Episode 27 – "Echoes of the Mark"
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*Dark clouds loomed low over the ruined chapel where Kael and his team had taken shelter. The air felt thick, like the world was holding its breath.
Inside the chapel, the once-sacred place now flickered with the unstable energy of recent magic. Lanterns floated around the room, casting shadows that danced too eagerly.
Kael stood with his arms crossed, eyes pinned on Lana.
She sat on the edge of a broken altar, silent, staring at her palms. Her usually golden eyes had faded—now murky, dark, with shadows that clung to her lashes like ash.
Kael stepped closer.
"Lana… What's going on with you?"
She didn't look up.
"I'm fine," she muttered.
"You're not. I saw what happened when that demon lunged at Felix. You blasted it halfway through the ground without even chanting a spell. Then you started whispering in… whatever that language was."
"It was just instinct."
"Instinct doesn't speak in tongues, Lana."
She flinched.
Kael lowered his tone. "Talk to me. Please."
There was silence. Then, slowly, she lifted the back of her shirt, revealing the swirling vortex mark near her shoulder blade. It pulsed faintly—like it was alive.
Kael reached toward it, but—
BZZZT!
A burst of dark lightning snapped at his fingers, jolting him backward with a gasp.
Lana cried out and fell to her knees, panting. "See? I told you not to touch it…"
Kael stared at the mark, then at her. "That… that thing is tied to something else."
She nodded. "I hear whispers in my sleep. I can't shut them up. They talk about 'debt'… about 'balance.' I don't know what I brought back with me, Kael—but it didn't come for free."
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Elsewhere, Felix was in the chapel's back room, digging through old scrolls and artifacts. His brown eyes sparkled behind thick glasses, and he held a flashlight between his teeth.
Tunde popped his head in. "Hey genius, you building a time machine back there?"
Felix waved him off. "I'm trying to figure out what that mark on Lana is. It's not demonic. Not purely. It's like… a hybrid sigil—one part vortex, one part something older."
"Yeah, well, don't touch it unless you wanna grow a third eye," Tunde quipped and walked off, humming a terribly off-key song.
Felix chuckled… then froze.
One of the scrolls glowed faintly as he touched it.
"The Mark of Returning. Only borne by the soul-snared—those revived by forbidden rites," the scroll read in etched script. "Beware the Echo. It listens."
"…Listens?" Felix murmured.
Suddenly the scroll burned in his hands, vanishing into ash.
"Oh, crap."
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Back in the main hall, Kael sat beside Lana. She leaned on his shoulder—tired, fragile. "What if I hurt one of you again?"
Kael didn't answer at first. Then, softly: "Then I'll remind you who you are. Every time."
They sat in silence, breathing in the flickering air—until Felix stumbled in, face pale.
"We've got a problem."
Kael stood. "What kind?"
Felix hesitated. "The kind that knows we're talking about it."
Suddenly, the room chilled.
The candles flickered blue.
Lana's eyes widened. "No… it's listening…"
Kael spun toward her, but her body arched violently, and she levitated, screaming as the vortex mark spun faster.
A voice—low, guttural, and echoing—boomed from her lips:
"SHE IS OURS."
Kael raised his hand to cast a protective barrier, but Lana exploded in black energy, flinging everyone back. Felix hit the wall with a thud.
From the smoke, a creature formed, looming with stretched limbs and hollow eyes. Its head bent unnaturally as it grinned.
"You meddle in things meant to stay dead," it hissed.
Kael's jaw clenched. "Then let's see how death handles a fight."
He summoned a blazing bolt of energy into his palm.
But the creature simply laughed—and vanished.
Lana collapsed.
---
Later that night, Lana lay asleep on Kael's cloak, breathing shallowly. Tunde sat beside her, playing with a coin and muttering, "Creepy demon whisper thing… classic ex-girlfriend energy."
Felix limped over, still sore. "That thing that came through her? It's not fully in our world yet. But the more she uses her new power, the wider the crack gets."
Kael looked at Lana with pain in his eyes. "So we're on a timer."
"Yeah." Felix nodded. "And the buzzer's already ticking."
Kael stood. "Then we need answers. Real ones. No more surface-level theories."
Felix raised a brow. "From where? Demon Wikipedia?"
"No. The Silent Vaults. South of Emberrange. They hold records of forbidden rituals—guarded by monks who've torn their own tongues out so they never speak what they see."
Tunde blinked. "Wow. Creepy AND dramatic. Love it."
Kael didn't smile.
The vortex had claimed part of Lana—and it wanted more.
They needed to break the chain, before it broke her.