Kael woke screaming.
Not from pain—but from heat.
The symbols on his arm burned like molten iron, glowing through torn leather. The night around them twisted, shadows stretching unnaturally as if drawn toward him.
Lyra was already awake, gun raised, eyes scanning the darkness. "You're on fire," she said.
Kael clenched his jaw, forcing himself upright. The markings pulsed, alive now, crawling across his skin like living ink.
"I didn't choose this," he growled.
The ground answered.
A low tremor rippled beneath them, stirring ash into spirals. From the smoke erged figures—zombies, dozens of them—but they did not rush.
They knelt.
Lyra froze. "They're… bowing."
Kael stared in disbelief as the dead lowered their heads, bodies shaking as if resisting an unseen command. The mark flared brighter.
A voice filled the air—not loud, but absolute.
"Bearer of the First Scar."
Kael dropped to one knee, breath ripped from his lungs. Visions slamd into his mind—ancient cities burning, warriors standing against the dead, runes carved into flesh under black suns.
Lyra grabbed him. "Kael, look at !"
He gasped, focusing on her face. The voice receded, but its presence lingered, coiled and patient.
"What was that?" she demanded.
Kael shook his head. "A mory. Not mine."
The zombies began to rise again—but now they turned away, shuffling back into the smoke as if dismissed.
Lyra stared after them. "You just commanded the dead."
"No," Kael said softly. "Sothing commanded them through ."
A new sound echoed—wet, heavy, wrong.
From the ruins crawled a creature stitched together from corpses, its body fused with armor fragnts and glowing runes. Its mouth split open, revealing too many teeth.
"The Herald," Kael whispered, the knowledge surfacing without permission.
The Herald lunged.
Lyra fired, unloading her magazine into its chest. The bullets slowed it—but didn't stop it.
Kael stepped forward, the mark blazing.
The Herald recoiled, shrieking as the runes on its body cracked. Kael raised one sword, and the markings leapt from his arm onto the blade, igniting it with molten light.
He struck.
The sword cleaved through the Herald, not flesh but essence. The creature collapsed, dissolving into ash that hissed as it touched the ground.
Silence followed.
Kael staggered, the glow fading. Lyra caught him before he fell.
"That thing knew you," she said.
Kael nodded grimly. "And I know it."
He looked at his arm—the mark now dormant, but waiting.
"They're not trying to kill ," he said. "They're trying to wake ."
Lyra tightened her grip on him. "Then we don't let them."
Kael t her gaze, fierce and unbroken.
"No," he said. "We make them regret it."
Far away, deep beneath the world, sothing ancient roared—not in anger, but in triumph.
The First Scar had awakened.
And the war had finally begun.
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