Orien woke with the taste of rusted iron on his tongue.
Not just blood but something older, heavier. The metallic tang of rot and forgotten weapons left to bleed into the earth for centuries. It coated his mouth, thick and cloying, each breath scraping his throat like broken glass.
His eyelids peeled open.
The ceiling above was cracked stone veined with damp. Green-black fungus pulsed in the dim light, breathing in time with him. The air reeked of wet stone and sweat, of piss and decay, pressing close like a sodden shroud.
drip..drip..drip..
Somewhere in the dark, water dripped. A steady, hollow rhythm.
Orien pushed himself up slowly. His joints protested, stiff as rusted hinges. A scream of pain flared in his ribs before fading to a dull throb, ghosts of wounds that shouldn't exist. His hands, once shattered, were whole again.
Too whole.
His fingers shook as he pressed them to his chest. The skin was smooth but cold. Unnaturally so. Beneath it, a faint spiral pulsed. Six circles lay within its curve, only one glowing faintly, like a dying ember.
His throat tightened. He swallowed bile.
This wasn't healing.
This was something else.
He stood. The stone floor leached warmth from his bare feet, cold creeping up his bones. He stumbled, catching himself against the wall. The moss there was slick, squelching under his palm.
I should be dead.
I felt my skull crack.
I should be broken.
But he wasn't.
His body moved wrong, too light, too quick, like a puppet with its strings cut. His heartbeat no longer pounded in his ears. It ticked softly now, deeper, quieter, like a clock buried in his chest.
Yet the pain remained.
Not in flesh, but in the spaces between. Embers of agony smoldered along his spine, in his gut, in the roots of his teeth.
The worst part was the silence.
Not the quiet of exhaustion, but something heavier. No guards shouted. No inmates jeered. No madman babbled in tongues down the hall.
His cell, once one of many in Hollow Deep's endless corridors, now felt like an island. The air itself seemed to recoil from him, the walls leaning away.
Orien gripped the bars. Cold iron bit into his palms.
Nothing moved in the hallway. No faces. No chains. No breath but his own.
They know.
He closed his eyes.
Memory returned in jagged pieces. The fight. The laughter. The fist that shattered his jaw. Then—the voice.
You belong to pain. And pain belongs to me.
He remembered not answering. Just screaming inside.
Then fire.
Then it, the thing of shadows and grinning teeth, of limbs that bent wrong, of words that slithered between thoughts instead of sound.
He had accepted.
No.
He had surrendered.
"Gods," he muttered, sinking back to the floor. His fingers dug into his scalp. "What have I done?"
The spiral pulsed in reply. Once. Warm. Amused.
He shivered.
I need to think.
I need to be alone.
But he wasn't alone.
Leather scraped stone.
Footsteps.
Orien tensed. A shadow stretched across the floor. An old man, stooped and thin, draped in robes like crumbling parchment. His hair was grey, his face hollowed by time. But his eyes—
Orien flinched.
Golden. Rimmed in red. Not the glow of pact-marks, but something deeper. Older.
"You're awake," the man said, stopping just beyond the bars. His voice was dry, crackling like dead leaves. "Good. Most don't wake after that."
Orien studied him. No chains. No fear. Just quiet observation.
"You saw it," Orien whispered.
The old man nodded. "Every moment. From your first scream to his last breath."
Silence stretched, sharp as a blade.
Orien gritted his teeth. "Did I kill him?"
"Brutally."
Another pause. The kind that cuts.
"And the others?"
"Terrified. Somehow they call you Spiral-Borne now . Some pray. Others have fled to the far cells."
Orien's stomach turned. "I didn't mean—"
"Meanings don't matter here," the man interrupted. "Only power. And yours just shattered Hollow Deep's balance."
He stepped closer. The scent of burnt incense and old paper clung to him. Strange, but not unpleasant.
"Who are you?" Orien asked.
"A scholar. Once. Now, just another Forgotten." He tilted his head. "Though perhaps not as forgotten as most."
His gaze dropped to Orien's chest. "Your spiral... only one node lit, and yet you tore a man apart."
Orien's hands curled. "What is it? That voice... that thing—"
The old man's voice dropped, grave. "Not a demon. Not as you know them. Not some summoned fiend or devil's spawn." He leaned in. "You've been touched by a sinister being. A being older than names. Older than pacts. Older than angels or demons."
He pointed to the mark on Orien's chest.
"That is its mouth. It speaks through your pain."
Orien's throat went dry. "Then what happens now?"
The man didn't answer at first. Instead, he sat cross-legged on the filthy ground, robes pooling around him.
"I'm Veyren," he said simply. "And if you're wise, you'll listen. Because your pact isn't a gift. It's a war. Between you and it."
Orien slumped against the wall. The spiral warmed against his skin. Whispering. Coiling.
It was listening too.
And smiling.