Chapter 4 – The Mark Beneath Light
The mark on Vael's wrist looked like a smudge at first — a barely visible blur under the skin, as if it were ink sunk too deep to shine. But as he turned his hand under the rising sun, the shadows shifted, and the mark moved.
It wasn't still.
It breathed.
And when he focused, he could make out its shape — not a sigil like the others had during the Rite of Marking, but a fractured symbol, broken in three pieces, each one floating just apart from the other.
A Mark made of absence.
A Mark never meant to be seen.
---
By the time Vael returned to the village, Mireal was waiting on the steps, arms tucked around her knees.
"You were gone all night," she said, eyes tired.
"I found something," Vael replied. "Or someone."
He held out his wrist.
Mireal leaned forward. Then froze.
"That's… not possible."
"I didn't think it was, either."
She reached out, hesitated, and then pressed her fingers lightly to the shadowed mark.
It burned cold beneath her touch, and a flicker of something passed between them — like a whisper in a language she didn't know.
Mireal pulled back.
"That's not a Fate Mark. It's… something else."
"I think it's mine," Vael said softly. "The one they couldn't see."
---
That night, as Mireal slept restlessly in the other room, Vael sat by the window, staring at the moon.
The Threads were easier to see now. Sharper. More vivid. Some pulsed with emotion. Others flickered like dying embers.
He looked down at his own — the silver Thread that tied to his chest.
But now… there was a second one.
It curled out from the new mark on his wrist — a thread of shadow, barely visible even with his awakened sight. It didn't move like the others. It slithered.
And it led nowhere.
Not to a place.
Not to a person.
But up — toward the sky.
Toward something watching.
---
Far above Caelondia, beyond mortal sight, the Scriptorium stirred.
A massive celestial dome — half-library, half-machine — where glowing hands of light endlessly transcribed the fates of all living beings into eternal scrolls.
But tonight, one of those hands paused.
Its flame flickered.
A single scroll — long and inked in silver — began to unravel itself, as if confused.
At the top, the name: Vael.
Below it, a string of threads once marked as "Unwritten."
Now, three lines had formed.
* One of silver.
* One of shadow.
* One… not yet known.
The Scriptorium's bells tolled once.
A cold, divine voice echoed through the chamber.
"Deviation detected."
"Unmarked, now Marked."
"Thread anomaly: Weaving outside the Script."
Silence followed.
Then a second voice whispered — quiet, feminine, ancient.
"He sees."
---
Back in Ilnar, Vael blinked, shivering.
He didn't know why.
But somewhere, something had just noticed him.