Page 9 of The First Scar
The boy who'd sworn he'd protect me. No matter what.
I never heard the sentence they gave, or saw where they shipped him off to.
I only knew it was the last day I ever saw my brother.
That was what it meant, sometimes. To be claimed.
I blinked back tears as the first child was called forward.
A girl, slight, quivering, but composed. Her soulmark shimmered gold across her sternum, pulsing like a second heartbeat.
Flame of Clarity.
A Gift of Order.
The priest's staff struck the marble with an echoing crack.
"You are Luminar," the priest intoned, the old rite sliding too easily off his tongue. "Order from fracture. Light from ruin. Assigned to the Temple Scribes."
The crowd exhaled. Soft murmurs, the rustle of robes, the sigh of a family whose child had drawn a lucky mark. As if that made any of this holy.
I shifted my weight. My boots had gone numb against the cobblestones. Behind me, a lady was praying under her breath—the same three words, over and over, fast enough to blur.
Safe. Safe. Safe.
The second child was called: Song of Sorrow. A boy this time.
His mark flickered faintly, empathy most likely, and I found myself hoping it would rank as a minor Luminar trait—something high enough to keep him out of the dark.
The priest hesitated, eyes narrowing, glancing again at the shimmer across the boy's chest. He waited a beat too long. Said nothing.
"Labor class," he intoned finally. "Nurse-Caste."
A collective exhale rippled through the crowd.
Low rank. Scrubbing wounds and emptying bedpans for the rest of his life. The crowd relaxed like that was mercy.
The torches on the dais popped and guttered. Shadows jumped across the children's skin, and the crowd pressed closer, bodies closing the gaps like the square itself was shrinking.
Then came the third.
Bone-Spiral of Hollow Echoes. No one had to explain what that Mark meant. We felt it from where we stood, grief with magnetic hooks. Gasps broke across the crowd before the boy had taken his first step.
The child stepped forward, face unreadable, eyes too old for his frame, his Shadowmark burning dark and strange. He didn't break eye contact with the priest—not even when the priest's voice shifted, cutting and absolute.
"Shadowmarked. Bound for the Veil Mines."
Beside me, Serenya sucked in a breath. I felt her shiver before I heard her speak.
"They shouldn't speak his name. That Mark eats memory. Every word roots it deeper."
I looked away. Not from pity but from fury. That boy had more backbone than the whole damn square, and they tossed him into the dark like spoiled fruit, like the gods would thank them for it. My hands clenched. I knew that look, that defiance. I wore it once, before I learned what it could cost.
The worst part wasn't the fear. It was the silence, the way no one spoke up. Not the priests, not the guards, not the parents clutching their spared children. They all looked away like that boy's courage didn't matter. Like it never had.
My rage was building. I crushed it down. Feelings got people dead.
Then—
