The ring wouldn't come off.
Lira had tried everything—soap, oil, even a screwdriver at one desperate point—but the silver band refused to budge. It pulsed faintly beneath her skin, as if synced to her heartbeat.
For the first two days, she told herself it was stress. A hallucination. Maybe the result of too much caffeine and too little sleep. But the voice hadn't stopped.
"You're not losing your mind," it whispered whenever she tried to ignore it.
"You're hearing what's real."
It spoke in a tone that wasn't quite male or female—soft, echoing, patient.
And stranger still, it didn't frighten her anymore.
The voice had saved her from sleepwalking into traffic once. It had whispered directions that led her to find a lost child in an alley. And when she pressed it for answers, it would only say:
"You are the bearer. You must learn before the others wake."
By the third night, the city felt different. Lights bent strangely in her vision, as if the air shimmered where no heat should be. She could feel things—the hum of old engines, the breath of the streetlamps, the faint ripple of unseen energy that threaded between everything.
When she asked the voice what it was, it answered simply:
"Mana. The breath of what once was hidden. You feel it because I remember it."
That night, the storm came.
Rain lashed the windows of her tiny apartment. The power flickered out, leaving only the silver light of the ring. It pulsed brighter, drawing thin streams of mist from the air—soft, shimmering trails that gathered around her hand.
"What's happening?" she whispered.
"A memory. Yours, or mine—it no longer matters."
The light coalesced, forming a small orb of luminescent essence above her palm.
It floated, weightless, spinning slowly. Her heart raced, but instinct guided her. She reached out—and the moment her fingers touched the orb, her vision exploded.
She saw flashes:
A man screaming as his body dissolved into light.
A book fluttering its pages in a burning room.
A totem carved from bone weeping tears of blood.
A crystal reflecting a face torn in two.
And then, her own reflection—eyes silver, veins glowing with runes.
She gasped, snapping back into her room. The orb was gone, but the mark of its power lingered; faint sigils now glowed beneath the skin of her hand, like constellations.
"You've taken your first essence," said the voice, calm and reverent.
"Now you will be seen."
"Seen? By who?"
But before it could answer, she heard it—footsteps in the hallway outside her apartment. Slow, deliberate. Too heavy to belong to a neighbor.
A chill crawled down her spine.
"Do not fear," whispered the ring. "The lost are drawn to what remembers. They smell rebirth."
Something scraped against the door.
Lira stood, backing away, pulse hammering.
A shadow shifted beneath the crack. Then came a sound—a deep, wet inhale, as though something sniffed the air.
She reached instinctively for the nearest thing—a metal lamp. Her hand burned with light as she gripped it, and when she swung, silver fire burst from her arm, wrapping the lamp like a blade of liquid light.
The voice whispered in her mind, calm amid the chaos:
"Now you understand. Magic answers need."
The door splintered inward.
Lira turned. A shape stepped through—human in outline, but its eyes burned the same color as her ring.
The creature smiled with too many teeth.
"Found you," it rasped.
The ring's voice darkened.
"A puppet of the Codex. Run, bearer. The others wake."