Page 6 of The First Scar
The Nullatheon was spreading. Not just north. Not just through abandoned shrines and camps. It was moving inward.
It was getting closer to home, to us, and we were running out of time.
My hand clenched around Serenya's fingers. Her palm was cold and slick, her grip bruising, and when our eyes met I couldn't tell whose fear it was. Only that it was real and rising.
The captain's voice continued:
"And the people?"
"Alive but bewildered. They had no memory of what passed. We watched them vanish. We waited. We watched them return. And they looked at us like it had never happened," the Hunter responded solemnly.
His eyes shifted toward the temple spires like the gods owed him a briefing.
"Shadowmark infection?" he asked.
There it was. The reflex. Something goes wrong, blame the dark marks. Every time.
Her eyes widened for a split second. Her reply came too fast.
"No."
Then slower, like a correction. Certainty caged behind careful teeth.
"Possibly. But… no corrupted sigils or inverted light." She hesitated. "Nothing visible."
Smart lady. She knew what she'd seen, and she knew what would happen if she said it out loud. I respected that. Didn't trust it. But respected it.
My knees scraped into the cobblestones. I shifted my weight, slow, careful, and the barrel groaned against my shoulder. Serenya's fingers dug harder into my wrist.
"Then they're lying. Or cursed."
He snapped his fingers, and a scribe shuffled forward, ink-stained and pale, scroll already unfurled.
"Get word to the Square of Names," the captain said. "The Sorting begins now. Every child of age—accounted for before the last bell."
The scribe blinked. "Sir, the Sorting isn't scheduled until—"
"I don't care when it was scheduled," he hissed.
A bead of sweat slid down the back of my neck and snagged in my collar. The barrel radiated the day's heat onto my face. I pressed closer anyway.
"If the Nullatheon is moving with intent, we cannot have unsorted marks walking free in this city. Every shadowmarked child is a crack in the wall. A conduit. You want to wait until dusk to find out which ones the fracture can reach us through?"
A conduit. That's what they called us. Never children, never people. Just cracks to be sealed.
He turned back to the Hunter. "You said the mist moved. Did it move toward populated centers or outposts?"
"Centers," she said quietly. "Every time."
"Then we sort them now. Separate them. Contain the risk before the risk becomes a body count." He gestured sharply at the scribe. "Go."
Serenya went rigid beside me.
The scribe went.
My blood turned to ice. Two hours. We'd had two hours. And a male with a title and a convenient suspicion just burned them to nothing.
I looked at Serenya. Her face had gone white. She was already doing the math—same as me. The boy. The balm. The distance still between us and his door.
