The fire hissed suddenly, a sharp pop followed by a trail of smoke that curled sideways in the wrong direction. Kazi straightened, her heart skipping a beat. She looked around.
The wind hadn't shifted, only the fire had.
Zuberi turned his head slightly. "Something's not right."
Dakarai was already on his feet, voltage crackling faintly between his fingertips. "I felt that too. Like a… pressure drop."
Kazi rose slowly, her Mark warming beneath her skin. A flicker of fire danced in her palm, not from threat, but from instinct. Nothing had happened yet… but her body knew before her mind did. Something was coming.
The fire dimmed, not from lack of fuel, but like it was being smothered.
Then the ground groaned.
It wasn't a quake. It was deeper, a grinding shift in the stone below, like a seal straining against something pushing upward.
Rhazir stood at last. He didn't reach for a weapon or ignite his Mark. He just watched the center of camp.
Zuberi backed away from the circle of campfire. "It's coming from beneath us."
"Everyone move!" Kazi barked, fire blooming in her palms.
But they didn't get the chance.
The earth cracked open at the edge of their camp, a jagged seam splitting between stones. From it, a column of black mist burst upward, swirling and twisting into the air like a reversed waterfall.
And then came the Umbral.
They rose from the mist, one, then three, then more. Dozens. Shifting, translucent forms made of darkness and resonance. Humanoid in shape, but not in movement. They floated above the ground like marionettes underwater, limbs flickering, heads twitching unnaturally. No faces. No sound.
Only hunger.
Kazi threw the first flame. A streak of ember fire lashed across the closest creature, and passed through it. The Umbral staggered slightly but didn't fall. It turned toward her, the front of its body shivering as if recognizing her.
Dakarai leapt forward, hurling a bolt of electricity that exploded through two of them. One flickered and collapsed, its form unraveling into smoke. The other convulsed, then re-formed like steam folding into itself.
"They're not solid!" he shouted.
"Then hit harder!" Kazi yelled, spinning with another whip of flame. This time she condensed the fire into a concentrated lance and drove it through the center of a smaller Umbral. The creature shrieked, a resonance scream without sound, and dissolved into ash.
Zuberi stepped between her and an oncoming shadow, raising both arms. The stone beneath his feet cracked and surged upward in a jagged wave, slamming into the Umbral and tossing it back. Another came from the side, its limbs stretching unnaturally as it lunged.
Zuberi didn't turn fast enough.
It struck him across the chest with a tendril of shadow, then began to wrap itself around him.
The tendril coiled around his Marked arm.
Kazi screamed, blasting the creature apart in a surge of fire, but it was too late.
Zuberi dropped to the ground, clutching his arm, the one with the Mark. His breath hitched as if something foreign had threaded itself under his skin, twisting. His Mark was glowing too brightly, not the steady bronze of before, but a fractured pulse of amber and violet, the edges shifting like oil on water.
"Zuberi!" Dakarai dropped beside him, catching his shoulder. "You good? Talk to me!"
Zuberi gasped. "I… I can't feel my hand."
Another Umbral closed in behind them.
Rhazir finally stepped forward, extending his hand. Shadows rippled at his feet, and three Umbral hesitated mid-lunge. They tilted their heads, like animals sniffing something familiar, and withdrew.
Kazi noticed. Her eyes narrowed, but she didn't have time to question it.
"Retreat!" she yelled. "We can't win this here!"
Dakarai hoisted Zuberi up. "Which way?"
Rhazir pointed. "There's a crevice through the east wall. It leads out of the basin."
"You knew?" Kazi barked.
"I suspected," he replied coldly.
She didn't argue.
The four of them broke toward the east side of the hollow. The Umbral followed, not fast, but relentless. They glided like smoke through the trees, twisting between branches, crawling along the walls.
Zuberi stumbled, his steps uneven.
Dakarai kept him upright with one arm while hurling bolts with the other.
Kazi turned and hurled fire behind them in a wide arc, igniting the grass to slow the creatures down.
The mist responded by rising thicker.
The exit came into view, a narrow break in the rock wall, barely wide enough for them to squeeze through.
Kazi went first, then Dakarai dragged Zuberi through. Rhazir came last, one hand on the stone behind them. As he passed, he whispered something under his breath, and the rock shifted, sealing the crack shut behind them with a muffled boom.
Silence.
They stood in a shallow ravine just beyond the hollow's edge, panting. No one spoke.
Zuberi slumped against the stone, his face pale, his arm limp at his side. The Mark along his skin still glowed, but not bronze. Something in between bronze and violet.
Kazi crouched in front of him. "What do you feel?"
He shook his head. "It's not pain. It's like… like it's not mine anymore."
Dakarai's hands clenched.
Kazi stood and turned to Rhazir.
"You knew that would happen."
Rhazir didn't deny it.
"The seal was meant to last longer," he said. "I knew it was weakening but I didn't know what would wake… or who it would reach."
"What do you mean?" Kazi snapped. "Did you know they would be here? Did you know they could infect our Mark?" She questioned.
Rhazir looked at Zuberi, and began studying him.
"Then he'll be the first."
"The first to what?" Kazi said angrily.
Rhazir said nothing and walked away towards the nearby ridge.
They camped again miles from the hollow, not speaking much.
Zuberi lay by the fire, wrapped in blankets, his eyes flicking toward his Mark every few minutes. Dakarai sat near him, silent, but on alert, ready for anything.
Kazi sat with her fists clenched, elbows resting on her knees as she stared into the fire. Sparks flickered across her knuckles, her Mark faintly responding to the tension and unease she was feeling.
She began to ponder over everything that had just transpired. She had faced the Umbral before, in the clearing where they found Dakarai, and again in the Fracture. But this was different.
They had never come in such numbers. Never risen from beneath the very earth like they belonged to it.
And never… reacted like this.
Her eyes slid toward Rhazir, still standing alone on the ridge, his cloak unmoving in the dead wind. He hadn't lifted a hand until the very end… and when he did, the Umbral recoiled.
She didn't say it aloud, but it echoed loud in her thoughts:
They knew him.
Zuberi stirred in his blanket.
His eyes fluttered open for a moment, glazed with something distant. A flicker of violet pulsed faintly beneath his skin and gone as quickly as it came.
He blinked, confused.
For a brief moment, he could hear something whispering to him.
And calling him by name.
And though the whisper faded, its presence lingered, like an echo stitched behind his thoughts, waiting for silence to speak again.