The bells of Duskgrave were never kind. They didn't ring like music; they struck like iron against bone. Every toll pressed through the fog, slow and merciless, until you felt it in your ribs. The city had lived with them for centuries, and yet, standing in the cathedral square that night, Adrian felt like he was hearing them for the first time he felt lost.
The crowd was trying to breath. People touch shoulder to shoulder, their breath rising white in the damp air. Torches spat smoke, making the mist thicker, turning faces into masks. The whole city had come for the Lantern.
Adrian tilted his head back. There it wwas, hanging above the altar like an executioners blade an iron lantern, its fire change in unnatural colors. Gold, green, violet. The flames moved too deliberately, like they were aware. Like they were choosing what to show you. And if you stared long enough… you swore it stared back.
The crowd dropped to their knees, foreheads pressed to the stone. Adrian stayed standing. He couldn't bring himself to kneel, not here. Not before that.
His eyes flicked to the altar steps. He remembered Elias there. His brother. Nervous, smiling too wide, trying to look brave. The Choir of Masks had called him forward, chanting in voices that weren't quite human. Elias had walked into the light. And then—nothing. No body. No farewell. Only silence.
Adrian's nails bit into his palm. Years had passed, but the image hadn't dulled. Elias had been taken, swallowed whole by that cursed lantern.
The bells cut off. The sudden quiet was worse than the noise.
The Choir of Masks advanced, veils glimmering in the Lantern's shifting glow. They began again, their chant low and grinding, like stones dragged across one another. The fire inside the Lantern thrashed and flared.
And Adrian felt it—something pulling at him. His chest locked. His skin crawled. The light bent unnaturally, slanting toward him, and in its depth he saw—
"Elias…" The name left his mouth before he realized.
A face stared at him through the flames. Hollow-eyed. Lips cracked. But still Elias. Still his brother. His mouth opened, forming words Adrian couldn't hear.
Adrian shoved through the crowd, stumbling forward. "Elias!"
The Lantern answered.
Light exploded, not like fire but like a burst in the world itself. The cathedral fell far away, replaced by an endless dark where bells hung suspended, dozens of them, tolling soundlessly. The vibration nearly tore Adrian body apart, every bone shivering, every thought drowning under the weight.
And Elias was there.
Thin, pale, fragile as mist. But smiling. That same tired smile.
Adrian reached for him
Agony tore across his wrist. He screamed, clutching it, but the skin burn anyway, glowing as if carve by invisible hands. The shape seared into him jagged, alien, a mark that pulse like molten glass.
The vision collapsed. Adrian slammed back into stone.
The cathedral was chaos. People screamed. The Choir faltered, veils fluttering. And above them the Lantern was gone—snuffed out.
Whispers broke into panic.
"Cursed…""He bears it…""The Seal…"
Adrian yanked his sleeve over his wrist, but the light bled through. No hiding it. He ran.
Through the cathedral doors. Down the narrow streets slick with rain. Past eyes that widened and shrank away. He didn't stop until the city rotted into ruins at the edge of Duskgrave, where the mist hung heavier and the bells could only be heard faintly.
There, at last, he stopped, bent over(bendover), gasping for breath. His wrist throbbed, the glow faint but insistent. The whispers were clearer than before words he couldn't quite grasp, sliding through the cracks of his mind.
He pressed his forehead to the wall. "What's happening to me?"
A voice answered. Calm. Measured. Too close.
"You've heard it."
Adrian spun.
A figure stepped out of the fog a woman in a black cloak, her face veile in cloth. But her eyes burn faintly red, like coals under ash. She walked with slow certainty, as if she'd been waiting for him.
Adrian's back hit the wall. "Who are you?"
"Someone who remembers what the rest chose to forget." Her gaze dropped to his wrist. He tried to hide it, but she didn't need to see the glow. She already knew.(omg)
"The Seal," she whispered. "The bell that does not belong. It chose you."
Adrian's stomach twist. "I don't know what you're talking about."
Her head tilted. "Then why does it burn?"
He froze. The words stuck in his throat.
She stepped closer, voice soft but sharp. "The Choir will call you heretic. The city will hunt you. But if you want to know why your brother smiled in the flames… follow me."
Elias's face flash again in his memory, mouth moving in silence but the words cant come out, eyes hollow but alive.
Adrian's pulse hammered in his ears.
And when he spoke, his voice cracked and words cant come out properly, but it carried the weight of something he couldn't turn from.
"Take me."