Kael didn't sleep.
Every time he shut his eyes, the mirror's words resurfaced behind his eyelids burned in, impossible to forget.
Forbidden blood.Unauthorized.
By morning, he'd convinced himself of one thing only: whatever had happened last night wasn't meant to be seen.
That didn't stop the mark from throbbing beneath his skin.
He pulled on his jacket despite the heat, zipped it all the way up, and stared out the apartment window. The city looked normal from up here crowded streets, buses crawling like insects, people hurrying through lives that made sense.
He envied them.
The mirror stayed ordinary. No symbols. No shadows moving where they shouldn't.
As if nothing had happened.
That scared him more than if it had.
Kael skipped class.
Instead, he walked.
No destination just movement. The farther he went from home, the less suffocating his chest felt. Back alleys, half-forgotten streets, places no one bothered to look twice at.
That was when the headache started.
Not sharp. Heavy. Like pressure building behind his eyes. Each step made it worse, until even the sound of his own breathing felt too loud.
Then the world tilted.
The air thickened, visibly warping. Conversations around him blurred into a low, distorted hum. People slowed, movements lagging like poorly synced video.
Kael stumbled into a side street and bent over, hands on his knees.
"This isn't real," he muttered. "This isn't"
Something clicked.
Not a mechanical sound. A mental one. Like a lock inside him had shifted.
The pressure vanished.
So did the noise.
When Kael straightened, the alley wasn't empty anymore.
Three figures stood ahead of him.
They hadn't walked in. He was sure of that. One second the alley was vacant—the next, it wasn't. They wore dark coats too heavy for the weather, faces hidden beneath hoods. Their shadows stretched wrong, bending toward Kael as if pulled by gravity.
The middle figure spoke first.
"You shouldn't exist."
Kael's mouth went dry. "I don't know who you think I am."
"We know exactly who you are," another said, voice cold and flat. "That's the problem."
Kael took a step back.
They took one forward.
His scar burned.
Instinct screamed run but his legs felt rooted to the pavement. Fear tried to seize him, but something deeper pushed back, unfamiliar and sharp.
"You felt it, didn't you?" the center figure continued. "The awakening. The mistake."
Mistake.
Kael clenched his fists. "I didn't ask for any of this."
"No one ever does."
The air shifted again this time violently.
Symbols flickered briefly around the figures, glowing faintly before sinking into their shadows. Kael didn't know what they meant, only that seeing them made his stomach twist.
Hunters.
The word surfaced from nowhere, settling into his mind like it belonged there.
"Containment protocol," one of them said calmly. "Non-lethal, if possible."
If possible.
The alley lights shattered.
Darkness swallowed everything.
Kael moved without thinking.
One moment he was frozen the next, his body reacted. The ground beneath him cracked slightly as he pushed off, momentum carrying him forward faster than it should have been possible.
He wasn't strong.
He knew that.
So why did the world feel slower now?
A hand reached for him. Kael twisted aside instinctively, barely missing fingers that left frost blooming across the brick wall where they touched.
"Impossible," someone hissed.
Kael didn't look back.
He ran.
Turns blurred into instinct. Distances shortened. Walls that should have blocked him felt lighter, easier to vault. His lungs burned, but his legs never gave out.
Behind him, something screamed not anger, not pain.
Frustration.
He burst onto a main street and everything snapped back.
Noise. Movement. Reality.
People walked past him, oblivious, stepping right through where the figures should have been.
Kael stopped, heartbeat roaring in his ears.
The alley behind him stood empty.
No broken lights. No cracks. No shadows stretching wrong.
Like none of it had ever happened.
He didn't go home.
He couldn't.
Kael sat on the steps of an empty building until the shaking stopped. His hands trembled as he pulled his jacket open just enough to look.
The mark pulsed slowly now.
Steady.
Alive.
"They found you," a voice said behind him.
Kael spun around.
An old man leaned against the railing, cane in hand. Ordinary. Too ordinary. But his eyes his eyes were sharp, heavy with something old and calculating.
"They shouldn't have," the man continued, unfazed by Kael's silence. "Which means the seal is weakening faster than expected."
"What are you talking about?" Kael demanded.
The man studied him for a long moment.
Then he sighed.
"Looks like history made another mistake," he said quietly. "And you're standing at the center of it."
Kael swallowed hard.
"Who are you?"
The corner of the man's mouth lifted not in a smile.
"A warning," he said."And possibly your last chance."