Chapter Five: The Mark Beneath Her Skin
The pendant no longer glowed, but Aria still felt it burning.
Even after they escaped the woods and slipped back into town unnoticed, something inside her hadn't settled. It buzzed beneath her skin—like a second heartbeat that didn't belong to her.
Kael walked beside her, silent, keeping to the shadows.
When they reached her house, he paused at the gate.
"You need to rest," he said. "The pendant takes more from you each time you use it."
"You mean it's mine?" Aria asked. "I thought you were just letting me borrow it."
"It's bound to you now," Kael replied. "I only carried it until you were ready."
"Ready for what?"
His eyes flicked to the sky, where the moon still hung—too bright, too large. "To choose what kind of power you want to wield. Light… or shadow."
---
Later that night, Aria stood in front of her mirror, holding the pendant in one hand. Her skin was pale under the silver light. Her fingers trembled.
She turned, pulling up her sleeve.
There, on the inside of her wrist, something had surfaced: a faint mark, circular, made of interlocking crescent shapes. Like a sigil—alive, ancient, and pulsing faintly beneath the skin.
She hadn't seen it before.
It hadn't been there before.
She pressed her fingers to it and gasped.
A vision crashed through her—like falling into ice:
> Firelight.
Her mother screaming.
A voice whispering, "She is the key."
And Kael—standing in the clearing, younger, colder, not quite himself.
Then the vision snapped away.
---
The next morning, Aria didn't go to school.
Instead, she sat outside on the porch swing, trying to sketch what she'd seen. Her pencil couldn't capture it—the swirling energy, the mark, Kael's unreadable eyes in that moment.
Lena texted her: Hey, where r u?? School's weird w/o u. Kael's not here either. Thought you two were off eloping or summoning ghosts together 💀
Aria smiled faintly, then froze.
Kael wasn't at school either?
Her phone buzzed again. A new message. Not from Lena. No name. Just a number.
Unknown: You're not safe. He's not what you think he is.
Her chest tightened. She stared at the screen, fingers hovering over the reply button.
Then—
A knock on the porch railing.
She looked up.
Kael.
He leaned casually, but his eyes were darker than she remembered—like something inside him had shifted overnight.
"We need to talk," he said. "There's someone I want you to meet."
Aria stood slowly. "Who?"
He reached out his hand again.
"The only other person who survived making a pact."
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