The summoning came with no voice. No knock. Just a rune glowing beneath her door.
Kael's mark.
Lyra didn't hesitate. She had questions too—and after the Hollow, answers felt like weapons worth bleeding for.
She followed the pulse of its glow down a corridor that hadn't existed the day before. The walls were smooth obsidian, etched faintly with unreadable script. She passed beneath an archway into a round chamber that smelled of smoke, ink, and cold stone.
Kael stood at its center, arms crossed, waiting like he'd been born there.
He didn't greet her.
He only nodded once, and said, "Come."
Lyra approached slowly. The mark above her collarbone was already beginning to hum beneath her skin.
Kael gestured to the circular platform beneath their feet. "This is a glyph chamber," he said. "One of the oldest. It predates the Pack. Predates the Council."
She looked down.
Carved into the stone in concentric circles were glyphs—wolfish in shape, but with strokes that reminded her of her mother's embroidery. Of runes too ancient for books. The center glowed faintly silver.
"Step into the center," Kael said. "I want to see what responds."
She narrowed her eyes. "You sure this isn't a trick?"
"If I wanted you dead, Lyra, I'd have let the Elders keep the Rite of Submission."
Fair.
She stepped onto the central ring.
The mark on her skin flared.
A shudder ran through the floor. The glyphs rippled outward in waves of silver fire.
Kael didn't blink.
But his voice dropped into something almost reverent. "It's reacting to you."
She folded her arms. "You sound surprised."
"I am," he admitted. "It shouldn't be this strong yet."
Lyra arched a brow. "Yet?"
Kael moved toward her slowly. "The mark isn't just magic. It's memory. It binds the prophecy to blood."
"Then tell me what it says."
He hesitated. For the first time—truly—he looked uncertain.
"Some of the lines have been lost. Misinterpreted. But one part is clear." His voice was low. "She who carries the Five shall not choose—she shall be chosen."
Lyra's chest tightened.
"What does that mean?"
Kael stepped closer. Not aggressively. Not even intimately. Just close enough that she could feel the chill of his power against her own.
"I think it means you were never meant to control us," he said. "You were meant to awaken something through us."
"You think I'm a catalyst."
"I think you're the end of something old—and the beginning of something dangerous."
He reached toward her collarbone—toward the mark—and paused.
"May I?"
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
His fingers brushed the skin above her mark.
It flared like moonlight.
The glyphs beneath her feet answered—glowing brighter.
But so did the pain.
Lyra hissed, stepping back.
Kael's eyes went wide with something that looked almost like fear. "That shouldn't happen. Not yet."
She clutched her side, the burn still simmering beneath her skin. "What did you do to me?"
He looked shaken. "Nothing. I just—" He stopped. "It's not you I'm afraid of. It's what's waking inside you."
She stared at him. "You sound like Lucien."
Kael's expression darkened. "Then you should be very careful who you let close."
She returned to her chamber an hour later, skin still buzzing with residual heat, heart a storm in her chest.
The moment she stepped inside, she knew she wasn't alone.
Lucien sat by her hearth, legs crossed, a book in his lap.
He didn't look up right away. Just flipped a page, slow and deliberate.
"You've been busy," he said.
"You broke into my room."
"I was invited."
She snorted. "By who?"
He finally looked up.
"I have keys to every door in this wing."
Of course he did.
She shut the door behind her. "If you're here to flirt, I'm not in the mood."
He stood slowly, closing the book. "No, little wolf. I'm here to confirm something."
He walked toward her—deliberate, unhurried. His golden eyes gleamed with something too sharp to be hunger.
"You saw Kael," he said. "I can smell the ash of old magic on you."
She stayed still. "And what if I did?"
Lucien circled her once. His voice was velvet and venom. "He's trying to understand you. That's where he fails."
"And you think you succeed?"
"I don't want to understand you," he said, stepping closer. "I want to see you. The real you. The one behind the mask."
"I'm not hiding."
"You're always hiding."
She turned her back to him. "Why are you really here?"
His breath hit the nape of her neck.
"I wanted to see if you'd flinch," he said softly.
Her heart stuttered.
She didn't move.
He leaned closer—his lips brushing the shell of her ear. "You don't need all five of us to fall," he whispered. "You only need the right one to burn."
She spun, pressing her palm to his chest before he could move closer.
"I'm not yours to burn."
He didn't flinch.
He smiled.
"I don't want to burn you, Lyra," he said. "I want to burn with you."
Then he stepped back.
Just enough to leave her rattled.
"I didn't leave the feather," he added. "But if I had… it wouldn't have been white."
🖤 Mini-Scene: The Journal Writes Back
The fire burned low in her room.
Lyra stood at the window, palms pressed against the cool stone ledge, staring out at the distant tree line. The stars above blinked like old gods with failing eyes. She could still feel Kael's touch near her mark—residual heat, the way a brand lingers even after the flame is gone.
And Lucien's voice… "I want to burn with you."
She should've felt strong.
But instead, she felt fractured.
As if the moment Kael triggered the mark, something inside her split open—and now there was more of her than she knew what to do with.
She turned from the window and moved slowly to her desk. The journal—the one she'd stolen from the ashes of her mother's cottage—sat where she'd left it. Closed. Waiting.
She sat down and opened it with a sigh.
The page she'd last written on was blank now. As if the ink had faded overnight. Or never existed at all.
Except one line.
One line had been written in handwriting that was not hers.
He will know you by your blood. He will mark you with fire.
Her breath caught.
She flipped back a page.
Another message had been scribbled in the corner.
Do not trust the one who stays silent when you scream.
She pushed the journal away like it might bite her.
A trick. It had to be.
She stood again. Pacing. Thinking. Breaking.
A sound cracked behind her.
A pop—like wood snapping in the hearth.
She turned fast.
Nothing.
Except…
The mark.
It was glowing again.
This time not silver.
Not Kael's light.
But gold.
Faint. Burning. Lucien's fire.
She touched it, hand trembling.
It was warm. Like the sun touching the earth right before it sets.
But it didn't hurt.
It… called.
And somewhere deep in the hallway beyond her door, a soft knock echoed once.
No voice.
No footsteps.
Just the sound of something waiting.