As the book snapped shut with a low thud, the mark on Revan's wrist burned hotter.
He hissed, clutching his forearm. The spiral shimmered like heated metal, pulsing in sync with something ancient—not his heartbeat.
Cassie placed a hand on his shoulder. "Revan...?"
He didn't respond right away. The whisper was louder now—closer. Not just sensation anymore, but language.
Feed me.
Call me.
Let me in.
Revan clenched his teeth. "I'm fine," he said again, but his voice was strained, thinned like ice about to crack.
The librarian watched with solemn silence. "The mark awakens the deeper well of your magic," he said. "But shadow is not a servant. It hungers. If you feed it too freely, it will consume you."
"Then I'll starve it," Revan muttered.
"You won't be able to," the librarian said. "Not forever."
Without another word, Revan turned toward the exit. Cassie followed, glancing back once at the book, at the glowing silver eyes watching them.
As they stepped outside, the night air struck them like a sudden wave—cold, wet, and harsh. The silence that had blanketed the library grounds was gone now. Crickets chirped. Wind stirred the trees. Life returned to the world around them.
But inside Revan, the mark was very much awake.
On the Road — Moments Later
They didn't speak for several minutes as they walked along the overgrown path leading back toward town.
Cassie kept glancing at Revan, noticing how his shadow stretched oddly—even when the moonlight shouldn't allow for it. It rippled, occasionally twitching on its own, lagging a step behind or ahead.
"Revan," she said quietly, "what are you feeling?"
He slowed, breath shallow. "Like I'm standing next to myself. Watching... not always from behind."
Cassie stopped. "We need to be careful. If it starts pushing you—changing you—"
"It already is," he said.
He lifted his hand.
A simple shadow trick, one he'd done a dozen times before—creating a decoy. He cast it forward.
But instead of forming his silhouette, the shape twisted as it manifested. Taller. Grinning.
It turned toward him. Looked at him.
Then vanished.
Revan staggered.
"That wasn't me," he whispered. "That wasn't even my shape."
Cassie stepped in front of him, grabbed his arms. "Then you don't cast it again. Not until we know what it's doing to you."
He nodded, sweat beading at his brow despite the chill. "We need to find that gate. Whatever's behind it… I think it already knows I'm coming."
Cassie's voice dropped. "Then we find it fast—and stop it from calling you home."
By morning, they'd reached the outer ridge of Kallzara's cliffs—the wind-bent trees whispering as if they remembered names long forgotten. Cassie led the way now, eyes scanning the uneven path for the barely-visible trail she used to sneak down here as a child.
"Are you sure she's still alive?" Revan asked, his voice hoarse. He hadn't slept. The mark pulsed every time he closed his eyes, dragging him toward images of void-black gates and voices that spoke in symbols.
"She doesn't die," Cassie replied simply. "She just disappears for a while."
A half hour later, they came to a small, vine-choked cottage tucked into the stone—its chimney long crumbled, its door barely hanging on.
Cassie stepped forward and knocked—once, then twice more in a pattern.
Silence.
Then, a slow creak.
The door opened just enough to reveal a single grey eye, sharp as a dagger, staring out at them.
"…Cassie?" a gravelly voice asked.
"Hi, Maera."
Inside the Cottage
The woman who stood before them was hunched but powerful, her back bent by time or burden. Her hair was a tangled storm of white, and around her neck hung a necklace of withered charms—teeth, bones, broken rings. Her eyes, though, were sharp. Alive.
She eyed Revan.
"I know what you've brought into my home."
Revan opened his mouth, but she raised a hand. "No need to explain. I can smell the shadow on you. Like mold growing under skin."
He flinched.
Cassie stepped forward. "We need help. We need to understand what's happening to him."
Maera moved to the hearth—dead, unused for seasons—and struck it with a rune-etched cane. Flames erupted without wood or spark.
"You've tied yourself to something ancient, boy," she said to Revan. "And it's not magic. Not the kind the world was meant to hold."
Revan sat, staring into the flame. "Then what is it?"
Maera studied him. "A remnant. A fragment of the first dark—what came before light. It doesn't create. It remembers. And it wants back what the gods sealed away."
Cassie whispered, "The Shadow Gate."
Maera nodded. "You've seen it, haven't you? In your dreams."
Revan said nothing.
But Maera saw the truth in his silence.
"I ran from the same thing," she said. "When I was younger. Took the mark in a moment of arrogance. Thought I could harness it. But I couldn't control it... so I cut it out."
She held up her right hand.
Only four fingers.
"I lived. Barely. But now it's stirring again, because someone's calling to it from the other side of that gate."
Revan leaned forward. "Then tell me how to stop it."
Maera's voice dropped. "You can't stop it. Not alone. But maybe… maybe you can bind it. Redirect it. Like a river."
Cassie asked, "How?"
Maera stood, walking to an old, cracked chest. She opened it and retrieved a scroll sealed with tar-black wax. "You'll need to follow the dream to the source. And you'll need allies. Not just each other."
Revan took the scroll. "What's this?"
"A map. Sort of. A memory map. It shows where the mark wants to go—because that's where it came from."
Revan's hand trembled as he held it. The mark on his wrist pulsed harder, as if eager.
Maera's voice dropped to a whisper. "But Revan… if you go down this path, it will change you. Every step. You might not be the same boy Cassie knew when it ends."
Revan looked to Cassie.
She met his gaze without fear.
"Then I'll just make sure I'm walking beside him," she said.
Maera stared at the two of them for a long moment.
"…Then you'd better go before night falls. The dream doesn't wait."