Chapter 18 – Whispers of the Abyss

The ruins stood in eerie silence, the weight of ancient history pressing against me like a living force. Broken pillars loomed overhead, their cracked surfaces etched with forgotten symbols, remnants of an age long buried beneath the kingdom's splendor. A cold wind slipped through the shattered arches, carrying whispers from the past—faint, indistinct, but undeniably present.

I exhaled slowly, my breath forming a thin mist in the chilled night air. My arm still burned, the mark pulsating in rhythmic defiance, as if awakening to something unseen. The encounter with the cloaked figure had left an imprint on my mind, its words laced with an unshakable truth:

"You stand at the precipice of something far greater than you understand."

The memory of the vision still clung to me, the battlefield, the throne shrouded in shadows, the echo of a war I had never lived—yet somehow remembered. I clenched my fingers, flexing them experimentally as residual energy flickered along my skin, coiling like smoke before fading.

I was changing.

The mark was no longer dormant, no longer a mere symbol of my curse. It was stirring, responding, evolving. But to what end?

A distant sound snapped me from my thoughts. Footsteps—soft, calculated, approaching from the far end of the ruins. I turned, my senses sharpening as I scanned the darkness.

A lone figure emerged from the gloom, the dim torchlight revealing the deep crimson of his military coat, the silver embroidery glinting under the fire's glow. His presence carried authority, a quiet but undeniable force that demanded acknowledgment.

Duke Alistair Varian.

One of the kingdom's most feared and respected warlords. And more importantly—one of the few who had seen firsthand what the Cursed Mark was capable of.

His eyes, sharp and unyielding, locked onto mine. "You should not be here."

I met his gaze without flinching. "And yet, here I am."

A flicker of something unreadable passed through his expression before he stepped forward, boots crunching against loose stone. "The power within you—it's waking, isn't it?"

I hesitated. I could lie. I could feign ignorance. But the truth was already clear.

"Yes."

Alistair studied me for a moment, then exhaled. "Then time is no longer on your side."

His words carried a weight that sent a ripple of unease through me. "What do you mean?"

He reached into his coat and retrieved something small, wrapped in black silk. Without a word, he tossed it toward me. I caught it instinctively, the fabric cool against my palm. Unwrapping it, I revealed a single, obsidian pendant carved into the shape of an eye—its center inlaid with a blood-red gem that seemed to shift under the torchlight.

A mark of the Order of the Veil.

A secretive faction operating within the kingdom, feared even among the nobility. They dealt in forbidden knowledge, uncovering truths the world was not meant to know.

I narrowed my eyes. "Where did you get this?"

Alistair's expression darkened. "They've begun moving. Searching for something—or someone."

Realization set in like ice. They were hunting for me.

"The moment you called upon that power," he continued, "you left a trail. And the Order? They can follow it."

I tightened my grip on the pendant, the gem pressing cold against my skin.

"Then I need to move."

Alistair's lips pressed into a thin line. "No. You need to learn control."

My jaw clenched. Control. That word again. Everyone spoke of it as if it were something I could grasp at will. But this power—it wasn't a simple spell, nor a weapon to be wielded. It was something far more primal, something that felt.

"I don't have time for careful lessons, Duke." My voice was steady, but my pulse hammered in my ears. "If they're already hunting me, then I need to be ahead of them, not standing still."

Alistair studied me for a long moment before nodding. "Then come with me."

I tensed. "Where?"

"To the one place in this kingdom where your power won't be feared."

His gaze was unreadable, but something in his tone sent a chill through me.

The one place in this kingdom where my power wouldn't be feared?

I wasn't sure whether to be relieved—or terrified.

The Forgotten Sanctum

The journey through the kingdom's outskirts was silent, marked only by the distant howls of night creatures. Alistair led me through a hidden path, one that wound through the dense woodland, deeper than I had ever ventured.

An hour passed before we arrived at a clearing, where the remains of an ancient structure loomed—the Forgotten Sanctum.

A remnant of a lost era.

A place where the cursed, the forsaken, and the marked had once gathered before the kingdom erased their existence from history.

The entrance was a massive stone arch, overgrown with twisting vines, its carvings barely visible beneath centuries of decay.

Alistair motioned forward. "Inside."

I stepped through, my boots pressing against smooth marble. Despite its ruinous state, the inner chamber was surprisingly intact. Faint traces of glyphs lined the walls, pulsating with dormant energy. A feeling of something ancient pressed against my skin, settling in my bones like an unspoken truth.

"You were not the first to bear that mark," Alistair said, his voice echoing through the chamber. "And you will not be the last."

I turned to face him. "Then why is there no record of them?"

His expression darkened. "Because history is written by those who fear what they do not understand."

Silence stretched between us.

I reached out, fingers grazing one of the glyphs. A sudden pulse surged through my arm, raw energy crackling up my spine. My mark flared in response, not in defiance—but in recognition.

As if it had always belonged here.

A memory—not my own—slammed into me.

A gathering of warriors, their bodies adorned with the same cursed markings. A battle, their power unleashed in a storm of darkness and fire. A war that had been wiped from the pages of history.

And at the center of it all—a figure, standing atop a mountain of the fallen, their mark no longer a curse, but a crown.

The vision shattered, and I stumbled back, breathless. My pulse thundered in my ears.

Alistair's voice was quiet. "You saw them, didn't you?"

I swallowed hard, nodding.

His gaze was solemn. "The Forgotten."

A silence stretched between us, thick with unspoken truths.

I clenched my fists. I didn't need more cryptic warnings. More half-truths.

I needed answers.

I needed power.

The world thought of me as cursed. An omen of ruin. A being that should never have existed.

But here, in this place?

I was something else.

And for the first time since my reincarnation—

I wasn't afraid of what that meant.