Dawn never ca.
The sky remained a bruised gold, frozen between night and morning. Ash drifted like snow, settling on Kael's armor and Lyra's hair as they moved through the ruins in silence.
Kael felt the mark even when it slept.
A weight. A presence. Like sothing breathing just beneath his skin.
Lyra finally spoke. "You didn't tell everything."
He didn't deny it. "I didn't know how."
They reached an underground transit tunnel, its entrance half-collapsed, glowing faintly from lava veins below. The air slled of rust and decay—and sothing older.
Kael stopped.
The mark burned.
"Soone's here," he said.
The shadows thickened, folding inward. From them erged a figure wrapped in tattered robes, flesh pale and stitched with runes like scars. Its eyes were empty—but aware.
Not a zombie.
Not a Herald.
Sothing else.
"The Witness," the figure rasped. "The last one still breathing."
Lyra raised her gun. "Talk fast."
The Witness smiled, splitting cracked lips. "The First Scar is not a gift. It is a lock."
Kael felt his chest tighten. "A lock for what?"
The tunnel shook. Far beneath them, sothing massive shifted, restless.
"For the Devourer," The Witness whispered. "The one who sleeps beneath the dead."
Lyra's grip tightened on her weapon. "Then we destroy the lock."
The Witness laughed—a dry, broken sound. "You can't. The lock is the door. And you are the key."
Kael staggered as visions struck—countless bearers before him, each marked, each awakening too late. Cities falling. Worlds eaten.
"They all died," Kael muttered.
"Yes," said The Witness. "So that you could stand here."
A scream echoed down the tunnel.
Zombies poured from side passages, drawn by the mark's pulse. Kael's arm ignited, runes flaring bright.
"No!" Lyra shouted. "Don't let it control you!"
Kael forced the light down, pain ripping through him. "Then tell how to stop it!"
The Witness stepped back into the shadows. "You can't stop the awakening."
The tunnel ceiling cracked.
"But you can choose how it ends."
The Witness vanished as the horde surged forward.
Kael drew his swords, one blade faintly glowing.
Lyra stood beside him, fearless. "Whatever you are becoming," she said, "you don't beco it alone."
Kael t her eyes. The mark throbbed—hungry, impatient.
"Then we change the prophecy," he said.
They fought.
Steel and gunfire echoed through the tunnel as the dead fell screaming. When the last body dropped, silence returned—thicker than before.
Kael leaned against the wall, shaking.
Lyra grabbed his face, forcing him to look at her. "Promise sothing."
"What?"
"When the world tells you who you are," she said, voice steady, "you don't listen."
Kael nodded.
But deep beneath them, the Devourer stirred.
And the lock had begun to turn.
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