The air inside the temple had gone still. Even the flames along the iron sconces flickered low, as if holding their breath. The High Priestess stood at the edge of the pool, her reflection wavering over the black water. She had not moved in hours, not since she felt it. A sudden shudder through the threads of the world. A murmur older than time, brushing against the marrow of her bones.
Behind her, Lucien paced in silence. His boots barely made a sound, but tension rolled off him like a storm waiting to strike. He hadn't spoken since she'd summoned him through the thinned edge of the Vale. Only she could summon him like this, without Hades knowing. Only she would dare. A debt owed long ago.
The Priestess had once been thrown into the Vale herself, accused of witchcraft by her own clan. They had thought it better to cast her into the wild than stain their hands with her blood. But the wild had not devoured her. When famine later ravaged their lands and no god answered their prayers, an elder claimed to see her in a dream; Lila, the outcast, holding a flame that could save them. They searched for her then.
Lila would have died, if not for Lucien. He found her as a child, shivering beneath ash trees, and for reasons he never explained, he taught her how to survive, and protected her. He returned her to her people when hunger drove them to seek her out again. They kissed her hands. Praised her prayers.
And Lucien, who had once thought humans worth saving, learned the truth.
He had seen them at their worst. Greedy, blind, cruel. Praying to gods one moment, burning their daughters the next. No loyalty. No wisdom. Just hunger. That day, he stopped believing in the goodness of humankind. In his eyes, humans were the most foolish and cruel of all creation, always reaching for things they did not deserve. A species that devoured everything it touched.
"Something's changed," Lucien said finally, his voice low, raw. It didn't echo. The temple walls simply absorbed it, like the building itself knew to listen. "Tell me you felt it."
"I did," the High Priestess murmured, finally dipping her fingers into the black water. The surface rippled outward in dark, trembling rings.
"It's been touched."
Lucien stopped pacing. He didn't ask what. There was only one thing in the Vale that must never be touched. One thing left behind not to be found, but to keep the world safe from what it might awaken.
And now a human had touched it.
"Who?" he asked. The word came rough, like it scraped his throat. "Do you know who it is?"
The Priestess did not answer right away. Not because she didn't know, but because she did. She knew exactly who had touched the sealed stone. The girl she once raised and loved, before duty severed their bond. The girl she abandoned for the gods she now served. But she wouldn't tell Lucien that. Not yet.
"Not yet," she said instead. "But I know they bled for it."
Lucien turned away. He didn't want her to see what was flickering behind his eyes. He had waited lifetimes for this moment. The curse Hades cast upon him was no ordinary exile. It had been a binding, forged in fire and bound by old laws. The only way out was if a human touched the sealed stone. Not an immortal. Not a beast. Not even a god. A god might weaken, but only a human could survive it long enough to wake what lay beneath. A measly human. The one thing he had grown to despise.
And only the Fates knew which.
The Vale had buried the stone in a place only destiny could lead someone to. And Lucien had waited. Prayed. Then stopped praying. The Fates had told him this long ago, when he first clawed his way through madness in the early years of his exile. Only someone whose blood had already been written into his fate would find the stone. He had almost forgotten that voice. Almost.
"What?" he asked.
"The forest will know," the Priestess said quietly, almost to herself. "It already knows."
Lucien exhaled sharply. "What happens next?"
She finally turned to face him, her eyes sharp despite the quiet on her face. "She will be hunted. Not because of who she is. But because of what she touched."
He blinked, gaze narrowing. "She?"
The Priestess nodded. "A girl. Young. The kind who carries too much grief and not enough memory of what the world owes her."
Lucien stared at her. "So it's true."
"It is. And now, the creatures feel her. The sealed mark is open. The dead, the cursed, the forgotten, they're already moving. They want her silenced before the stone can speak through her, none of them will leave her alone. She's not just marked. She's a beacon."
Lucien swallowed hard.
If she died, his only chance of escape died with her. He would never walk free. Never breathe anything but ash and smoke again.
"She doesn't even know what she's done," he said bitterly.
"No. But she will."
His gaze snapped to hers. "The Fates said I couldn't leave unless the stone was touched. That was the deal. It's been done. So now what?"
"Now you wait."
"For what?"
"For her to survive."
Lucien's fists clenched. "They'll kill her."
"They'll try."
"And I'm to do nothing? Just stand here while my one chance is torn apart?"
"She is not your key," the Priestess snapped, then gentled her voice. "She is the world's. You think your freedom matters more than hers? Than what she carries? You are just another piece in the game."
"A piece that's been left in this hell for centuries," he growled. "I have paid my price tenfold."
"Perhaps. But this isn't about your price."
Lucien stepped closer to the edge of the pool, the water dark and still again. "She doesn't even know I exist."
"She will," said the Priestess. Her voice softened. "The mark always calls both ways."
A silence settled then. A silence thick with everything they could not say aloud.
Lucien looked down at the pool and then back at her. "Will she survive?"
The High Priestess tilted her head. "Then protect her."
"You know I can't. Not yet."
"Then pray she lasts long enough to find you."
A tremor passed through the ground. Not an earthquake, but a shiver, deep and terrible. The pool shivered again, but this time, the Priestess had not touched it.
Far across the forest, the mark on Kaela's hand burned through her skin, a flare sent like a signal. The earth remembered the curse. And everything woke.
Lucien's voice dropped to barely a whisper. "It's starting, isn't it?"
The Priestess did not nod, but her voice was clear. "Yes. The seal is broken. It's started."
He didn't speak. Couldn't. His thoughts had already broken loose, chasing the flame he had once stopped believing in.
"Do you want her to find you?" the Priestess asked one last time.
"No," he said. Then softer, "I want her to live."
He turned toward the darkened hall, his expression unreadable.
"Because if she dies," he said without looking back, "we both stay buried."
And then he was gone. Without another word.
The High Priestess remained.
She closed her eyes and whispered the name she had once sealed in prayer and sacrifice.
Kaela.
Child of the prophecy. Curse of the gods.
She had touched the stone.
And now, the hunt had begun.