THE FIRST WARNING

A PRESENCE IN THE DARK....

Elias didn't move.

Neither did the shadow.

The room felt colder now, the air heavy with something unnatural. It wasn't just an illusion. It wasn't just a trick.

This thing was real.

A deep, suffocating silence wrapped around them, thick like oil, pressing Elias's skin. His breath came slow and steady, but his heartbeat-his heartbeat was hammering. He could feel it in his throat.

Seraphina's grip on Elias's wrist tightened. Her fingers were ice-cold.

Elias barwly heard her. His goldeneyes were locked onto the shifting darkness in front of him. It had no true form- one moment, it seemed humanoid, the next, it was nothing but a flickering distortion in the air, like fire trying to shape itself into something that wasn't meant to exist.

Then-it laughed.

A slow, quiet sound that shouldn't have been terrifying. But it was.

It silthered into Elias's mind, not through his ears, but directly into his thoughts. His spine stiffened. It was inside him.

"You can feel ut, can't you?" The shadow murmured.

The voice was not one but many. Overlapping whispers, some deep, some high-pitched, done distorted as id spoken from behind a veil.

"That power waking inside you. The hunger."

Elias clenched his fists.

"Who are you?"

The shadow tilted its head-or whatever part of it served as a head.

"We are what comes next."

A chill ran down his spine.

"we?"

Something unseen shifted. The room itself felt like it was stretching, wraping, bending to accommodate the presence before them. The walls groaned softly.

Elias stepped back. Just an inch. Just enough to acknowledge the primal fear clawing at his gut.

And then, in a blink, the shadow was closer.

Not moving. Not walking. Just there.

Seraphina inhaled sharply, her free hand curling into a fist. She was ready to fight-but against what?

The watchers weren't things you could fight.

THE WATCHERS...

"The world is changing. Elias Nightshade," the shadow continued. "And so are you."

Elias felt something pulse through the air-a wave of unseen energy , thick and oppressive. His vision blurred for a split second, and un that moment, he saw something.

A city. Burning.

A figure standing in the flames, its eyes glowing silver.

And chains. Chains wrapping around something alive- something trying to break free.

The vision shattered, and Elias stumbled back, panting.

The shadow hadn't moved.

"You are no longer just a student," it whispered. "No longer just a fighter."

It tilted forward, just slightly, as if peering into Elias's very soul.

"You're a piece of something far greater."

Elias gritted his teeth.

"A piece of what?"

The laughter reru5rned. A slow, echoing sound.

"You will find out soon enough."

And then-it vanished.

Like it had never been there at all.

Except for the lingering weight of the air.

Except for the way Elias's fingers itched with something he didn't understand.

SERAPHINA'S FEAR...

The silence that followed was deafening.

Seraphina released Elias's wrist...bjt she didn't relax. Her shoulders were stiff, her expression unreadable.

"That was no ordinary magic," she muttered.

Elias exhaled slowly. "You recognized it."

Seraphina hesitated. Then-she nodded.

"I've read about them. The watchers."

Elias frowmed. "The watchers."

She crossed her arms, staring at the empty slace where the shadow had been.

"They are not people. They are not even creatures. They are....something else."

Her voice dropped lower.

"They only appear before those connected to forbidden power."

A weight settled in Elias's chest.

"And now they're watching me."

Seraphina's gaze darkened.

"That's what I'm afraid of."

A NEW DANGER...

Elias didn't sleep that night.

He sat in his room, staring at the silber ring in his palm.

It was warm.

No- it was pulsing.

Like it was alive.

Like it was...waiting.

Elias turned it over between his fingers. He had worn this ring for years. It had belonged to his father before him. But tonight, it felt different.

Something inside it was shifting.

Something inside him was responding.

He closed his eyes-and the visions returned.

A figure standing in the darkness, chains wrapped around their arms. A voice whispering something he couldn't understand. A throne- empty, waiting.

Elias's breath came faster.

"What am I becoming?"

He didn't have an answer.

But he had a feeling he would find out soon.

Amd what he did...

There would be no turning back.

No undoing whatever had already begun.

No escaping the path that had been set before him.

The ring pulsed again, stronger this time, as if acknowledging his thoughts.

Elias swallowed hard. His fingers curled tightly around a metal.

Somewhere, in the distance, the wind howled- a low, mournful sound rhat shouldn't have been possible on a still night like this.

The watchers were gone.

But there presence lingered.

And something deep in his bones told him....

They weren't done with him yet.

Then-

A whisper.

Not from his mind. Not from watchers but itself from the ring.

A voice, distant and fragmented, speakimg in a language he didn't understand.

Elias's breath caught in his throat.

The pulsing in the ring became erratic, faster, matching the frantic rhythm of his own heart.

His instincts screamed at him to let go. To throw it across the room. To run.

But he didn't.

He couldn't.

Because beneath the foreign words, beneath the unnatural energy surging through him. He recognized something in that voice.

Something eerily familiar.

Something calling to him.

And despite every warning in his mind...

He wanted to answer.

The moment he thought it-

The ring burned.

A sharp, searing heat shot up his arm, spreading like wildfire through his veins. Elias gasped, his vision flickering. The room around him wavered, the shadows stretching unnaturally.

Then-

The candle behind his bed flickered.

Once.

Twice.

Then it sniffed out.

Darkness swallowed everything.

And in that perfect silence-

A voice, no longer distant, no longer fragmented, but right behind him, whispered in his ears.

"Then say the words, Elias".