The spiral stayed in my head long after we left the alley, its shape curling tighter every time I thought about it. The woman didn't speak much, keeping her attention on the streets ahead, but I could feel the shift in her pace — faster, sharper, like she wanted to reach somewhere before I asked another question.
We passed under another dead lantern. This one had no symbol carved into it, no message, just rust eating away at its base. I almost wished it did. At least then I'd know where the next danger was hiding.
By the time we reached the market square, the rain had stopped completely. The stalls were abandoned, their cloth canopies sagging with water. Somewhere in the distance, a bell rang once, low and muffled, as if it were buried underground.
The woman slowed, scanning the edges of the square. I opened my mouth to ask what she was looking for, but the ink under my skin flared — not in warning, not in hunger, but in something new.
Recognition.
The sound came next. Not footsteps this time. A faint tearing, like paper being pulled apart strand by strand.
I turned before she could stop me.
A crack was opening in midair, right in the center of the square. No anchor. No shadows feeding into it. Just… there.
People began to appear from the side streets, drifting into the square without speaking. Their faces were blank, their eyes glassy, their movements too slow. They stood in a loose circle around the forming tear, as if they'd been waiting for it.
The woman swore under her breath. "It's here for you."
I backed away, but the crowd shifted with me, blocking the exits. The crack widened, bleeding black light into the square. I couldn't look away from it. Something in me was leaning toward it, like a part of myself had been left inside and wanted to go home.
The woman stepped in front of me, drawing her sword. Silver threads lit along its edge, humming faintly. "If it pulls, fight it," she said without looking back. "Don't let it name you again."
A voice rose from the crack, not loud but impossible to ignore — the same sharp handwriting I'd seen on the parchment now spoken in sound.
"Kael."
The ink erupted in my arm, climbing my neck, flooding my vision with black veins. My legs almost buckled under the weight of the call.
The woman's grip found my shoulder, grounding me. "Breathe. Now."
I tried. The world bent inward toward that single sound. The crowd began to move, slow steps drawing them closer, their eyes never blinking.
From inside the crack, something reached through — not a hand, not a claw, but a shape that seemed to rewrite the air around it.
It was coming for me.
---
The shape inside the crack shivered, its outline twisting into sharper angles. The crowd's slow movements turned deliberate, purposeful — they weren't just surrounding me anymore; they were herding me toward the tear.
The woman moved like a storm breaking, her blade carving arcs of silver light that tore the closest figures down. No blood spilled. When they fell, their bodies folded into themselves like paper and vanished into thin mist.
She wasn't fighting to kill. She was fighting to buy time.
"Stay behind me," she said. But the voice from the crack spoke my name again, slower this time, like savoring it.
My knees buckled. The ink spread further, crawling toward my eyes. Every part of me screamed to move toward that voice, even as her grip on my arm tried to keep me anchored.
Then another voice cut through.
Low. Rough. Human.
"Step away from him."
It came from the roof above the square. A man in a long coat crouched there, one knee balanced on the edge, a length of chain wrapped around his arm. His face was hidden in shadow, but the glint in his eyes was all too clear — not kindness, not malice, but recognition.
The crowd stopped moving. The crack pulsed once.
The man leapt, landing hard between us and the tear. The chain uncoiled with a metallic hiss, its links etched with symbols I didn't recognize. With one swift motion, he flung it at the crack.
The air screamed. The tear shuddered, the shape inside retreating slightly. The sound of my name dissolved into static.
The woman stepped forward, blade raised. "Who are you?"
The man didn't answer. He pulled the chain taut, anchoring it to a spike he drove into the cobblestones. For a moment, the crack's edges froze, its pull weakening.
He turned his head just enough for his voice to reach me. "If you want to live, you'll come with me. Now."
The woman shifted between us, her stance coiled, ready to strike. "He's with me."
The man's reply was quiet, but it carried weight. "Not for long, he isn't."
Behind him, the crack began to pull harder again, the spike trembling in the stone.
---
The chain rattled, straining against the pull of the crack. Sparks of black light jumped from link to link, sizzling against the cobblestones. The spike anchoring it began to tilt, cracks spidering out from where it had been driven into the ground.
The woman stepped forward, keeping her sword between the stranger and me. "If you know what that thing is, then help me close it — not drag him off like stolen cargo."
The man's gaze stayed locked on the tear. "Close it? You don't close these. You survive them."
The ink in my veins pulsed harder, every beat syncing with the thrum of the crack. I could feel the pull again, and this time I wasn't sure I could keep resisting. My name hadn't been spoken, but something inside the void was still calling — not to my ears, but to the part of me that didn't belong here.
