Kael stood in silence long after the shadow's scream had faded, his chest still throbbing with phantom chains. The world did not wait for him. The cracked moon poured its bleeding light across the wasteland, and the air smelled of iron and smoke.
He should have felt triumphant. He had survived something that wanted to kill him. But instead, he felt hollow. He could still hear the whisper curling through his thoughts, coiled around his mind like a parasite.
Mine… mine…
Kael pressed a hand against his chest where the mark glowed faintly under the skin. The chain was not ink, not scar, but something deeper—etched into his very being. He shuddered.
He had spent his whole life outside the Dusk, mocked for being Dreamless, useless, empty. Now, he was here. And part of him wished he weren't.
The ground stretched endlessly in jagged stone ridges. Ruined towers leaned like broken teeth. In the far distance, mountains curved into unnatural angles, like the horizon itself was twisted. Kael began to walk, though every step made his body ache.
The silence was oppressive, broken only by the rasp of his own breath. Then, a sound—soft, faint. Voices.
Kael froze, pulse quickening.
He crouched behind a collapsed pillar, peering into the distance. Three figures moved at the base of a leaning tower, their torches sputtering with pale-blue flame that cast no smoke. They looked human. Real. His chest swelled with sudden relief.
People. Survivors. Maybe even a way to understand what was happening.
He stepped out, raising his hand. "Wait!"
Their heads snapped toward him. The tallest—broad-shouldered, holding a spear fashioned from bone and steel—stepped forward, posture tense. His eyes narrowed.
"Stay where you are," he barked. His voice carried the sharpness of someone who had shouted commands before. "Who are you?"
Kael swallowed. "My name is Kael. I… just got here. I don't know what I'm supposed to—"
"Another stray," muttered the girl beside him, a thin figure with braided hair and sharp eyes. Her laugh was cruel, hollow. "He won't last the night."
The third, older, with streaks of white in his hair despite his young face, studied Kael more carefully. "Show us your mark," he said flatly.
Kael blinked. "Mark?"
"Don't play dumb." The spear-carrier stepped closer, torchlight flickering across his scarred face. "If you're standing here alive, it means you survived your first beast. That gives you a mark. A power. Without it, you're meat. Show us."
Kael's hand hovered at his chest, where the faint glow of the chain still pulsed under his shirt. His stomach twisted. If they saw it, what then? Would they know what it meant? Would they fear him—or worse, try to take it?
He forced a laugh that came out brittle. "I don't… have one."
For a moment, silence. Then the girl laughed again, sharp and mean. "Dreamless."
The word hit him like a stone. He clenched his fists.
The older man shook his head, weary. "Then you won't last. Best walk away now."
And just like that, they turned their backs. The girl sneered one last time before disappearing into the leaning tower's entrance. The others followed, blue torches vanishing into the dark.
Kael stood frozen.
Hope had flared so quickly, only to gutter out just as fast. He wanted to run after them, to shout, to beg not to be left behind. But the whisper in his chest stirred, slick and cold.
You don't need them. You have me.
Kael shuddered.
He looked at the ruined tower where the others had gone. A warm light glowed faintly within, flickering like a distant hearth. He ached to go there. To not be alone.
But his feet stayed planted in the cold stone.
If he followed, they'd discover his lie. If they discovered his chain, what then?
The crimson sky offered no answer. Only silence.
Kael walked.
The land unfolded in strange, broken ways. Pillars leaned at impossible angles. Fragments of statues half-buried in the stone glared at him with eyeless faces. The air felt heavier with every step, as though the Dusk itself weighed him down.
A sound broke the silence—soft, wet, scraping.
Kael froze, breath caught. The whisper in his chest stirred eagerly.
From between shattered columns slithered another creature. Smaller than the one before, but no less monstrous. Its body was stretched thin, skin pulled tight over bones. Its head was eyeless, its mouth too wide. It sniffed the air with a wet, sucking sound.
Kael's heartbeat thundered.
The beast turned toward him, nostrils flaring. Then it lunged.
He dove aside. Claws raked the stone where he had stood. He scrambled, hand scraping against jagged rock, pain lancing up his arm.
The chain answered before he could think. Shadows erupted from the ground, jagged and coiling, wrapping around the beast's limbs. It shrieked, thrashing.
Kael gritted his teeth, feeling the pull, the link between them. His chest burned. The chain wanted him to act.
"Fine," he hissed. "Take it."
He pulled.
The beast dissolved into smoke, stabbing into him like shards of glass. He collapsed to his knees, gasping. The pain was sharp, but beneath it—something else. Strength. His vision clearer, muscles lighter.
And hunger.
Not his hunger. The shadow's. It writhed inside him, whispering louder now.
More… more…
Kael pressed his forehead against the cold stone, fighting for breath.
What was he becoming?
When he lifted his head again, the land stretched silent before him. His body ached, his chest still burned, and the voices clawed at his mind. But for the first time, Kael felt a sliver of something new.
Not hope. Not fear.
Power.
He stood, legs trembling, and continued walking into the endless red night.