I woke to pain.
Not the sharp, blinding kind—but something deeper, heavier. A pressure beneath my skin, as if my body remembered an injury my mind had not yet accepted.
The ground beneath me was cold stone.
I sucked in a breath and immediately regretted it. The air burned my lungs—too thin, too sharp, laced with something metallic. My fingers twitched, scraping against rough rock.
Stone. Everywhere.
I forced my eyes open.
The sky above was wrong.
It wasn't dark, yet it wasn't day either—an endless expanse of bruised violet clouds slowly rotating, as if the heavens themselves were alive. Faint veins of pale light pulsed through them, illuminating jagged spires of black stone rising from the ground like broken teeth.
This wasn't the alley.
This wasn't anywhere I knew.
I sat up too quickly, dizziness slamming into me. My stomach churned, and for a horrifying moment I thought I might be sick—but nothing came up. Just that same metallic taste coating my tongue.
"Easy."
The voice was close.
Too close.
I spun around, scrambling backward until my shoulders hit stone. He stood a few steps away, perfectly still, watching me as one might observe an unfamiliar creature.
Not human.
Up close, the wrongness was impossible to ignore.
His eyes were pale—not white, but something like moonlight reflected on ice. His pupils were thin, vertical slits that narrowed slightly as they met mine. His presence pressed against my senses, heavy and suffocating, as though the air itself bent around him.
"You brought me here," I said hoarsely.
It wasn't a question.
"Yes."
No hesitation. No apology.
Anger flared—sharp, desperate. "You had no right."
He tilted his head, studying me. "You were already claimed."
My blood ran cold. "By who?"
A pause.
Then he took a step closer.
The ground beneath my palms vibrated faintly, responding to his movement. I pushed myself to my feet, ignoring the tremor in my legs.
"Answer me."
His gaze dropped—to my chest.
Pain exploded.
I gasped, clutching my sternum as heat flared beneath my skin. It felt as if something was burning its way outward, carving itself into my flesh.
"No—what are you doing?" I cried.
"I am not doing this," he said calmly. "It is awakening."
The pain intensified, sharp and searing. I screamed, the sound echoing unnaturally across the stone plain. My knees buckled, and I barely caught myself before collapsing.
Then, just as suddenly, it stopped.
I lay there, panting, sweat slicking my skin. Slowly—fearfully—I pulled my trembling hand away from my chest.
A mark glowed faintly beneath my skin.
Not a wound. Not a scar.
A symbol.
Intricate lines curved and twisted together, forming something ancient and deliberate. It pulsed once—twice—before fading to a dull ember.
"What… is that?" My voice barely worked.
His expression had changed.
For the first time since I met him, something like unease crossed his perfect features.
"A covenant mark," he said quietly.
The word sent a chill through me. "I didn't agree to anything."
"No," he replied. "You didn't."
He knelt in front of me, close enough now that I could feel the cold radiating from his skin. Slowly, carefully, he reached out—then stopped, his hand hovering inches from my chest.
"I would not have chosen this for you."
My laugh came out shaky, half-hysterical. "That's supposed to make me feel better?"
His eyes met mine. "It means someone else did."
The clouds above us shifted, their pulsing light intensifying. The ground rumbled faintly, like a distant heartbeat.
"What does it do?" I asked.
His fingers curled into a fist. "It binds you to this realm. To its laws. And to the one who marked you."
My heart pounded. "So I'm trapped."
"Yes."
The word settled between us, heavy and final.
I swallowed. "Then why bring me here at all?"
He was silent for a long moment.
Then, "Because if you had stayed in your world, the mark would have killed you."
That stole the breath from my lungs.
"Killed me?"
"It would have finished forming," he said. "Without a stabilizing presence, your body would not have survived the transition."
"Transition to what?"
His gaze darkened. "To what you are becoming."
The wind howled suddenly, sharp and biting. Far in the distance, something roared—a sound too deep, too vast to belong to any living thing I knew.
Fear clawed its way up my spine. "You said I shouldn't have survived this long."
A faint, humorless curve touched his lips. "And yet you did."
He rose to his feet and extended a hand toward me.
"Come," he said. "If they sense the mark has awakened, they will come."
My pulse thundered in my ears. "Who is 'they'?"
His eyes flicked toward the horizon, where shadows stirred among the stone spires.
"Others like me," he said softly. "And far worse."
I stared at his outstretched hand.
Trusting him felt insane.
But staying here alone felt like suicide.
I took his hand.
The moment our skin touched, the mark on my chest flared again—hot, alive. His fingers tightened reflexively, and for the briefest instant, something ancient and dangerous flashed in his eyes.
"Interesting," he murmured.
"What?" I demanded.
His grip steadied. "It recognizes me."
"That's bad, isn't it?"
A slow, unreadable smile curved his lips.
"Yes," he said. "Very."
And then the world shifted around us, folding inward like a closing wound.