He went to the chapel, more out of habit than faith. The monks kept candles burning before the altar of Irenna, goddess of mercy, though they cast more shadows than light. The air inside was colder than it should have been.
Brother Caldus, one of the few who'd ever looked Corin in the eye, gave him a tight nod. "You're late."
"I wasn't planning to come," Corin admitted, kneeling in the back row.
Caldus studied him. "You've been hearing them again, haven't you?"
Corin looked up sharply. "What do you mean?"
The monk didn't smile. "You think you're the first? The mark chooses. It always has. But it chooses young, and never kindly. Follow me."
----
Brother Caldus didn't say a word as he led Corin through the sleeping streets of Durnholde. No stars hung above them, just that endless, ashen sky. The silence was thick, broken only by the occasional flutter of wings overhead. Not birds. Something darker.
Corin followed anyway.
The mark on his wrist burned beneath his sleeve, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
They stopped at the edge of the city, where a ruined shrine leaned against a cliffside. Caldus stepped through the broken stone archway and knelt. He whispered something Corin couldn't hear.
Then he pressed his palm to the earth.
A rumble shivered through the ground. The stone beneath the shrine split open, revealing a staircase descending into blackness.
Corin hesitated. "Where does it go?"
Caldus looked back at him. "Below. To the only place you might live long enough to find out what you are."
---
The descent was steep, lit only by flickering sconces. The deeper they went, the colder the air became, dry, ancient. The stone walls bore strange carvings: rings within rings, crowned skulls, broken swords. None of it made sense.
"Why are you helping me?" Corin asked.
Caldus didn't stop walking. "Because I've seen what happens to the marked when the Order finds them first."
"Is that who burned my village?"
"No. That was something worse."
---
At the bottom of the stairs was a gate made of black iron, veined with glowing sigils. A single figure stood watch, a tall woman in plated armor, her face hidden by a metal half-mask. A red slash crossed the eye.
"Maera," Caldus greeted. "The boy is marked."
She tilted her head slightly. "He doesn't look like much."
"He doesn't need to," Caldus said. "If the mark took, it means the bloodline's real."
Corin bristled. "What bloodline?"
Maera stepped aside, opening the gate. "That's not for you to know yet. First, we will see if you survive the Hollow March."
---
Inside was no grand hall or school. It was a fortress built into the earth, walls blackened from old fire. The air tasted of iron and ash. Soldiers, some young, some barely older than Corin, trained with wooden weapons in the courtyard. Others were being treated for wounds.
At the far end, a symbol had been carved into the stone wall: a circle with a crown inside it.
It matched the mark on Corin's wrist.
"You'll sleep with the initiates," Maera said. "If you make it through your first week, we'll talk again."
Caldus clasped Corin's shoulder briefly. "Remember this, boy. Your life is no longer yours alone. Everything here has a price."
Then he left.
---
That night, Corin lay on a straw mat in a dark barrack, the breathing of strangers around him. One bunk was empty, burned through. No one spoke of it.
He turned over and looked at his wrist. The mark shimmered faintly, like embers under skin.
Suddenly, a whisper.
Not in his ear, but in his mind.
"He found you."
Corin sat up with a jolt. No one else stirred.
He wasn't sure if he'd imagined it, until he looked toward the door.
And saw a white-masked figure watching him from the shadows.
Then it was gone.