The Mark Beneath

reaks, with tension strung between each brick and rafter like the taut thread of a waiting harp. Caelan

g with a hunger too precise to be illusion, and as he walked, his footsteps echoed

in but in recognition, as though the very walls knew what he was

ng windows was blue, not from the moon itself, but from something old

outside

other door, but t

echoing down the corridor like a spine cracking

, pale as salt and stil

irl from

feren

nted onto the air, her outline breaking at

, careful not to

her voice was the scrape o

id no

ung, impossibly sad, and her eyes were not

it," she

n at his wrist

glowed

im, hand trembling l

gan wi

ssed through his skin, leavin

ant he saw

ro

ell t

ward that swallow

been t

irst

hed with th

, tragic a

o die. The first

sky outside, but t

nd of breath bein

tur

her

iv

e

s w

th

ssion, her tray of book

r too," she

nodded

st girl

vani

ward, into the wi

l approache

're

dded

Ast

starlight an

ela

her head, s

e her. Not wit

nce conf

n books, the pages open to diagrams o

tell you

ok his

to all who bear the mark-the fir

ched be

of us ar

ked at th

irl's refle

'd think. Fewe

the mark aga

't just

s a b

r the school," Astra sa

hat sings in

ask how

eard i

ht since

ing hum benea

without

umm

a while, listening to

below, somet

, her hands trembling as if she

ark... we're not saf

rply. "You mean the

r chest. "It protects and imprisons in equal measu

ine that had nothing

the window, now with a flicker of

ce whispered faintly.

k, his eyes meetin

seed of something ol

behind them growing cold again, as if the spa

lway, a fain

e towe

alle

dd

ll

nd without a word began to follow t

s that had bee

s carved in for

aelan's wrist pulsed stronger

te that groaned open fo

d downward, cloaked

ed, but he de

es he didn't recognize

y of the school, o

ed not their faces, but their

mber was a stone circle,

hand and placed it a

pward in a bloo

the song

u

iv

ng

idn't pu

he light

knowle

thing speak th

ended, they we

ed with moons that

mark was no l

become

do

ng was comi