after boot drove into his side. "Thief," they spat. "Unblessed rat."
Konah's blood stained the cobblestones. Through a haze of pain, he saw the other Unblessed watching. Eyes that had grown used to looking away.
Only one didn't.
A girl with tangled curls and fire in her eyes stepped forward. She met his gaze and held it as the guards dragged him away.