The world came back in fragments—sound first, then sensation, then light.
Cole's ears rang like gunfire echoing across the canyon. His chest heaved as if a bull had trampled him. When his vision finally cleared, he found himself sprawled on the cold stone floor of the mine, lantern shattered, its oil spilled across the rocks like dark blood.
But the serpent was gone.
Only silence remained—thick, suffocating silence broken only by the pounding of his heart.
Cole's hand still clutched the pendant. Its jade surface no longer gleamed with otherworldly light, yet warmth pulsed faintly from within, as if something inside the stone still breathed.
He pushed himself to his knees, trembling. "What in God's name… was that?"
The image seared in his mind—the scales glimmering like midnight water, the silver horns, those burning eyes. It hadn't been a dream. He could still feel the vibration in his bones, the echo of a voice older than the land itself.
"From this moment, your fate is bound to the Lone Star… forever."
The words reverberated inside him, and with them came a weight, pressing down on his chest like a branding iron.
---
The Fear
Cole staggered to his feet, his breath ragged. He'd been in dust storms, in stampedes, even in gunfights—but never had he known fear like this. Fear not of death, but of the unknown.
His grandfather's mine. The letter. The serpent.
The pieces refused to fit.
He looked down at the pendant again. The serpent carved into its jade seemed to coil tighter, as though it would spring to life at any moment. For an instant, Cole thought he saw its eyes gleam—just a flicker—but it was enough to send a shiver down his spine.
"Why me?" he whispered. His voice cracked in the hollow shaft, sounding like someone else's.
No answer came. Only the groan of shifting stone somewhere deep within the mine.
---
Memories of the Past
Cole pressed the pendant to his chest, his thoughts spiraling. His grandfather's stories came rushing back—the old man sitting on the porch, his pipe glowing in the dusk, telling tales of things buried deep beneath the Texan soil.
"Don't go near the Harper Mine, boy," the old man used to say. "Some things ought to stay buried."
Back then, Cole laughed it off. Ghost stories, he thought. Just old men's ways of keeping kids from danger.
But now… he wasn't so sure.
He remembered, too, his grandfather's last words on his deathbed, when the fever had burned the old man to nothing but bones. "Protect the bloodline… the Lone Star watches…"
Cole had dismissed them as ramblings. Now, they clawed at his memory with sharp, relentless teeth.
---
The Whisper
A sound broke the silence. Not a groan of rock this time, nor the distant howl of wind.
It was a whisper.
Soft, low, curling through the mine like smoke.
"Cole Harper…"
He spun, nearly dropping the pendant. His hand flew instinctively to his hip, though his revolver was back at the ranch. He was defenseless.
"Who's there?" His voice cracked.
No answer. Just the faint hiss of breath, as though someone—or something—stood just beyond the lantern's shattered glow.
The air grew colder. His breath fogged.
The whisper came again, closer this time:
"Blood of Harper… vessel of the star…"
Cole stumbled backward, the pendant clutched tight in his fist. The stone pulsed—once, twice, like a heartbeat. And with each pulse, a warmth surged into his veins, pushing against the fear, against the weight.
It wasn't comfort. It was power.
Raw, terrifying power.
---
The Awakening
The ground shook, dust raining down from the ceiling. Cole braced himself against the wall as another tremor rolled through the mine.
But this was no collapse. This was something else.
The pendant burned in his hand, searing hot, until he cried out and dropped it. But instead of shattering, it floated—suspended in midair, spinning slowly.
Symbols glowed across its jade surface, serpentine lines unfurling like rivers of fire.
Cole's eyes widened. "Oh, hell…"
The air rushed toward the pendant, pulling at his clothes, his hair, sucking the breath from his lungs. It was as if the mine itself had become a living thing, inhaling.
The pendant blazed. And then, like a floodgate breaking, it unleashed a surge of light that slammed into him.
Cole screamed as the force tore through him—not pain, but something far worse. His blood burned, his bones rattled, his heart thundered until he thought it would explode.
Memories not his own flashed across his vision—battlefields drenched in blood, towers of jade crumbling beneath storms of fire, a serpent coiling around the stars themselves.
Then silence.
When the light faded, Cole collapsed to his knees, gasping. His skin prickled, his veins alight with something foreign, alive. He looked at his hands—they glowed faintly, veins tracing light beneath the flesh.
He was no longer the same.
The serpent's voice echoed once more inside his skull, a whisper now, not a roar:
"Lone Star… my heir…"
And Cole knew, with a dread that hollowed his chest—this was only the beginning.
---