The wind carried and smell of smock long before we saw it.
We ran.
My legs ached from the endless drills Kael had forced me through earlier, but fear burned hotter than thr pain. She was already ahead, moving like she belong to the shadows – fast, fluid, dangerous. I chased her down narrow alleys, and shattered streets, barely keeping up as alarms wailed across the district.
Our handout – the only place that had ever felt like safety since i met her – was now gone.
"We can't go back," Kael hissed, yanking me under a rusted stairwall as a squad of Royal Soldiers passed over head.
Their boots clanged against metal, their visors glowing red in the misty dark. "They tracked your Mark."
"I didn't mean to burn anything," I whispered. "It just – it happened."
Kael eyes scanned the streets, her jews clenched. "You didn't mess up . They were looking for a reason. You just gave them an excuse."
Her words weren't cruel. They were..... sharp. Real.
I followed her in silence, heart pounding. The streets were crawling. Drones drifted through the air like slience predators, their scan lighting up walls and corpses. Bodies from other raids. Innocents caught in crossfire. My stomach twisted.
"We need to disappear" she said, tugging me down
Into a sewage tunnel beneath the marketplace. It smells like rust, rot and oil. "There is an old output near the bridge. If it haven't been found, we can regroup."
I nooded, wiping grime from my cheeks. "Do you thry know who i am?"
Kael glanced back, and for a split of second, something flickered in her expression.
"They will soon"
—
The outpost was buried under what used to be a train station. We reached it after crawling two collapsed tunnels and swimming through a drainage pipe that nearly made me vomit.
Kael punched in an ancient code st the streets door. It creaked open like it haven't been touched in years.
Inside: dusty lights, old maps, survival kits and one working generator humming in the corner. The air was thick with mold, but i didn't care. I sank to the floor, shaking.
"I almost got us killed" i muttered.
"You're not dead," she said. "That means you're doing better than most."
I met her eyes. "Why do you keep saving me?"
She paused.
"Because you remind me of someone," she said. "Someone who didn't make it."
I wanted to ask more, but Kael stood and threw me a blanket.
"Get warm. We're not safe here for long."
I curled into the cot in the corner, wrapping the blanket tight around me. My Mark — the strange glowing symbol on my wrist — pulsed softly. Like it was dreaming.
I didn't know if it was trying to warn me, or wake something up inside me.
—
I must've dozed off.
When I woke, the room was dark.
The only light came from a candle on the desk.
Kael sat beside it, shirtless, tending to a wound on her shoulder.
"You're bleeding," I said quietly.
She didn't flinch. "Not the worst I've had."
"Let me help."
I stood, walked over, and knelt beside her. Her skin was warm under my fingers. I took a cloth from the table and gently dabbed the cut. Kael tensed, then relaxed.
"Why do you always pretend nothing hurts?" I asked.
She gave a bitter smile. "Because if I feel everything… I might not survive anything."
I didn't know what to say to that. So I just cleaned her wound.
When I was done, she reached out and touched my wrist.
The Mark.
"Have you heard it yet?" she asked.
I blinked. "Heard what?"
She tilted her head. "The voice."
I opened my mouth to ask more — but then I heard it.
A whisper.
Faint. Inside me. Like it had been waiting for the moment I paid attention.
I gasped.
Kael nodded. "It's starting."
—
That night, I dreamed.
I was standing in a field of ash.
The sky burned orange.
Shadows moved all around me — too fast to catch, too loud to ignore. And then I saw her.
A girl with eyes like fire. She looked just like me.
Older. Stronger.
She pointed toward a ruined city and whispered something I couldn't understand.
I woke up with a scream stuck in my throat.
Kael was already awake, blade drawn. "What did you see?"
I shook my head. "I think I saw... the future."
She didn't laugh.
She didn't question it.
She just said, "Then we need to move."
—
Morning arrived with tension in the air. The city above was still burning. From a rooftop nearby, we watched smoke curl into the sky.
Kael handed me a file — encrypted, old, hard to read. "These are the others. The ones who didn't make it."
Dozens of names.
Dates.
Methods of death.
All Marked.
"This is what we're fighting," she said. "Not just the Queen. Not just her army. We're fighting time.
Prophecy. The idea that none of us live past 18."
I closed the file, stomach turning.
"What if I don't want this?" I asked.
Kael's face softened. "None of us did."
She stood and walked to the edge of the rooftop.
"I used to think my Mark was a curse," she said. "But maybe it's a map."
I joined her.
And for the first time, I reached out...
...and held her hand.
She didn't pull away.
We stood like that, two shadows against a burning skyline.
Two girls wrapped in fear, fire, and something dangerously close to faith.
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To Be Continued....
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