Arc II: Veins of Mourndusk
The silence that followed Riven's retreat wasn't peace. It was pressure.
Even after the low hum of tension drained from the hall, the air in the barracks felt brittle, like dried ash ready to crumble under the weight of a single breath.
Vrakon sat near his cot, elbows on knees, hands laced together. Shadows from a single pulse-lantern flickered against the cracked stone walls, dancing over Yarri's strange murals — now spanning nearly the entire back wall of the barracks room.
Saelin stood quietly beside the doorway, her arms crossed, brow furrowed. "You shouldn't have gone that far," she said, her tone neither soft nor harsh. "They're Kin. Not enemies."
Thren, hunched by a low shelf as he rewrapped his forearm with worn linen, glanced up. "Riven's been looking to provoke someone for moons. He got what he wanted."
"Except Vrakon didn't fall for it," Saelin said.
"I didn't fight him," Vrakon replied, voice low. "Just stopped him."
Thren snorted, tossing the used wrap into the embers of a heatpot. "You broke his stance with a glance. Half of 'em saw it. You'll be marked now, whether you like it or not."
Vrakon didn't answer. He turned his eyes to the murals behind them — Yarri's art, drawn in silent moments when no one was looking. What had been scattered shapes and childlike glyphs had grown in precision. The lines were bolder now. Deeper. The colors, darker. Some pulsed faintly when the lanternlight passed.
He stood and moved closer, Saelin trailing behind.
One portion of the mural caught his eye — a spiral-shaped tunnel descending into a yawning void. Around it were small, human-like shapes falling inward, limbs stretched and blurred. Above, something monstrous loomed, eyeless and vast. It was drawn in layered black streaks, smeared with green and violet pigments. The lines looked more like claw marks than brushwork.
"She's seeing something," Saelin murmured.
"She's seen something," Thren corrected. "Below."
Just then, the girl herself emerged from the edge of the room. Yarri — barely more than seven winters, barefoot, face speckled with ink and dirt — looked up at them. She didn't speak, just pressed a small finger to one of the figures near the spiral. A tiny figure. One drawn with dark hair and a fractured soul-mark etched into the chest.
Vrakon stiffened.
Saelin frowned. "That's you."
Yarri nodded once, solemn and wordless.
---
The next morning came in layers — grumbling barracks, a sour breakfast of rootmash and bitterleaf broth, and whispers. Always the whispers.
"Did you hear? Riven's squad got reassigned—punishment patrol."
"Vrakon's Core-Born. No wonder he moved like that."
"Why's he even here? Doesn't talk. Doesn't share."
"The silent ones break loudest."
Vrakon ignored them.
He trained alone that morning in the cracked courtyard, focusing on his Pulse resonance. Now that he was Core-Born (Level 3), the Genesis Pulse didn't just move through him — it had a rhythm, a gravitational center buried deep in his soul. A core.
The Spiral Instinct — his soul-born reflex — flickered in moments of threat, but he now tried to summon it consciously, to understand its flow.
A shape stepped into the edge of the courtyard. Asha Voarn.
"Your control's raw," she said, arms folded behind her back. "Too wild. Like fire without wood."
Vrakon lowered his stance. "I wasn't taught."
"No one is, not truly," she said. "But you should understand the danger of resonance without discipline. Especially in this place."
He nodded once.
Asha's eyes lingered on him. "You're not just Core-Born. There's something… off. Like a rhythm beneath your rhythm."
Before he could respond, a horn blew — two short blasts, followed by one long. The Kin around the courtyard froze. Asha's face darkened.
"Report to Council Ring," someone barked from the upper walkway.
---
The Council Ring of Mourndusk was a sloped stone chamber built into the bones of the mountain. Ten chairs stood in a crescent, only five occupied. The rest — so the story went — remained untouched since the last Kin council fell to internal war two decades ago.
Asha stood among the current councilors. Vrakon, Thren, Saelin, and a dozen others from their cohort were called to the center circle.
The presider — a gray-haired man with a melted ear and a hooked staff — raised his hand. "Last night, something stirred beneath the Hollowed Tunnels."
Gasps murmured.
A map was unfurled across the central table — a circular web of tunnels below Mourndusk, with red marks flaring across several key locations.
"The Dream-Mirrors cracked," the presider said.
Even Thren's face paled.
Dream-Mirrors were soul-glass devices, ancient and half-understood, embedded at key nexus points to monitor Pulse activity. Their shattering meant one thing.
Pulse disturbance. Massive.
"The Gravewalker has ordered a scouting unit," Asha added, voice firm. "Non-council Fracta-Wielders. Volunteers only."
Thren stepped forward without hesitation. "I'll go."
Saelin hesitated, then nodded. "Same."
All eyes turned to Vrakon.
"I'll go," he said.
---
That evening, before preparations began, Vrakon sat alone beside the deep aquifer spring outside Mourndusk. Its waters were black and still, a far cry from the corrupted lake that had nearly devoured him.
He cupped the cold water in his hands, washing the grime from his arms, his neck, his soul-mark. As he cleaned himself, a figure approached.
"Still haven't learned how to look harmless," Riven Dast said.
Vrakon didn't flinch. "Still trying to look dangerous?"
The other boy smirked, lowering himself beside the spring. "You're not as silent as they say."
"I speak when I need to."
Riven tilted his head. "You're not what I expected. Thought you were some wild Pulse orphan. But you move like someone who's been in the spiral before."
Vrakon stared into the water. "Maybe I have."
Silence stretched.
Then, quietly, Riven added, "Don't trust everyone down there. The Hollowed Tunnels aren't just stone and Pulse. There are old things. Buried things. Some of the Kin want to wake them."
"What kind of things?"
Riven met his eyes, and for the first time, his cocky tone faded.
"Things that scream without a mouth."
---
That night, Yarri's mural changed again.
The spiral tunnel now had teeth.
And in the center, a black bloom opened like a flower.
Inside it, the figure of Vrakon — and around him, shadows of others — Saelin, Thren, Riven… all drawn with red lines through their chests.
Not wounds. Not blood.
Bindings.