Kael didn’t even know his name.
He was just another casualty of the fire that gutted the east quarter — one of the oldest in Red Hollow. The blaze hadn’t touched his skin, but the smoke had hollowed him out. His eyes were red-rimmed, his breath shallow, wheezing like an old bellows.
They had dragged him to the sanctuary steps, where Deyna and Solma tried to make him comfortable.
Kael stood near the doorway, watching.
And then… the priest began to mutter.
At first, it was nonsense — fragments of prayers, warnings, and forgotten names.
But then, his voice shifted. Grew sharper. A whisper, yet laced with urgency.
“The mark… hand… I saw it again…”
Solma knelt beside him. “Whose hand, priest?”
He looked directly at Kael.
Then past him.
As if someone else stood behind.
“He was there. At the fire. Watching… He never left…”
The priest gripped Deyna’s cloak with his last ounce of strength.
“The name… his name is… Zai—”
And then he was gone.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
A final breath, then silence.
Deyna froze. “Zai…?”
Solma lowered the priest’s hands. “That name is not to be spoken. Not without cause.”
“You know it?” Kael asked.
“No,” Solma said. “But I felt it. When he said it, something inside me… remembered being afraid.”
That night, Kael couldn’t sleep.
He’d barely spoken since the fire, and the name clung to him like smoke.
When he finally drifted into dreams, they weren’t dreams at all.
He stood in a ruined city — black towers twisted in the sky, ash falling like snow.
In the distance, a figure walked toward him — slow, deliberate, a hood pulled over his head.
Kael tried to run, but his feet wouldn't move. The figure kept coming.
As he drew closer, Kael saw the hand.
A black glove. Torn. And beneath it — a faint birthmark — a swirl of red ink over pale skin.
The same mark Kael had on his chest.
The figure stopped.
Kael looked down at his own hands.
He was holding a knife. The same one from the vision in Chapter 3.
The figure raised its hand slowly.
And Kael whispered, without knowing why:
“Zai…”
He woke up gasping.
Sweat poured down his back. He stumbled to the desk and found a knife.
And without realizing it, his hand moved on its own — carving the letters into the wood:
Z A I
He didn’t stop until his fingers bled.
The next morning, Solma found him asleep at the desk.
She saw the name carved into the grain.
And she said nothing.
But she stared at it for a long time.
Then whispered to herself:
“It begins again.”
Elsewhere, in a dark place lit only by a thousand candles, the Masked Man stood before a stone basin. The surface rippled.
He watched Kael sleep.
Watched the blood on his fingers.
And said nothing.
But beneath his glove, the birthmark pulsed.
?? Author Note – After Chapter 4: The Name Unspoken
that escalated. ??
If you’re freaking out about the name “Zai” — good. You should be.
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is Zai?
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See you in Chapter 5.
[Nova Childers]
What’s Your Theory?