The air reeked of iron and smoke.

  A field that had once been green now bore only ruin—mud slick with blood, shattered weapons jutting from the earth like broken teeth, and bodies strewn in every direction. It looked less like a battle had been fought and more like a massacre had been declared.

  At the center of the slaughter, he stood.

  A man—or something like one—draped in a torn hooded cloak. The fabric clung to him, soaked with rain and red. His head hung low, face shadowed beneath the hood. He wasn’t breathing heavy. He didn’t stagger. He stood in complete stillness, like death itself had taken root in him and forgotten to leave.

  All around him, no survivors stirred.

  The only movement was the slow swirl of ash in the wind and the flickering flame from a half-burned banner at his feet.

  Up the hill, behind the charred remains of a siege cart, a boy crouched low, watching.

  Kael pressed his fingers to the splintered wood, knuckles white. His chest ached from holding his breath for so long, but he dared not move. Not yet. Not while he was still there.

  He had seen the man arrive earlier, just before the chaos began. Alone. No soldiers. No warnings. And in minutes, the screaming started.

  It stopped just as fast.

  Now, there was only this terrifying silence. It pressed into Kael’s ears until it roared.

  He peeked out again.

  The hooded man turned slowly, his head rising as if sniffing the air. Kael shrank back instinctively, heart pounding. Had he seen him? Heard him?

  But the man didn’t move toward him. Instead, he bent down, almost reverently, and pressed something into the dirt. Then he stood once more… and walked away.

  Kael waited until he disappeared over the hill before forcing himself to move.

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  His legs trembled as he stood. Every instinct screamed to run the other way—but his curiosity was louder. Always had been. It was what got him into trouble in the slums of Elvara and what brought him here in the first place. It was also what had saved his life more than once.

  He climbed down the hill, boots sinking into thick mud with each step. The closer he got to the center, the more his hands began to shake.

  The bodies were still warm.

  Soldiers, mercenaries, even two mounted warhorses—all dead. Not by fire. Not by arrows. By hands. Torn. Crushed. Broken.

  Who was he?

  Kael’s eyes fell to the place where the man had knelt. At first, he saw nothing. Then the glint of something caught his eye—a symbol, carved freshly into a flat piece of stone jutting from the earth.

  A perfect circle.

  Split down the middle by a jagged line.

  Kael knelt beside it, reached out, and placed his fingers on the mark.

  The moment his skin touched stone, his mind exploded.

  He was no longer in the field.

  He was inside it.

  Swords clashed around him. Screams echoed in his ears. Fire licked the sky. Blood rained in thick droplets from unseen wounds. And at the center of it all—the same hooded figure, moving like smoke, like wrath given shape.

  Kael stood frozen as the figure passed through a line of enemy soldiers. One moment they stood, the next they fell, as if something had stolen the breath from their lungs before they could scream.

  The man turned.

  And for one heartbeat, Kael saw his face beneath the hood—

  Burned. Scarred. But the eyes...

  They looked like his.

  He gasped and was ripped back into reality.

  Fell backwards into the mud, coughing, breath ragged. The symbol still glowed faintly beneath him.

  He scrambled away, wiping mud from his face, heart thundering. His fingers trembled uncontrollably.

  What had just happened? A vision? A dream?

  No. It was real.

  Too real.

  Kael looked over the field again. Nothing moved. But something had changed inside him. Something was stirring—something ancient and loud and screaming to be heard.

  He pressed a hand to his chest. It was warm. Too warm. Like something inside him had been unlocked.

  He didn’t know what the mark meant.

  He didn’t know who that man was.

  But for some reason, he felt like this had all happened before.

  And that next time, he wouldn’t just be watching.

  Kael’s world is just starting to crack open — and trust me, what lies beneath is far from ordinary.

  What really happened on that battlefield?

  And why does Kael feel like he's connected to something ancient — something lost?

  See you in Chapter 2: Rumors in Red Hollow.

  Don’t blink. ??

  A.N.