Something is wrong with the sky.
Every night, Mara would compulsively count the stars—eleven when there should be twelve, and twelve when there should not be any. However, the thirteenth...
The thirteenth was watching.
It was a dull ache in her scar that ticked in time with her nightmares. She stood in them in front of a mirror that reflected only one emerald eye.
"You are the door now," the reflection muttered. "And doors swing both ways."
…..
Veyra's memories seeped into his conscious awareness.
He witnessed everything she saw, including the first Dawnheir ceremony, the actual nature of the black cup, and her realization that the Thirsty King was never human.
"We didn't summon him," she said, echoing in his mind. "He was released by us."
One side of his new scar was fever-hot, the other icy, and when he touched it, it burned.
Promises were whispered by the hybrid thorn in his palm.
"Look for the others. Reforge the cup."
…..
He recalled everything.
The voice of the Thirsty King in his bones.
The feel of those damned symbols being carved by his own hands. The ecstasy of giving up control.
According to the healers, his body was free of thorns and void corruption.
They were wrong.
Every time he closed his eyes, Jarek saw the truth, a black stain the King had left on his soul.
And he kept hearing the same thing in his dreams.
"The last Ravenscroft must die."
….
The boy approached Mara at sunset, his eyes haunted but clear.
"It's growing in the dark places," he whispered. "The thing that was not completely killed."
His hand touched her scar.
It was a vision.
Deep under the ruins was a cavern, its walls throbbing with veins of liquid shadow.
On an altar, a stone cup with a cracked rim.
The dripping darkness was collected into the vessel by a figure dressed in starlight.
The boy gulped.
"He's not the only one who remembers."
…..
His name was Dain.
Wearing robes made of a material that alternated between silk and smoke, he appeared at the edge of the destroyed city at dawn.
He was followed by a faint chime of celestial harmonies, which naturally attracted the children to him.
He grinned and his eyes flashed with twelve points of light when Mara confronted him.
"I've come to finish what the Dawnheirs began," he said, placing a hand on the spot where a familiar scar pulsed on his chest. "The Feast is not complete without all thirteen thorns."
His gaze shifted from her to Ethan.
"Even the broken ones."
When Dain said that, the hybrid thorn screamed in his hands.
Veyra's memories came flooding back.
This was not an ally.
This was the first betrayer.
The Dawnheir who had whispered to the Thirsty King.
Ethan instinctively swung his void-hand out.
Dain caught it with ease, starlight blazing in his fingers.
"Still fighting your nature, Watcher? You were made to consume."
His breath smelled of old blood and ozone as he leaned in.
"She did not tell you who you really are, did she? The first success."
Mara's scar ruptured that night.
Not with suffering, but with understanding.
The visions came in bits and pieces.
Veyra is standing over the body of a boy who has Ethan's eyes.
There was liquid void spilling over the black cup.
The sound of a whisper. "The Watchers never served as protectors. They were vessels."
Dain was standing over her when she woke up, her golden-black blood dripping from his hand.
"The door opens," he murmured. "And there is more waiting on the other side than just the Thirsty King."
…..
From the shadows, Jarek observed Dain at work, his fingers tracing symbols that sent chills through the ruins.
The children chanted the original ritual as they followed him like disciples, their mouths moving in unison, and their eyes shimmered.
The Ravenscroft dagger trembled in Jarek's grip.
He knew what he had to do.
It started at midnight.
The sound of something ancient waking from a long sleep caused the sky to split, not with a crack but rather with a sigh.
There was a new light where there had been nothing, the first emerald, then deepening to the black-green of decaying wood.
The thirteenth star didn't just appear.
It played out.
And a voice resounded from its heart.
"I remember my name."