Page 5 of The First Scar
The horn. Hollow. Final.
It split the hush like a curse through prayer.
The city gates screamed as they opened, the sound of stone yielding to what it was never meant to hold.
Velmyra's ancient doors heaved apart, the metal grinding on stone.
My legs should've moved, but didn't. I was nailed in place, like a saint pinned down before her miracle could rise. I knew what came next. Every child raised in the inner quarters did. You didn't mistake the sound of the gates. Or what followed it.
And then they emerged.
The Hunters.
The horn. My chest clenched. That sound only meant one thing: the Hunters had returned from the Veil rupture scout. And if they were here, the fracture had gotten worse.
Every time Hunters rode back through those gates, the Crown cracked down. Tighter sweeps. Faster Sortings. Shadowmarked dragged to the square before their families could say goodbye—because nothing soothed a frightened city like a scapegoat. My hand went to my satchel. We were on schedule five minutes ago. I wasn't sure we still were.
The crowd peeled back, pressing into doorways and pulling children close, leaving the main road bare. We knew better than to stand in the path of what came through those gates.
Serenya met my gaze and we rushed to crouch behind the wheel of an overturned cart, the wood splintered and slick beneath my palms, iron rim warm from the day's heat.
Through the broken spokes, I saw the riders emerging, cloaks ash-drenched, horses foam-streaked and quaking. The animals stumbled forward, ridden too hard for too long, flanks spasming. Eyes wide, their hooves scraped over scorched flagstones, chipped where old warding runes had faded to nothing.
The riders were worse off. Their leathers were streaked with blood gone black at the seams, crusted mud flaking as they moved. Even their blades looked weary—dulled not by miles, but bya corruption that didn't wash off. A scabbard swung low as one dismounted. The scent of iron lingered, faint but stubborn. I crouched lower, the sweat cooling along the back of my neck. They weren't marked by grime alone—but by a stillness that only follows the unnatural.
At their front rode a female with a moon-white braid and a gauntlet scorched to ruin, blackened metal still clinging to herwrist. She dismounted in one ripple-smooth motion, urgency radiating off her. Dust kicked up as she landed. The captain stepped forward from the gate, braced and tense for the news from the Hunters.
I needed to hear what storm she carried. Serenya met my eye and I raised two fingers to my lips, then motioned forward. Stupid, probably. Eavesdropping on Hunters ten feet from a gate full of Enforcers. But stupid was how we'd survived this long, so why stop now? We kept hidden, slipping between carts and tethered horses. Every bootfall placed with care.
Then—
A clipped voice. "Well?"
The captain was in crown-blue and gold-threaded regalia. He stood beside that dead brazier like he expected it to light itself for him.
The lead Hunter pulled a scroll from her saddlebags. Her voice rasped, deep and scarred.
“The entire city, Sir. Halemar vanished at dusk and returned at dawn. There were no signs of battle, no scorch marks, or bloody trails... They just... vanished."
She pinned him with her steel-dark gaze—
"And then reappeared. They were whole, breathing—and wrong."
Serenya's hand found mine. "That's near Roen's Hollow," she whispered. Her composure cracking. Near home. Two days' ride from here. One, if you didn't stop. If the rupture reached it...
But the Hunter spoke again.
"The mist from the Veil fracture moved."
The world went still.
A prayer banner twisted once in a window above. Then stilled—its scripture unreadable in the smoky air.
The mist wasn't just bleeding through the Veil. It was moving—with intent.
"They've started calling it—what's leaking through the rupture—the Nullatheon," the Hunter continued.
My stomach cramped. I turned to Serenya. "It's getting closer," I said flatly.
