---
The first sign came in the smoke.
I smelled it before I saw it... sharp and bitter, rising through the trees in thin black strands. Not cooking smoke. Not the warmth of a campfire. This was something hotter. Controlled. Intentional.
I followed it from a distance, careful not to disturb the silence of the forest. The trail led down a narrow ridge, where the moss peeled back under recent boots and the trees stood tall but stripped bare of birds.
I crept low along a ridge of rocks. From there, I saw them.
Four cultivators. Each wore a sleeved grey uniform with a black sash around the waist. Their robes were tidy. Their expressions were not.
They stood in a loose ring around a small shrine... the kind left behind by lone cultivators seeking quiet to reflect. It wasn't built to last. Simple stones, hand-carved, covered with cloth charms and a broken incense bowl.
Now it was burning.
One of them held a torch.
Another held a scroll.
The third held a woodcut... a small, inked carving.
Of my mark.
---
They were copying it.
And then… they were setting it on fire.
"I've never seen a seal like this," the scroll-bearer muttered, frowning as the image blackened. "It doesn't match any sect in the valley. No beast clans. No border monks. Not even rogue caster symbology."
"That's why we're purging it," said the man with the torch, tossing it into the base of the shrine. Flames licked upward, curling around prayer strips and flowers.
"This is the third one," a younger man added, standing at the edge of the trail. "Another two were found west of here. All had carvings with the same lines. Same strange glow."
The last one, a woman, said nothing. She held a blade across her knees and watched the fire without blinking.
The shrine cracked under the heat.
Ash rose into the sky like smoke from a message no one would read.
"They say a boy made a pact," the torch-bearer said after a while. "A village outcast. Failed his test. Disappeared. Returned changed."
The scroll-bearer snorted.
"No such thing as a rootless cultivator," he said. "Even the lowest gutterborn has a path. No root… no light… no future."
The woman finally spoke.
"Unless something else gave him one."
---
They stood in silence as the fire died.
Then they turned.
They didn't see me.
But I had seen enough.
---
I stayed hidden until their footsteps faded.
Then I stepped toward the ruined shrine, picking my way through the charred branches and ash-covered stones.
The heat had burned away the paper. But not the lines carved in the rock beneath it.
Faint. Worn. Mine.
The same symbol that had burned beneath my skin.
They had seen it.
They had named it.
And now… they were trying to erase it.
---
Back in the ruins, the trees seemed taller.
Not because they had grown.
Because I had.
Each day I carried the mark, the world looked smaller… but the danger looked closer.
They feared me now. Not for what I'd done. But for what I might become.
Not because I had hurt anyone.
Because I existed outside their order.
They had no place to put me.
So they wanted to burn what little I left behind.
---
That night, I sat on the flat stone beside the stream, my feet in the water.
The wind moved slowly through the leaves. No birds. No frogs. Just my breath… and the weight beneath it.
The contract didn't speak.
Not in words.
But I felt it hum beneath my skin.
Like it, too, had seen what I'd seen.
---
Two days later, I saw her.
A girl, maybe a few years older than me, walking the edge of the forest trail with a satchel strapped across her back and a staff in one hand. Her robes were forest green. No insignia. Likely a herbalist, or an errand-runner from one of the minor sects.
I could have avoided her.
I almost did.
But she saw me first.
And didn't turn away.
"You're the one from the stories," she said, not unkindly.
I stood still.
"The boy who disappeared. Who came back… different."
I didn't deny it.
Her eyes dropped to my hand.
She didn't see the glow. But she knew.
"They say you were rejected by Heaven. That your root never formed. That you made a pact in the forest and now something else walks with you."
I said nothing.
"They say you carry a mark. That anyone who touches you… loses their place beneath the sky."
I looked at her closely then.
Not because of her words.
Because she hadn't drawn her staff.
And she hadn't run.
"And what do you say?" I asked.
She tilted her head slightly.
"I say I've seen real evil," she replied. "It doesn't wear marks. It wears smiles."
Her voice softened.
"But you don't look like a monster."
I nodded.
She looked at me for a moment longer.
Then turned.
"I didn't see you," she said over her shoulder.
And walked on.
---
It should have made me feel better.
It didn't.
Because even that kindness… was laced with distance.
She didn't see me as dangerous.
But she didn't see me as human either.
Only something to be avoided.
---
The Fallen Grounds felt different the next morning.
The trees leaned further. The roots cracked across the old paths in deeper twists. The air held weight, like a storm trapped beneath the soil.
I stood at the edge of the broken hall, watching the wind stir dust from the shattered tiles.
The mark on my palm glowed once, faint and short.
And the voice returned.
> "They know now."
"I know," I whispered.
> "They call you marked."
"They call me evil."
> "Because they do not understand."
> "Because they fear what does not kneel."
I looked up at the grey sky.
"They'll come again. Stronger next time. Not just scouts."
> "Then be ready."
---
I didn't ask for a weapon.
I didn't ask for protection.
I only asked one thing.
"What happens… if I lose control?"
The voice didn't answer immediately.
Then…
> "Then you walk further."
---
The rest of the day passed in quiet preparation.
I cleared a space near the shrine. I gathered water and old roots and dried moss. I burned the smallest pieces of wood I could find. Not for light. Just for warmth.
When the fire died, I sat in the dark.
Eyes open.
Hands steady.
Breathing calm.
Waiting.
---
Because I knew it now.
They weren't just afraid of me.
They were preparing for me.
To erase me.
To contain me.
To bury whatever I had become.
---
So let them.
Let them name me cursed.
Let them fear my mark.
Let them burn every shrine and whisper my story into something worse than myth.
I would not follow their scripts.
I would not bow.
I would not beg.
I would become the thing they feared… without ever becoming what they accused me of.
---
This path was not paved with light.
It didn't echo with chants or warm teachings or smiles from elders in golden robes.
It was cold.
It was alone.
And it was mine.
---