The village square was a burst of color and noise. Stalls lined the walkways, each bearing everything from dried spice bundles to carved trinkets and jagged relic shards. Children darted through the crowd, giggling as they chased each other between horse hooves and vendor carts. The clatter of hooves, the sharp calls of hawkers, the smell of roasted root-meat and charred lemon bark—all of it combined into a pulse that seemed to breathe with the people.
Lira stood near one of the food stalls, heart still trying to slow itself. It had only been a few days since her brothers returned from the well, but everything inside her still felt tilted—like the ground had not yet settled.
Three days. That's how long they'd been gone. During those three days, Lira hadn't just waited. On the second night, she'd followed a strange light that hovered above the house and drifted beyond the old fence. It led her into the thicket near the riverbank. There, something ancient had pulsed—faint, like a heartbeat trapped under the soil. When she touched the earth, a searing warmth raced up her arm, and a faint symbol—barely the size of a coin—etched itself onto her wrist. It faded soon after, but something about her had changed.
And now this.
The village crowd erupted into sudden motion. Gasps and curses rippled through the market. Three shadows tore through the bustle—figures cloaked in smoke, their edges fraying like burnt paper. They surged after a figure atop a massive beast, a sleek creature of stone-like hide and ember-filled veins. Its hooves shattered the cobblestones beneath it, and on its back rode a woman cloaked in deep red and black.
Veyla Ardent.
She didn't look like a rogue. She looked like war wrapped in silk.
Her beast roared—a sound that cracked the windows in the apothecary tower—and leapt over a merchant's stand. The shadow figures pursued, but as they passed beneath the central statue of the village, they halted—flickering violently, dissolving into ash that scattered into the wind like dried leaves. Whatever spell or curse animated them had no hold here.
Lira didn't know why, but her breath caught. Something in her chest stirred—a pressure, familiar and foreign. Her wrist ached faintly.
Veyla dismounted in the square's center, tossing her braid over one shoulder. Dust clung to her boots and cloak, and she looked ready to bolt if anyone made the wrong move. But the villagers stood stunned. Whispering.
Lira moved before she could think. She didn't understand why—only that something inside her said go. She approached slowly.
Veyla turned her head just slightly. Her eyes, mismatched—one storm-gray, one deep green—met Lira's.
"You're marked," Veyla said simply.
Lira blinked. "What?"
Veyla tilted her head. "Your wrist. That's a precursor mark. Ancient script. Blood-bound."
"How do you know?" Lira asked.
"I've seen it before. Twice."
There was a beat of silence before Veyla added, softer, "One of them didn't survive it."
The market quieted again, the villagers now edging around them. None dared interrupt.
Veyla scanned the crowd, then whispered, "This place isn't on any map. Not in the Nine Domains. I found it by tracing pulse anomalies in the shard network. Something here flared… too brightly to ignore."
She didn't say Marcel's name.
She didn't have to. It is a name only known to ancients and seekers of ancient knowledge.
"You felt it?" Lira asked.
Veyla nodded. "And I saw you in a vision. Standing beside someone holding back the dark. You were crying."
Lira looked down at her wrist.
"I want answers," she whispered. More like a whimper. She really wants to be of help.
"You'll get them."
And far behind them, watching from the shadows of an abandoned forge, stood a man cloaked in neutral gray. His presence was barely more than mist, but his eyes—dark and sharp—never left Marcel when he stepped out from behind a merchant stall.
Elder Thorne.
He had not come to speak. Only to observe.
And he watched with the quiet intensity of a man who had seen too many cycles repeat, waiting for the thread that might finally break the pattern.
Was he the one that sent the shadows or perhaps the one that dispelled them. Maybe I'm wrong, it might be the statue but how?
Vayla muttered facing the direction the old man was.
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A/N:
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