The black glyphs seared across Kaelen's arm, shifting and writhing like living serpents of ink. They pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, each throb radiating an unnatural heat.
Gasps rippled through the square. Some villagers dropped to their knees, praying to nameless gods. Others turned their faces away, as though refusing to acknowledge what they had seen could erase it from the world. Children whimpered, pulled behind cloaks and skirts by trembling mothers.
Kaelen's own breath hitched in his chest. He wanted to claw the marks off his skin, to scrape them away until he was nothing but blank again. Anything was better than this.
The scribe fell to his knees, quill forgotten. His eyes bulged as he stared at the words slithering across Kaelen's flesh. "The Whispered Script," he muttered, each syllable dripping with terror. "Lost when the Archivists fell… forbidden even to speak of… boy, what have you—what are you?"
The Guild's leader stepped closer. His golden mask caught the last trembling lantern-light, reflecting it in harsh, unyielding lines. "He is no ordinary child. He is a vessel of the forgotten tongue. The Guild will claim him."
"No!" Kaelen's mother threw herself in front of him, arms spread wide. Her shawl slipped from her shoulders, and her hair tumbled loose, but she stood as firm as stone. "You will not take him. He is my son!"
The golden mask turned toward her with cold indifference. "Your son bears a script older than kings. Older than crowns. You cannot protect him from what he is."
Two Guildlings stepped forward, their cloaks whispering against the cobblestones. They reached for Kaelen. He staggered back, but their gloved hands were iron and inevitability.
His mother clung to him, nails biting into his sleeve. "Run, Kael. Please—run!"
But where? The square was ringed with villagers too afraid to move, too terrified to intervene. Beyond them loomed the Guildhouse, its spires cutting into the fog like spears. There was no escape.
The Guildlings pried him free, their grip cold as shackles. His mother's cry tore through the night. "You monsters! He is just a boy!"
The golden mask tilted, studying her as though she were no more than a line in a ledger. "And so he will remain," the leader said calmly, "if the Guild can shape him. Would you prefer he be hunted by those who do not understand the script he carries? The Guild is his only chance."
Kaelen twisted in their grip, voice breaking. "I don't understand it either! I never asked for this!"
The glyphs across his arm pulsed brighter, as though mocking his words. For a moment, they lifted from his skin, symbols glowing in the air like fireflies. One villager screamed. Another fainted.
The golden mask lifted slightly, as if in silent satisfaction. "Even untrained, his script responds. Yes. He belongs to us."
The Guildlings hauled him toward the waiting carriage. It was a monstrous thing of black wood, its sides etched with glyphs that shimmered faintly in the dark. The air around it vibrated with restrained power.
Kaelen's mother ran after them, but a Guildling stepped into her path and raised a hand. A glowing sigil appeared in the air, and suddenly her feet froze to the ground as though the cobblestones themselves had risen to hold her. She struggled, screaming, but could not move.
"Mother!" Kaelen cried, fighting against the hands that bound him.
The golden mask did not turn as he ordered, "Take him inside."
The carriage door yawned open, darkness spilling from within. Kaelen kicked and thrashed, but the Guildlings were unyielding. His shoulder struck the doorframe as they shoved him inside. He stumbled onto a bench of hard wood, chains already waiting. They clasped around his wrists with a hiss of metal that seemed to drink the warmth from his skin.
The glyphs on his arm dimmed, settling into faint lines like scars.
Kaelen's chest heaved. He stared at the marks, at the black fire that now looked like nothing more than dead ink. He wanted to scream, to cry, to demand answers. But the words stuck in his throat.
The golden mask entered last, seating himself across from Kaelen. The door slammed shut, cutting off the sound of his mother's cries. The only light inside came from a single lantern that burned with no flame, its glow steady and unnatural.
For a moment, silence pressed down like a physical weight. Then the leader spoke.
"Do you know why the world fears the Blank?"
Kaelen shook his head, throat dry.
"Because emptiness is not harmless. Emptiness is potential. A page unwritten may contain anything. And in you, boy, the Blank has become the Whispered Script — a language forbidden even to gods."
Kaelen's hands shook against the chains. "I don't want it. Take it back!"
The golden mask tilted, and though Kaelen could not see the man's face, he felt the curve of a smile behind the mask. "You cannot erase what was never written. You can only learn to wield it."
The carriage jolted forward, wheels crunching over stone. Outside, the village faded into the fog, and Kaelen's world with it.
He leaned back, staring at the ceiling, at the faint reflection of glyphs in the lantern-glow. His thoughts swirled, chaotic and dark.
Why me?
He remembered the other children, their glowing scrolls marking them with simple, certain futures. He remembered how he had prayed for anything, any script, so long as it gave him a place in the world. Now he had something older than crowns and deadlier than swords. And it was going to consume him.
The golden mask leaned forward, voice dropping to a whisper. "Listen well, Kaelen Veyr. You have two choices. Submit to the Guild and learn the language you carry, or resist and be destroyed by it. There is no third path."
Kaelen closed his eyes. He thought of his mother's face, the desperation in her cry. He thought of the villagers' fear. He thought of the glyphs searing into his flesh, demanding to be written.
His voice trembled when he spoke. "What if I refuse?"
The golden mask sat back, silent for a long moment. Then, softly, "Then the script will write for you. And I assure you, it will not be kind."
The carriage rattled on into the night, and Kaelen felt the chains bite deeper into his wrists. The glyphs on his arm pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat not his own.
For the first time in his life, he wondered if his fate had already been written — not in silver, but in shadows.