The Gut curled inward, its alleys a labyrinth of frost and shadow, thorns piercing stone like stitches in a rotting wound. Teon Grivalt led the squad through a sunken courtyard, the splintered crate under his arm, its jagged, thorned spiral—etched like the log he'd carved in childhood snow—burning against his ribs.
The blood-crusted scroll, hidden in his leathers, hummed with a thousand whispers, not human, clawing his mind. His Rot Mark flared, a second heart, pulsing:
The flame is coming.
Crows perched on crumbling eaves, their eyes glinting, one with a third eye cracked open, watching like the watcher from his dreams. Alley walls bore graffiti—jagged spirals, thorned, half-erased, like the ones kids scratched, like the one on Sura's hand, like his mark.
Sura Lenhart trailed close, her satchel heavy, the music box's thorns glinting in torchlight. Her blistered hand, wrapped in a blood-streaked rag, twitched, the faint spiral scar—visible only to Teon—pulsing faintly, as if it answered the scroll. She hadn't hummed since the gate, her eyes distant, haunted.
Brik Roan followed, his iron bat dragging, scraping frost, the Iron Dog brand on his glove flecked with dried blood.
Lune Roan matched his stride, her silver eye scanning the dark, her blind one shadowed, her knife sheathed but restless.
Doma Velk limped behind, his cane sinking into ice, his red-ringed eyes tracing the graffiti spirals, muttering, "They never stop carving."
The courtyard was a ruin, its fountain cracked, thorns choking its basin, a jagged spiral scratched into its rim, glowing faintly under frost.
Teon stopped, his mark burning, the scroll's hum louder, like Mayla's lullaby: T
he rot that remembers will name the world lost.
Gregor's lie—Just growing pains—cut deeper, the crate's spiral a mirror to that snowbound log, to the graffiti, to the blood at the gate.
"Here,"
Teon said, voice low, raw, pointing to a collapsed cellar beneath the fountain.
"We hide it here."
Brik snorted, leaning on his bat.
"Hide it? After that ambush? You think the Gut's safe, Teon?"
His voice was rough, frayed, his eyes flicking to Lune, seeking her steadiness. She didn't meet his gaze, her silver eye fixed on the spiral graffiti, her hand twitching, as if the pit's brands—chains, not spirals—burned anew.
"It's not safe anywhere,"
Lune said, voice a blade, soft but sharp. Her fingers grazed her knife, a scar from the pits flashing in her silence: a memory of chains, screams, a brand seared into her skin. She looked at Sura, then Teon, her blind eye seeing too much.
"What's in that scroll, Teon? What's in her?"
Sura flinched, her rag-wrapped hand curling tighter.
"I don't know,"
she whispered, eyes meeting Teon's, raw, terrified.
"But it knows me."
She unwrapped the rag, revealing the spiral scar, faint, thorned, invisible to Brik, Lune, and Doma, but burning in Teon's gaze, like his mark recognized its kin.
"When I touched the sigil in the alley, it… woke. Like my blood remembers something."
Her voice broke, a fragment of the lullaby slipping out:
Crows forget their wings.
The crows above cawed, one with a third eye, its beak thorned, watching, as if it heard.
Doma's cane tapped, sharp, cutting the silence.
"It's blood sigil,"
he said, voice cracked, heavy with forbidden texts.
"Old as Hollowreach. The marked aren't chosen—they're born."
His eyes flicked to the graffiti, then Sura's hand, though he couldn't see her scar. Doma's voice dropped, a chill in it:
"They say Kcel carves spirals into his victims' tongues."
He paused, his red-ringed eyes darkening.
"Clergy patrols are moving. Hunting marked ones. A man named Kcel leads them—cold as frost, branded like us."
Teon's mark roared, a vision flashing—snow, Mayla's song, Gregor's lie. Why does it hurt? He knelt by the cellar, shoving the crate into a hollow beneath the fountain, its spiral lid catching torchlight, thorned, jagged, like the graffiti, like his childhood log. The scroll's hum grew, whispers clawing:
Call them, wake them, burn them.
He stood, his knife drawn, its blade still flecked with sap and blood.
"We don't open it," he said, voice breaking, a boy's pain in a man's throat. "Not yet."
Sura stepped closer, her hand trembling, the spiral scar flaring, unseen by the others but a wound in Teon's eyes.
"It's not just the scroll,"
she said, voice soft, shaking.
"It's in us. My mother—she hummed it too. The lullaby. Before they took her."
Her eyes welled, a tear catching the torch's red glow, like blood on snow.
Brik's bat slammed the ground, hard, the Iron Dog brand pulsing, as if the iron remembered fire.
"Enough secrets,"
he growled, his voice raw, his hand reaching for Lune's, then stopping, a pit-born scar holding him back.
"What are we, Teon? Pawns? Prey?"
Lune's silver eye softened, a rare crack, her fingers brushing his, fleeting, like their Burnpit touch.
A crow cawed, sharp, from the fountain's rim. Its third eye glinted, thorned beak open, as if it spoke the lullaby:
Forget their names, forget their names.
The air turned colder, the mist thicker, carrying a scent of burnt hair, a whisper like rusted chains. Teon's mark burned hotter, as if something inside it recognized the shadow in the mist—and recoiled.
The shadow stood wrong, like memory twisted into bone, not human, watching. The graffiti spirals glowed faintly, like the scroll, like Sura's scar. The whisperer's call, the flame's approach.
"We move,"
Teon said, voice low, final, leading the squad out of the courtyard, past the thorns, past the crows. The scroll stayed hidden, its hum a ghost in his bones, the jagged spirals a promise of blood.
Ruttenmark was bleeding, and they were its pulse.