A Mark That Hungers
The summons came at dawn.
No knock. No scroll. Just a shimmer through the mark—followed by a whisper from nowhere.
"Pathfinder Rell awaits. Come armed."
Keiran didn't have a weapon.
He took the half-broken wand the Warden left behind and slipped it into his sleeve.
It still hummed faintly.
The Concordium outpost was built into the side of a hill—half-ruined, half-forged anew with runed stone. It smelled of wet parchment and stale metal.
Pathfinder Rell was waiting by the east wall.
She didn't smile. She didn't speak.
She just tossed him a second medallion.
This one burned when it touched his palm.
"You're not ready," she said. "But that's not our choice."
The mission was simple.
In theory.
A memory anchor had fractured in a settlement east of the Vale. Villagers were reporting lost time, walking in loops, screaming names not their own.
The Concordium suspected a Cursemade—a memory-shell stitched from discarded brands and failed scripts.
Normally, a Mediator would handle it.
But the Warden had petitioned for Keiran to go.
To test the tether.
To see if it would break.
They traveled through fog and thorn-choked paths.
Rell didn't speak much. When she did, her voice was flint.
"You know what Cursemade are, don't you?"
Keiran nodded. "Memory constructs. Failed bindings."
She nodded once. "Not quite. They're broken souls given too many names. Burned identities. Echoes that rot from the inside out."
He felt the mark pulse.
"Sounds familiar," he said.
She looked at him. Hard.
"Be careful what you relate to."
They reached the village at dusk.
The sky was bruised purple. No birds. No dogs barking. Just the wind.
And then—
A cry.
Piercing. Inhuman.
Keiran drew the wand instinctively. The air around them stilled.
A figure emerged.
Staggering. Twitching. Built like a man, but moving wrong—too many joints, like marionette strings in a loop.
Its face was blank.
Except for the brands.
Dozens. Carved into skin like scripture. Burning faint red.
Keiran stepped forward.
It froze.
And spoke.
"...VAYNE..."
He flinched.
Rell readied her blade. "Don't respond."
But the mark on Keiran's wrist had already started glowing.
And then—
It spoke back.
A wordless surge. A jolt through his spine.
Keiran saw not the creature—but its last memory.
A boy. Locked in a sanctum.
Scripted with false names until his own burned away.
He screamed one name last.
Keiran.
And then they branded it out of him.
Keiran stepped forward.
The Cursemade lunged.
Rell shouted—too late.
Keiran raised the wand.
The mark surged—
And something tore.
Light. Not bright.
But deep.
Memory unraveling in midair.
Keiran reached inside the Cursemade—not physically, but through the memory itself.
And rewrote it.
"You were not me," he whispered. "But you remembered me. That's enough."
The Cursemade stilled.
Trembled.
Then—
Collapsed.
Silent.
The brands faded.
And its body crumbled into ash.
Rell approached slowly.
Watching him like something sharp.
"What did you just do?"
Keiran didn't answer.
The wand in his hand had melted into dust.
The mark on his wrist had changed.
New lines.
Twisting toward his palm, forming a spiral.
A glyph he didn't know pulsed in the center.
Rell touched his arm, then yanked back like burned.
"That's Warden-script," she muttered. "But... inverted."
"What does it mean?"
She looked pale.
"It means your mark isn't cursed."
"Then what is it?"
Rell backed up one step.
"It's hungry."
That night, Keiran dreamed of candles again.
But this time, they fed on something.
Not wax. Not oil.
Names.