The days bled together after that.
The punishments grew harsher. Food grew scarcer. A new Overseer had been brought in from the north—called Grath. He wore black iron armor even in the heat, and his face was a tapestry of burn scars. His voice was quiet, but it cut deeper than any whip.
"He watches everything," Mira whispered. "Like he already knows what you'll do before you do it."
Kael didn't doubt it. Grath had the eyes of a killer, and worse—the patience of one.
But Kael had something else. He had the scroll.
And it was changing him.
Late one night, after the guards had made their rounds, Kael knelt over the parchment again. Renn and Brenn were asleep nearby, their backs to the cold stone. Mira watched, quiet and still.
"What do you see?" she asked.
"Language," he said. "Not words, not like ours. But intent. Each line, each swirl—it's not a symbol, it's a command."
He pointed to one glyph, jagged and sharp like broken teeth: ☌⟁⩫
"This one... it doesn't say 'fire.' It demands fire."
"And can you make it obey?"
Kael smiled grimly. "That's the problem. I don't know what it costs."
The scroll whispered to him in his dreams.
He saw a place of dark glass and endless halls, where minds floated like candles in a black sea. There were voices—some whispering in languages older than bones. One word kept coming back to him.
Dominors.
He woke sweating, throat dry.
He didn't know what they were.
But he knew they were watching.
The opportunity came with the arrival of the engineers.
Once every six months, men from the city of Varn came to inspect the deeper tunnels—artificers in crimson cloaks, bearing strange tools and small machines that hissed steam.
They brought with them a cart covered in canvas. It took six men to push it.
Kael's eyes locked on it immediately.
"What is that?" Brenn whispered.
"Something worth dying for," Kael said.
That night, Kael sat cross-legged beside the glyph scroll. He copied two of the glyphs onto his forearm in blood and soot, feeling their heat settle beneath his skin.
One was the serpent-star again.The other: 🜍⟴⌘☌ — one he had not dared try.
He didn't know its name.
But it felt like unlocking.
They struck the following dawn.
Not with swords or spells. With silence.
Mira lured one of the guards behind the tool shed with a fake injury. Renn and Brenn were waiting. They didn't kill him—just gagged him, knocked him cold.
Kael slipped through the gap in the fence.
The cart was unguarded, the engineers busy measuring tunnel airflows.
He pulled back the canvas—
And froze.
Inside was a sphere of silver glass, etched with glyphs that pulsed faintly.
Alive.
It wasn't just an artifact. It was a prison.
And something inside it stirred as he touched it.
The glyphs on his arm burned.
A voice poured into his skull like molten ice.
You do not belong.
Kael fell to his knees, choking.
The world around him blinked away—he stood in a black void, the orb before him, now huge, floating.
A shape within the orb moved—a shadow with seven arms and no face.
You are not a wielder. You are a seed. Too early. Too small.
Kael gritted his teeth. "Then why am I here?"
Because you called.
The glyphs on his arm flared, a web of heat and sound.
The voice softened.
Very well. Take one. But no more. Not yet.
One glyph peeled off the orb like smoke and branded itself into Kael's mind:
☽⟁⫷⨀ – Varn's Grasp
He woke with a gasp, still crouched beside the cart. Seconds had passed.
The engineers were returning.
He ran.
They made it back just before the next headcount.
Kael was shaking.
Mira sat him down, forced water to his lips. "What happened?"
He tried to explain. The voice. The glyph. The void.
She didn't ask for proof. She just nodded.
"What does the new glyph do?" Renn asked.
Kael stared at the mark on his hand. "I don't know yet."
"But you're going to use it anyway?" Brenn asked, eyebrow raised.
Kael met his gaze.
"I'm going to learn it."
That night, Kael dreamed again.
This time, the candles floated toward him in the dark sea of memory. Each held a face—a villager, a friend, a child from the past. One by one, they dimmed as the sea swallowed them.
Until only his own remained.
Flickering. Fading.
Then something touched it. A symbol. The new glyph.
The candle flared bright. Then exploded.
He woke with a shout.
Everyone else was already awake.
A horn was blaring outside the walls.
Shouts. Fire.
Something had gone wrong.
Grath's voice roared from the courtyard:
"All hands! The south shaft has collapsed! You slaves move or you die!"
Kael looked at the others.
It was chaos outside.
An opportunity.
Or a trap.
He didn't care which.
He touched the glyph on his hand, and it pulsed.
He looked at Renn and Brenn, then at Mira.
"Time to learn what Varn's Grasp can really do."