The ruins on the edge of Duskgrave had a way of swollen sound. Adrian could still hear the faint bells somewhere far behind him, but here, among crumbling walls and houses were eaten alive by moss, everything was quiet. Quieter, but heavier.
The woman walked in front of him without hurry. Her cloak dragged through puddles and dust, picking up dirt, but she did not care. She didn't even check if he followed. She just knew.
Adrian kept a hand pressed against his sleeve. The mark underneath pulsed like a wound that would not close. Every throb whispered at the back of his skull, faint but insistent, like voices arguing through a wall. If he focused too hard, he thought he could almost catch the words. Almost.
He didn't want to.
Finally, he broke the silence. "You gonna tell me who you are, or do I just keep following strangers into abandoned streets until something eats me?"
The woman's head tilted slightly, but she didn't slow. "Stranger? No. The moment that mark carved itself into you, we stopped being strangers."
"That's not an answer."
"It's the only one you'll get for now."
Adrian gritted his teeth. His first instinct was to turn back, storm into the city, demand an explanation from the Choir, from anyone. But then he remembered the way they had looked at him—the way the whispers had spread. Cursed. Seal-bearer. If he went back, they wouldn't give him answers. They put him in chains.
The woman ducked under a half-collapsed archway, and Adrian followed her into what had once been a home. The roof was gone, rain-stain beams jutting into the air like bones. She crossed the rotting floorboards to a dark corner, crouched, and pulled a broken plank aside.
A stairwell yawned beneath.
"You're serious," Adrian muttered.
Her ember-colored eyes caught his. "If you want to live, you'll come down."
The mark throbbed again. Elias's face flashed in his mind—smiling through the impossible fire. Adrian's throat tightened. He went down the stairs.
The air grew colder as they descended. Damp stone walls closed in, the smell of mold and something metallic—like old blood—thickening. By the time they reached the bottom, Adrian's skin was clammy.
The chamber that opened before him was nothing like he'd expected. Candles burned in every corner, jammed into bottles, skulls, even cracks in the wall. Their flames jittered nervously, throwing shadows that looked alive. Symbols had been carved deep into the stone, looping and jagged, too complex to follow. The sight of them made Adrian's stomach twist.
The woman stepped between the candles as if she was walking through a garden. "You've heard them already, haven't you?"
Adrian frowned. "Who?"
"The bells. Beneath the Cathedral. Beneath everything."
He hesitated. Then, slowly, he nodded. The memory of that endless void, the tolling that wasn't sound, pressed at the edge of his mind.
She inclined her head. "Then you've been chosen. By the Seal."
Adrian's hand flew to his wrist. "Chosen? You call this chosen?"
"Would you rather the Choir had dragged you back inside? Fed you to their Lantern like they did your brother?"
Her words cut sharp, too sharp. Adrian's breath caught. He wanted to shout, deny, rage—but the image of Elias walking up those cathedral steps strangled the words in his throat.
"You knew," Adrian whispered. "You knew what would happen to him."
The woman didn't flinch. "Everyone knows. They just choose not to look too closely. Easier to kneel, easier to pray, than to see the truth."
Adrian's fists shook. "Is he dead?"
Silence. Then, softly: "Not dead the way you mean it."
The mark flared, searing his wrist. He staggered, clutching it, teeth bared. The whispers came louder to him now, curling at the edge of thought. For a second, he understood a word—open—before it slipped away.
The woman's eyes sharpened. "Don't answer. Not yet. If you give too much, it will take everything."
Adrian fought to steady his breathing. "Then what am I supposed to do?"
"Learn," she said simply. She blew out a candle. Darkness crawled across the wall. "Nothing whispers without wanting something back. The Seal is no god, no spirit. It is a wound. And wounds never heal—they only spread."
Adrian stared at the walls, at the looping symbols, at the shadows that didn't move quite right. He remembered the way people had looked at him when the glow showed through his sleeve. The fear in their eyes.
"They'll come for me," he said, almost to himself.
"They will," the woman agreed. "The Choir calls itself the keepers of the light, but they are liars. They keep the city blind. They feed their Lantern with flesh and fear. And now that you carry the Seal, they'll hunt you."
Her gaze fixed on him like iron. "Unless you understand what you've become."
Adrian swallowed, throat dry. His brother's face wouldn't leave him—the empty eyes, the cracked lips, the smile. A smile that had no right to exist in this kind of pain.
He looked at the woman. His voice was unsteady, but it didn't waver. "Then teach me."
For the first time, she smiled. Not warmly. Not kindly. A smile more like a knife.
"Good," she said. "Then your first lesson is this: every voice that whispers wants to own you. Learn to tell which ones to obey… and which ones to silence."(Guns N' Roses - November Rain)