The crowd stirred, twitching unnaturally as if a single thought had run through all of them at once. One by one, their heads tilted toward me.
The woman planted herself in their path. "Kael. Stay behind me. Don't listen to him."
The man's voice cut in, sharp and certain. "If you stay, you'll be dragged through. She can't hold it off forever."
The spike groaned in the stone. The first link of the chain snapped.
My legs tensed. I didn't know which one of them to believe — but the air around us was warping now, and the stone beneath my boots felt as though it might crumble.
The woman took a step toward the crack, silver light flaring along her sword as she prepared to cut at the edges. The man's hand shot out, grabbing my wrist. The contact burned — not heat, but an unfamiliar pressure, like he was weighing something inside me.
"You've been named," he said quietly. "That means you have one chance. If you waste it, you'll never come back."
The crack roared. The crowd lunged.
I moved.
---
I didn't think — there wasn't time for thought. My body chose before my mind caught up. I wrenched my wrist free from the stranger's grip and dove toward the woman.
Her eyes flicked to mine for half a heartbeat, then she moved with me, swinging her sword in a wide arc that caught the first of the lunging figures. They dissolved into smoke, their shapes shredding into the rain-soaked air.
The stranger cursed under his breath, yanking the chain back toward him. Another link snapped with a sound like breaking bone. The crack swelled, spilling more of that black light into the square until everything looked washed in shadow.
The pull was almost unbearable now. My vision blurred at the edges, and the ink under my skin felt as if it were boiling. Somewhere deep inside the tear, something was forcing its way forward — and whatever it was, it had weight, a presence that pressed against my chest like a held breath.
"Keep moving!" the woman barked, shoving me toward a gap in the crowd she'd carved open. Her sword was a constant blur beside me, each strike punctuated by bursts of silver sparks.
The stranger didn't follow. He stayed by the chain, wrapping it around his forearm as if he meant to drag the entire crack shut by hand.
The sound of tearing deepened, low enough to rattle my teeth. The gap in the crowd was closing again. Shadows bled from their feet, stretching across the stones to tangle together.
The woman swore and grabbed my arm, pulling me into a run. "Don't look back."
I didn't listen. I turned in time to see the stranger brace himself, plant both feet, and heave.
The chain went taut. The crack shuddered violently — and for a fraction of a second, I saw it clearly: not just a tear in the air, but a door. And on the other side, something with too many eyes staring straight at me.
Then the door slammed shut.
The square was silent.
When I blinked, the stranger was gone.
The market square was silent, the echoes of tearing and chain snaps gone. Only the soft patter of rain filled the air, dripping from sagging canopies onto puddles that reflected nothing but shadow.
I gasped, my chest heaving, feeling the ink still crawling along my veins as if it hadn't finished reacting. The woman stood a few steps ahead, her sword lowered but still trembling faintly from the effort. Her eyes scanned the empty square, wary, alert.
"Is… is it gone?" I asked, voice raw.
"For now," she replied, but there was no relief in her tone. Only tension, like the snap of a string ready to break. She wiped her blade on her sleeve and turned toward me. "Kael, you need to understand something. Those cracks… they don't just open. They choose. And when they choose someone by name, it isn't random."
I swallowed hard, gripping my arm where the ink throbbed like a second pulse. "Then why me?"
Her gaze softened slightly, but her jaw remained set. "Because they've noticed you. Because you survived their first pull. And because if they can claim you, the rest of this city becomes easier to control."
I looked at the ground, feeling the weight of her words press down as heavily as the rain-soaked stones beneath my boots. The memory of the eyes in the crack, the voice whispering my name, made my stomach twist.
She stepped closer, lowering her voice. "You need to master the ink faster than it can act on its own. Today was a warning. Tomorrow… could be worse."
I nodded, though the certainty didn't reach my gut. The stranger, the chain, the crack — everything had happened so fast. And yet, in some twisted way, I felt it was only the beginning.
The woman sheathed her sword completely and looked around the square one last time. "Come on. We move before someone else notices the disturbance. And Kael… watch yourself. The cracks remember your fear as easily as your courage."
I followed her, rain dripping off my hair and into my eyes, leaving streaks of water across my cheeks. Somewhere deep under my skin, the ink pulsed, quieter now but waiting, learning.
As we disappeared into the alleys, the market square remained empty, but I could feel it — the lingering sense that someone, or something, had been watching the entire time, waiting for the moment to strike again.
And I knew, without doubt, that this was far from over.