The bleeding did not stop.Sera pressed her palm harder against the cloth, but the mark throbbed like a living wound, each pulse spreading heat up her arm. Elara hovered at her bedside, pale with fear."We have to go to the infirmary now," Elara urged.
Sera shook her head violently. "No."
"They can help you…" Sara cut her off..
"They'll see the mark." Her voice was a rasp. "And then what? You said it yourself, people who are touched by this place disappear. Do you want me next?"
Elara faltered, torn between reason and dread. At last, she sank back onto her bed, face taut. "Then what do we do?"
Sera forced herself to breathe. "We keep quiet. No one can know."
But the academy already knew. She felt it in the way the air pressed against her lungs, the way the walls seemed to listen. Every shadow held a mouth, every corridor a whisper.
Blackthorn had noticed her.
Morning came gray and wet. The rain had not lifted in a week. The courtyard was a swamp, boots sinking with each step. Sera kept her bandaged hand tucked in her sleeve and avoided meeting anyone's eyes.
Still, she felt them watching.
At breakfast, murmurs followed her like smoke. Some students stared openly at her pale face, her trembling hand. Others smirked, whispering behind cupped palms.
"Cursed."
"Touched."
"She won't last the term."
Elara bristled beside her, snapping at anyone who looked too long. But Sera barely noticed. Her mind was elsewhere—on the dream, the shattered mirrors, the warning: You're next.
She couldn't shake the feeling that every mouth in the dining hall moved with the same whisper, layered and overlapping, until the scrape of spoons against bowls was drowned beneath it.
Find us. Free us. You're next.
She shoved her bowl away and stood abruptly. "I need air."
Elara made to follow, but Sera stopped her with a look. "Alone."
She wandered the east wing, a place few students bothered with. It smelled of damp stone and mildew, windows fogged and narrow. The torches here flickered lower, casting crooked shadows across the cracked plaster.
The whispers were louder.
At first, she thought it was her imagination. But as she pressed deeper into the wing, she realized the voices were coming from the walls themselves. The mortar hissed with breath, the stones murmured in forgotten tongues.
Her skin crawled.
She pressed her palm against the wall, against the throbbing mark. The stone shivered beneath her touch.
And thee…
A door groaned open at the end of the hall.
Sera froze.
The door was old, iron-banded, half-rotted. She was sure it had not been there moments ago. Beyond it stretched darkness, thick and absolute.
The mark seared her skin, dragging her forward.
Inside, the air was colder. Damp clung to her lungs. She lit a stub of candle and lifted it high.
The flame revealed rows of carvings gouged into the stone walls—symbols, spirals, eyes without pupils. Her chest tightened.They matched the crest on the library's lock.
She traced one with her fingertip. The mark on her hand flared in answer. The symbol writhed, shifting beneath her touch until it formed words she could understand.
The Hollow keeps what it takes.
Her breath caught. "What does that mean?"
The candle sputtered. Behind her, the door slammed shut.
The hall fell into darkness, whispers rose into a roar, dozens of voices screaming through the stone. Her candle guttered, shadows thrashing wildly across the walls.
And then the shadows began to move on their own.
They peeled from the stone, gathering form—limbs stretching, heads tilting, eyes glowing faintly in the dark. Not people. Not spirits. Hollow things.
They circled her, murmuring in unison.
Marked! Marked! Marked!.
Her pulse thundered in her ears. She stumbled back, searching for escape, but the hall twisted endlessly, no door, no end.
One of the shadow-forms lurched closer. Its face was smooth, featureless, yet she recognized it. The tilt of its head, the shape of its shoulders.
It was her.
Her own silhouette stood before her, empty and grinning without a mouth.
Sera's scream ripped her throat raw.
She woke sprawled on the east wing floor, the stub of candle burned to wax on her sleeve. Her hand throbbed beneath the bandage, blood sticky and fresh.
The hallway was empty. The carvings were gone. The iron door no longer existed.
Has it been a dream? or perhaps another vision?
She staggered upright, dizzy and weak, and stumbled back toward the main wing.
But as she walked, she noticed something different. Students who passed her stopped mid-laugh, mid-whisper. They turned their heads in unison, eyes fixed on her.
And then, one by one, they bowed their heads.
Not in respect. Not in kindness but in fear.
The mark had changed her. They could see it now. Elara nearly dropped her books when Sera returned. "What happened to you? You look…." She cut herself off, swallowing hard.
"Say it," Sera demanded.
Elara's lips trembled. "You look like you belong here."
The words stung more than any wound.
Sera collapsed onto her bed, clutching her hand. For the first time, she admitted the truth she had been avoiding.
Blackthorn wasn't trying to destroy her.
It was trying to claim her.