The wind bites sharper as dusk falls over Eldren Hollow. Shadows stretch and mingle beneath the gnarled trees, the air thick with whispered warnings Kael can almost hear. He follows Lyra's steady footsteps down the winding path from the ruined chapel, the weight of her words pressing on him like the tightening grip of a storm.
Training. Prepare. Close the door.
Each word twists in his mind, a coil of confusion and reluctant truth.
"How do you know all this?" Kael finally breaks the silence, voice rough with unshed questions.
Lyra glances over her shoulder, eyes gleaming with something fierce and ancient. "Because I was once like you. A child caught between worlds, a guardian in waiting."
Kael wants to believe her, but doubt clings like a shadow to his skin.
"What am I supposed to do? I'm just a kid."
"No," she says firmly, "you're more than that. You carry the Evenhart bloodline—the blood of those who once sealed the gateway centuries ago."
He stops abruptly, heart pounding. The Evenhart name was spoken only in whispers, wrapped in stories meant to scare children. His foster mother had told him nothing of it. Nothing about his parents beyond a few vague memories, a name, and the fire.
Lyra kneels beside a patch of moss, pulling a thin, ancient dagger from her belt. With a steady hand, she carves a small symbol into the dirt—a swirling spiral intersected by a line of stars.
"This is the Mark of the Hidden. It connects you to the power that binds the door. The same power that can protect or destroy."
Kael stares at the symbol, feeling a strange warmth bloom beneath his skin, as if the earth itself had reached up to touch him.
"What if I can't control it?" His voice cracks, raw with fear.
"You will," Lyra replies, eyes unwavering. "But first, you must learn to listen. Not just to the door, but to yourself. To what lies beneath the surface."
She pulls a tattered scroll from her cloak, ancient runes glowing faintly in the twilight. "These are the Words of Binding, spells that hold the door shut. If the seal breaks, the darkness trapped within will flood this world."
Kael's breath catches. The fire, the screams—it was never an accident. The shadow that slipped through was a fragment of that darkness, a warning.
"Why me? Why now?" he asks.
"Because the barrier weakens," Lyra says. "And the darkness is hungry."
They walk in silence back to the village, the houses now dark and empty. Kael's mind races with questions he can't voice.
In his small room, he sits by the window, tracing the fading blue glyphs on his palm — the mark that had appeared after the fire. No one could explain it. Now he understands they are the key.
As night deepens, he hears the faintest whisper again—the door's call, a desperate plea or a sinister invitation.
Kael's fingers tighten into a fist.
He is no longer the boy who only listens. He must become the boy who acts.