Kael wasn't sure which was more dangerous: the secrets he knew or the ones he didn't.
He stood at the edge of the Hollowwood—an ancient forest east of the Academy, far past where students were allowed to wander. The trees stretched high into the mist, bark mottled with age and moss like cracked stone. Even in daylight, the forest was dark, like it had swallowed the sun.
The map tucked in his journal was clear. Follow the ridge. Find the stone gate.
Behind him, Rin adjusted her satchel with a groan.
"Tell me again why we're doing this?"
"Because someone who's supposed to be dead told me the truth's buried in ash and blood," Kael replied dryly. "And I'm curious."
"You could've just said 'because I'm stubborn.'"
"Also accurate."
Rin's boots crunched on the gravel path beside him. "And this mysterious woman—no name, no warning—just happens to know about sigils and your journal and Verren's lies?"
"Yup."
"You're going to get us both killed."
Kael shrugged. "That's the plan. Die dramatically and haunt the Academy library forever."
Rin muttered something about idiots and walked ahead.
They moved slowly, the forest swallowing their footsteps. There were no paths here—just suggestions of trails and the skeletal remains of old stone pillars, half-buried in roots.
Kael's sigil hadn't pulsed since they entered the forest, but it tingled faintly beneath his skin. It wasn't danger it sensed, but something else.
Recognition.
As if this place had been carved into its memory long before Kael was born.
Rin suddenly stopped.
"What is it?" Kael asked.
She pointed. "There."
Half-covered in moss, barely visible in the gloom, stood an ancient archway of black stone. Not natural. Not local. It looked like obsidian carved by something with too many hands and no patience for symmetry.
Symbols were etched along the surface—twisting, looping things that hurt Kael's eyes to look at too long. His sigil flared in response.
"This is it," he whispered.
The stone gate.
Kael stepped toward it, hand reaching out—then froze.
He felt it before he heard it.
Something else was here.
The air shifted. A faint scrape—like claws on bark.
Rin drew a short dagger, eyes narrowing.
"Do you see it?" she whispered.
"No."
But the sigil on Kael's back felt like it was screaming.
Then, from the shadows of the trees, it stepped out.
A tall, thin figure. Humanoid, but wrong in all the ways that counted. Its limbs were too long. Skin pale and cracked like porcelain. Its eyes—if you could call them that—were pits of swirling gray.
And on its chest, burned into the flesh, was a sigil.
Not like Kael's.
Older.
Hungrier.
It lunged without a sound.
Kael barely rolled aside in time, heat sparking in his spine as his sigil surged in defense. Fire coiled around his hands—but it wasn't fire.
It was will, compressed and ignited by the sigil's whisper.
Burn.
The creature shrieked as the blast struck it in the side. It reeled, staggered—and charged again.
Rin was already moving, her dagger glinting as she struck at the joint of its leg. It faltered.
Kael caught its shoulder with another strike—this time not raw energy, but force, shaped by thought and instinct. Like he'd bent gravity itself.
The sigil obeyed.
The creature crashed into a tree and went still.
Dead.
Maybe.
Rin breathed heavily. "What the hell was that?"
Kael knelt beside the body, frowning. "Something corrupted. Something… old."
The sigil on the creature was faded, cracked and leaking threads of colorless smoke.
Rin touched the edge of its arm. "You think this is what happens if the power breaks you?"
Kael didn't answer.
Because he was starting to think the truth was worse.
Beyond the gate, the forest changed.
It wasn't just old now—it was ancient. Unmapped. Forgotten.
Structures emerged from the trees—ruins of a settlement swallowed by time. Stone columns, broken altars, shattered statues with blank faces.
And in the heart of it all stood a circle of raised platforms, each bearing a single glowing sigil.
Kael approached slowly.
Seven platforms.
Seven sigils.
Each one different.
Each one alive.
His own mark responded, vibrating faintly beneath his skin. Not in pain—recognition. These were originals.
Templates.
Rin whispered beside him. "They built this."
Kael nodded. "Or found it."
He touched one of the sigils—just barely.
His mind exploded.
Visions. Memories not his own.
A tower of gold and stone rising in the desert. People kneeling in a circle. A voice chanting in a language that tasted like metal. Sigils burned into the sky. Into flesh.
And something else—something vast and watching and smiling.
Then pain.
And the world screaming.
Kael jerked back, gasping.
Blood trickled from his nose.
Rin caught him before he collapsed.
"What happened?!"
"They weren't meant to be used," Kael said, voice hollow. "They weren't magic. They were commands. Codes written into the world."
Rin looked horrified. "That means—"
"Yes." He nodded. "They rewrote reality."
As the sun dipped low, Kael sat among the ruins, the visions still spinning behind his eyes. The gate. The creature. The ancient city etched in memory.
And above it all, the question that haunted him now more than ever:
Who gave humanity the sigils?
And why?
Because if these were tools…
Then someone had built them.
And builders always came back for what they made.