Kael's scream split the silence of the small hut. His mother rushed to his bedside, clutching his shoulders as he writhed. His skin radiated heat, sweat dripping down his brow. But it was the mark—the black spiral etched across his chest—that froze her breath.
She whispered a prayer to gods she barely believed in, tracing trembling fingers around the burn. But the mark pulsed like a heartbeat, alive beneath her touch.
"Kael," she whispered. "What… what is this?"
The boy gasped, clutching his chest. "They're whispering," he croaked.
His mother stiffened. "Who?"
Kael's eyes flicked to the darkened corners of the room, as though shadows themselves had voices. "I don't know their names. But they're calling me… Vessel."
Outside, the wind howled like a warning.
That night, sleep did not come. Every time Kael closed his eyes, visions tore through his mind: cities in flames, skies cracked open with fire, an ocean turning black with ash. And in the center of it all, a figure—taller than any man, cloaked in shadow, its eyes burning with an endless hunger.
When he awoke, the mark still glowed faintly, as though it had fed on the dreams.
Word spread quickly through the village. Whispers of "curse" and "omen" followed Kael wherever he went. Old women spat at the ground when he passed. Children stared with wide, fearful eyes.
But not all looked at him with fear. Some looked with hunger.
Three nights later, as Kael wandered near the cliffs, he saw them—figures cloaked in dark robes, standing too still to be villagers. They did not approach, but he could feel their gaze like daggers.
The cult had found their Vessel.
And Kael understood, with a chill in his bones, that the mark was not a gift. It was a chain.
The fire inside him was not his own.
It belonged to something waiting beneath the earth.