The air felt thinner after they left.
Not lighter.
Just… strained.
As if the forest itself had seen what I'd done and now watched me from the shadows. Not with judgment… but with silence. A deeper kind. The kind that waits.
I sat alone near the edge of the stone shrine, the mark on my palm still warm. Not burning. Not glowing. Just… there.
Like a second pulse.
Like a reminder.
They had run. All five of them. But that didn't make me strong. Not really. It just made me seen.
And being seen… came with a cost.
---
I didn't sleep that night.
The mark pulsed on its own, faint but steady. The same way a wound aches when it's healing. Or when it isn't.
Every few hours, I felt it draw something from me. Not blood. Not breath. Something deeper. It was subtle. But I knew the difference between weariness and weight.
And this… was weight.
---
By morning, my vision blurred at the edges.
Not like exhaustion. Like fog behind the eyes.
I tried to stand. My legs held. But the ground felt… farther.
I moved through the ruins slowly, retracing steps I'd walked a dozen times before. But this time… the walls seemed taller. The roots thicker. My presence… thinner.
I crouched beside the stream and splashed water across my face.
It helped.
A little.
But it didn't change the truth.
I had drawn power that wasn't mine.
And now it wanted something in return.
---
The voice didn't come that morning.
Not directly.
But I felt it… watching.
Not with cruelty.
Not even with concern.
Just… observation.
As if it, too, wanted to see what I'd do next.
---
I walked deeper into the forest.
Not away from the ruins. Not toward anything specific.
I just needed to move.
To feel my own steps on the earth. To remind myself that I was still here. Still breathing. Still… me.
The trees grew closer as I moved downslope. The sunlight thinned. Roots twisted through the underbrush in knotted patterns, and patches of fungus glowed faint blue along the stones.
I hadn't been this far before.
But something in me said… go.
So I did.
---
The first sign came when the trees stopped making noise.
No birds. No insects. No leaves rustling.
The second sign came when the cold returned.. not the cold of air, but of space. The kind that made breath visible and time slow.
And the third… was the pool.
It sat at the base of a hollow, ringed with stone. Still. Dark. Deeper than it looked.
But what caught my attention wasn't the water.
It was what floated above it.
---
A reflection.
Of me.
But not… exactly.
It stood over the center of the pool, its feet inches above the surface. Its body cloaked in shadow, its hair longer. Its eyes hollow.
The mark on its palm burned crimson.
I stared at it.
It stared back.
Neither of us moved.
Then… it spoke.
> "You used it."
Its voice was mine.
But wrong.
> "You called it without permission."
I clenched my jaw.
"I needed to," I said.
> "Need is not the same as worth."
The pool rippled.
> "You fear being forgotten. So you chose to be feared."
I took a step forward.
"And I'd do it again."
The reflection smiled. Barely.
> "Good."
Then it raised its hand.
---
The sky turned black.
Not dark.
Black.
As if the sun had vanished, not set.
And in that moment, I felt the mark on my palm flare… then burn.
I dropped to one knee, breath ripped from my chest like smoke through a shattered lantern.
The reflection still stood.
Unmoving.
Watching.
> "Power has a price," it said.
My skin cracked along the veins, glowing faintly with lines of red.
> "You took without balance. So now… offer weight."
---
The ground beneath me shifted.
And I fell.
---
Not down.
Inward.
---
Like my soul had slipped through a tear in the world.
And when I landed… I stood at the edge of something I didn't understand.
A plain of black stone. No sky. No trees. No air.
Just silence.
And a throne.
---
The throne pulsed with veins of the same red light.
No one sat in it.
But it breathed.
I could hear it.
Each exhale sounded like wind through bones.
Each inhale like stone cracking open.
And the voice returned.
Not the one from before.
Deeper.
Older.
> "You walk a path not meant for mortals."
> "And yet… you do not turn."
> "Why?"
I stood still.
"Because the other path was taken from me."
Silence.
> "And this one?"
"I made it mine."
Another breath.
> "Then prove it."
---
The throne erupted.
A wave of red mist burst outward, slamming into me like a wall. I tried to raise my arms, but the force pushed through skin and thought alike.
I screamed.
But no sound came.
Only memory.
---
My village.
The testing platform.
The silence when my hand remained dim.
My mother's face.
The elders turning away.
The laughter of the others.
The day I walked into the forest… and didn't come back.
---
And then… something else.
A figure.
My figure.
But taller. Stronger. Cloaked in threads of red shadow.
Walking alone through cities that burned behind him.
Not as a tyrant.
As a survivor.
---
The mist pulled back.
I collapsed to my knees, gasping.
The throne still pulsed.
> "Pain tempers resolve."
> "Resolve shapes power."
> "Power… demands balance."
I forced myself to stand.
"I didn't come here to be balanced," I whispered.
"I came to survive."
The mist pulsed.
> "Then survive."
---
The light blinked out.
And I fell again.
---
This time… I landed on stone.
Real stone.
Back in the hollow.
The pool was still there.
But the reflection… was gone.
Only my own face remained.
And in the center of my palm, the mark glowed faint red… then dimmed.
---
The forest made noise again.
Wind.
Birdsong.
The sound of roots stretching through soft soil.
And me… standing in silence, heart racing, clothes damp with cold sweat.
But alive.
---
The cost had been paid.
For now.
---
That night, I sat beside the broken wall of the shrine and stared into the stars.
My body ached in places I didn't have names for.
My mind felt hollowed and full at once.
And yet… I didn't feel regret.
Not exactly.
Just… weight.
---
The voice returned once, just before sleep took me.
> "You passed."
I didn't answer.
> "But the cost will rise."
Still, I said nothing.
> "Do you still want this path?"
I let my breath settle.
Then whispered into the dark…
"Yes."
---