The world returned in pieces.
Cold stone scraped his cheek, and every breath he took tasted like blood and burnt ash. The reek of magic still lingered in the air — a metallic tang, thick and wrong, like the aftermath of something sacred gone feral.
Edwin — no, Elias — blinked slowly. Light slanted through broken archways above, weak and dust-choked. His hand throbbed, deep into the marrow.
The sigil was still there. Pulsing. Awake. Watching.
He rolled onto his back and stared at the high ceiling of cracked stone. Etchings — glyphs, barely legible — snaked along the dome's inner ribs. Most were faded. Some had been burned out, like old ink scorched with intention.
"You're lucky."
He turned his head.
Shadow.
She stood a few paces away, cloak torn and boots blackened at the hem. One hand rested on a wall carved with runes that had long since lost their glow.
"This place shouldn't have answered the scroll," she said without looking at him. "It was decommissioned. After the purge."
Edwin coughed. His throat was dry. "Where are we?"
"Somewhere the Circle forgot." She finally looked at him. "Which means no reinforcements. No retrieval."
"So we're stranded."
"We're hidden," she corrected. "For now."
He sat up slowly, groaning at the pain in his chest and spine. His skin felt like it didn't belong to him — too tight, too thin, like something beneath it was trying to stretch free.
The mark on his palm glowed softly. Not as bright as before, but deeper now. Hungrier.
"You really don't know what you've done," she said.
He shook his head. "I don't know."
Shadow raised an eyebrow. "I somehow don't believe that."
She studied him — unreadable.
Edwin's thoughts tumbled in his skull like knives in a drawer.
The ritual isn't complete.That's why the pain's growing.
The sigil had latched onto him, but it hadn't been bound. No chant. No offering. No circle of containment. Just raw contact — forced and unfinished.
And every second he waited, it pulled deeper. Into his nerves. His thoughts. His identity.
If it broke through before the ritual was sealed...
You'll lose your mind.You'll bleed from the inside.You'll die screaming.
That was how it went in the book.
Edwin pressed his palm to his chest, clutching it like it might slip away. He could feel it now — a tremor under his ribs. The beginning of something old. Something waiting.
He closed his eyes.
I need to finish it. I need to seal it before it finishes me.
But that meant saying the chant.Spilling blood.Completing the pact.
And Shadow — would she even let him?
She probably wanted to take me to the Circle.Does she know this is a devil's sigil? That it's not some relic — it's a gate?The Circle would tear me apart to extract it.
I can't let that happen.
He glanced up at her.
She was scanning the chamber now, checking the dead glyphs on the walls. Her mouth was tight. Her movements sharp. She was angry. Or scared. Or both.
She had expected to teleport directly into the Circle's hands.
Instead, she was stuck with him — a half-broken boy with a cursed mark and a storm under his skin.
Edwin took a breath.
He needed space. Silence. A warded circle. Just enough to draw the chant, to bleed the glyph, to make the pact hold.
But what if she stopped him?
He wasn't sure if she would kill him.
He was sure she wouldn't hesitate.
You could ask her.Or… you could start it anyway.
His fingers brushed over the stone at his side. Cool. Smooth enough. A circle could be carved here — if he had time. If he had a blade.
The chant was in his memory. Word for word.
He'd memorized it like a fool memorizes last rites.
Etenia sul nahr… vaelash khadar…
His mouth went dry.
Shadow turned. She looked at him.
"You're thinking of finishing it."
He froze.
Her eyes narrowed. "Don't."
"I have to," he said quietly. "You don't feel it. It's inside me. Clawing its way deeper."
"Which is exactly why you shouldn't," she snapped. "You start that chant here and this whole ruin becomes a gate—"
She stepped closer. Her voice dropped to a hiss. "And it's not yours. I still have to bring it in."
"I'm already dying," Edwin murmured. "Would the Circle still be able to extract it if I was dead?"
That gave her pause.
She didn't answer.
But her hand drifted just slightly toward her belt.
He met her eyes. "Would you try?"
Shadow didn't flinch.
"I was sent to retrieve the sigil," she said. "Not to lose it to a half-baked summoning."
Her expression hardened.
"And if you attempt anything stupid, I'll end you before you open the wrong door."
The silence that followed was lethal.
Edwin looked back down at the sigil on his palm.
It pulsed once.
Slow. Steady.
Waiting.