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Chapter 3: The Shroud of Deception
The silence that followed the disembodied voice was suffocating, as though the forest itself was holding its breath. Reiner's pulse drummed in his ears, a frantic tempo that mirrored the dread unfurling in his chest. He stepped back from the altar, eyes wide as the rune-carved stone continued to pulse with a dark, eldritch light. The symbol of the eye etched itself into his mind, a mark of something far older and more potent than the stories hinted.
He glanced at his hand, the Shadowmark searing now, as though it were branded freshly with hot iron. The pain forced him to his knees, and he gasped, clawing at the ground to steady himself. The chant of the whispers returned, weaving around him in a circle, resonating in the marrow of his bones. But this time, they sang in unity, their cadence hypnotic.
"Corvus," the voices beckoned, entreating yet filled with a threat that left no room for doubt.
Reiner knew that this was no ordinary trial. The Eldergloom was testing him, probing the edges of his sanity. He fought the fog of pain clouding his vision and pushed himself to stand, each breath ragged as he forced control over his body.
"I will not break," he whispered, though the quiver in his voice betrayed his uncertainty. His eyes darted to the journal half-pulled from his satchel, its pages fluttering as if alive, compelled by an unseen force. The ancient runes inked in black seemed to shift, rearranging themselves to form a new passage, one he hadn't read before.
The marked shall find themselves at the gate where the past and the abyss meet. Beware the guardians whose eyes see beyond the veil, for they are neither of the living nor the dead.
The forest trembled as if in response to the revelation. The trees swayed, their gnarled branches creaking like old bones, and the clearing darkened, the soft glow of the witch's lament flowers dimming to embers. Reiner's gaze snapped to the treeline as a figure emerged, limned in shadows yet unmistakably human in shape.
It walked with a grace that belied its height, nearly seven feet tall, draped in a cloak that rippled like oil across water. The face was hidden, but two eyes burned from beneath the hood—not eyes of any mortal being, but orbs of molten silver, swirling and shifting like living metal.
"The Watcher," Reiner murmured, recalling tales Merric had written of the forest's sentinels. Entities older than kings, bound to guard the sanctity of the realm between life and death. But why now? Why him?
The Watcher did not speak. Instead, it raised an arm, elongated and skeletal, and pointed at Reiner's chest. The whispers surged, a tempest of sound, and Reiner's Shadowmark blazed once more. He staggered back, clutching his hand to his chest, eyes locked with the molten silver gaze that seemed to peer straight through his soul.
"What do you want from me?" he gasped.
A soundless wind swept through the clearing, carrying with it the scent of earth and decay. The flowers of witch's lament shriveled, their once-ethereal light snuffed out as if doused by an invisible flame. The altar darkened, and a black mist coiled around it, weaving up and around Reiner's legs, binding him in place.
He struggled, muscles straining against the invisible tether, but the mist only tightened, cold and suffocating. The Watcher moved closer, until its towering form loomed just beyond Reiner's reach. When it spoke, the voice was a rumble, a vibration in the air that spoke to the deepest, most primal part of him.
"To know the truth is to carry the burden," it intoned. "The marked are not chosen by chance, but by blood, bound by the echoes of the first sin."
Reiner's heart lurched. The first sin? He had read fragments in Merric's notes—tales of an ancient betrayal, an act that had cursed entire bloodlines. The realization struck him like a blow. He wasn't just marked; he was tied to whatever dark force had been buried here, centuries before.
"What must I do?" His voice broke on the last word, the question a plea.
The Watcher extended its hand, palm up, revealing a shard of obsidian blacker than the depths of the night sky. It seemed to drink the light around it, pulsing with a heartbeat all its own.
"Take it, and the truth shall bind you," the entity said.
Reiner hesitated, every instinct in his body urging him to run, to flee this place and the horrors it promised. But flight was impossible. The forest would claim him before he reached the nearest village, and the whispers—they would haunt him until madness took root.
With a trembling hand, he reached out, fingers brushing the surface of the shard. A searing pain exploded from the Shadowmark, racing through his veins like liquid fire. He screamed, the sound echoing across the dark expanse of the Eldergloom, drowning out the forest's whispers.
Visions assailed him—blood-streaked battlefields under skies torn asunder by red lightning; figures shrouded in cloaks of black and silver, wielding magic so dark it twisted the very fabric of the world; a throne room where a figure crowned with antlers sat, eyes like pale moons, watching with a smile that promised ruin.
Reiner collapsed to his knees, panting as the shard melded into the flesh of his hand, becoming part of the Shadowmark. When he looked up, the Watcher was gone, but the mist remained, writhing like snakes around his legs.
"I've awakened something," he whispered to the silence. The forest listened, but offered no reply. Only the distant thrum of the whispers, now more subdued, accompanied him as he pushed himself upright. The path before him beckoned, darker than before and full of peril, but it was the only way forward.
Reiner took a step, the weight of the shard thrumming in time with his heartbeat, and walked deeper into the waiting dark.