Three figures. No, four.
Ember counted through the grey light. Still four.
Hunters. All armed. One had a crossbow. Two carried blades. The fourth stood back, smiling.
That one was the problem.
"Found you. The marked one from the Spires. The trader sends his regards."
Wick already had an arrow nocked. Hadn't drawn yet. Just ready.
Kaelen moved left without being told. Creating distance.
Ember's mind went into the old pattern. Late nights. Creditors at the door.
*Okay. What can I do here. Talk. Run. Fight. Use the mark. Which one keeps us breathing.*
"Trader wants you back," the smiling one said. "Alive. Mostly."
"Mostly."
"You're worth more intact.
But if you resist—"
He didn't finish.
Wick's arrow took him through the throat.
The hunter dropped. Gurgling. Clawing at the shaft.
The other three froze for half a second.
Ember didn't.
He unwrapped his wrist. Let the violet light bleed out.
The crossbow hunter fired. Wild. Panicked.
The bolt went wide.
Ember reached for the nearest blade hunter. The mark opened. Not a crack. A flood.
The connection latched on. The hunter's skin went grey instantly. He screamed. Tried to pull away.
Ember held on.
The mark drank deep.
*Stop. That's enough. Pull back. Too much. STOP.*
But he couldn't stop. The mark wouldn't let him.
The hunter collapsed. Empty. Still breathing but barely.
The crossbow hunter ran.
The last blade hunter stood there. Staring. Knife shaking in his hand.
"Go," Ember said.
His voice didn't sound right. Like something else was using his throat.
The hunter dropped his knife. Ran.
Ember looked at his wrist.
Fifteen veins. No. Sixteen. They were spreading while he watched.
There were fourteen this morning. I'm sure of it. I counted twice.
The mark pulsed. Satisfied.
"We need to move," Wick said. Wrapping the arrow he'd fired in cloth. Cleaning the blood off. "They'll bring more."
"You killed him."
"He was going to sell us. I made it clean."
Kaelen nodded. She'd already checked the bodies. Taken what was useful. A knife. Some wrapped food. Salt.
They started walking. Fast.
The Hollows were still hours away.
Behind them, something made a sound.
Not the Reaper's footsteps.
Something else.
Something wet.
---
An hour later, they heard it again.
Closer this time.
Not footsteps. A dragging sound. Like something heavy being pulled through sand.
Wick stopped. Looked back.
"That's not a scavenger."
"How do you know?"
"Scavengers don't hunt in the day. And they don't make that sound."
The dragging grew louder.
Then they saw it.
A shape in the grey distance. Tall. Too tall. Moving on four limbs but wrong. Like the limbs didn't bend the way they should.
Its skin wasn't translucent like a scavenger's.
It was black. Oily. Like something had been burned and kept moving anyway.
"Hollow," Wick said. Voice flat.
"What's a Hollow?"
"Something you don't want to meet."
The thing stopped. Lifted its head. No eyes. No face. Just a smooth black surface where a head should be.
It tilted toward them.
Then it screamed.
Not a human scream. Not an animal scream. Something between. High and wet and wrong.
And it charged.
"Run," Wick said.
They ran.
The Hollow was fast. Faster than any scavenger Ember had seen. Its four limbs ate ground in long, loping strides.
The dragging sound was its body. Its torso scraped the sand as it moved.
"Split up," Kaelen yelled.
They scattered.
The Hollow went for Ember.
Of course it did. Of course.
He looked back. The thing was twenty feet behind. Fifteen. Ten.
*Can't outrun it. Can't fight it. Need to—*
His foot caught. He went down hard. Face-first into the sand.
The Hollow lunged.
Ember rolled. Barely. The thing's limb smashed into the sand where his head had been.
He scrambled back. The mark pulsing. Screaming.
*Fight. Feed. NOW.*
The Hollow reared up. All four limbs in the air. Ready to come down on him.
Ember reached for it with the mark.
Nothing happened.
The connection wouldn't open. The mark pulsed but wouldn't extend. Like something was blocking it.
*Oh shit. Oh shit.*
The Hollow came down.
And something else came up.
Between Ember and the Hollow. Between the limbs and his chest.
Not a blade.
Shadow. Solid shadow. Black and wrong and sharp.
It punched through the Hollow's torso. Straight through. Out the other side.
The Hollow screamed. Thrashed. Tried to pull back.
The shadow held it there.
Ember stared.
*What. What is. Where did that—*
The shadow was attached to his right hand. Not held. Attached. Like it was growing out of his palm.
The Hollow's thrashing slowed. Stopped. Its body went slack.
The shadow retracted into his hand. Gone.
The Hollow collapsed. Dead.
Ember looked at his hand. Nothing. No mark. No blade. Just his hand.
*What the hell was that. What. Did I. Did the mark. What.*
"Get up."
Wick. Standing over him. Bow drawn. Pointed past Ember's shoulder.
Two more Hollows. Coming fast through the grey.
Ember stood.
Wick grabbed his wrist. Turned it over. Looked at the hand. Turned it palm up. Palm down.
Said nothing.
Let go.
"We need to move. Now."
They ran.
---
They didn't stop until the Hollows' screams faded behind them.
Found a cluster of black rocks. Collapsed behind them.
Kaelen was breathing hard. Wick's shoulder was bleeding again. The arrow wound from earlier had opened.
Ember sat with his back against stone. Staring at his right hand.
"What was that," he said.
Wick looked at him.
"I don't know what I did," Ember said. "There was something. Shadow. A shape. It just came out of my hand and I didn't—I don't know how."
Wick was quiet.
"That wasn't the mark," he said.
He didn't say anything else.
Kaelen was watching them both. She took one step back without seeming to know she'd done it. Eyes on Ember's hand. Then on his face.
Then she looked away.
"The Hollows," she said after a moment. "They don't hunt randomly. They're sent."
"Sent by what," Ember asked.
She looked at the grey horizon. At the distant dunes.
"By whatever wants to see if you're worth keeping."
**THOOM.**
Closer than before. Much closer.
The Reaper.
And this time, the sound didn't fade.
It stayed. Steady. Like something that had finished watching and started moving.
Ember looked at his wrist. At the eighteen veins spreading toward his elbow.
At his right hand. Where the shadow had been.
At Wick's face, which told him nothing. Which was its own kind of answer.
"We need to reach the settlement," Wick said. "Before dark. Because when dark comes, the real things wake up."
"Real things?"
Wick didn't answer.
Just started walking.
Behind them, in the grey distance, something screamed.
Not one Hollow.
Ten. Maybe more.
All of them screaming at once.
All of them moving toward the same place.
Toward Ember.
And somewhere in the deep dunes, the Reaper's footsteps matched pace.
**THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.**
Not following.
Escorting.
Ember looked at his hand one more time.
Wick had recognized it. He was certain of that now.
Recognized it and said two words and closed his mouth like a door.
*That wasn't the mark.*
Which meant Ember had arrived in the Brine carrying something he still didn't have a name for.
And Wick did.