SIX MONTHS LATER

Six months after the Spire, Kael stood on the wall of Sanctuary and watched the sun rise over the Wild Lands. The sun was not round. It was a spiral of gold and white. It turned slowly in the sky. The light it cast made double shadows. People had learned to walk in the spaces between.

Sanctuary was not a city. It was a camp. A moving place. Walls of wood and stone that traveled on the backs of giant beasts Kael had calmed with a touch. The beasts had been chaos-touched. Now they were gentle. Their hides were patterned with gray spirals that matched Kael's hand.

Mira stood beside him. She wore a cloak of woven reeds, the same as the day they met. Her hair was longer. Her staff was taller. She had become a teacher. Children gathered around her at night to learn the old songs. Not just hedge witch songs. New songs. Songs about the man with the marked hand who had chosen mercy over power.

"You have a visitor," she said.

"Who?"

"A girl from the southern farms. Her brother is Marked. The spiral just appeared. She's scared."

Kael nodded. He walked down from the wall. His boots were new. His sword was new. He no longer carried a broken blade. He carried a weapon made of Spire stone and his own blood. It was not pretty. It was sharp.

The girl waited in the central tent. She was twelve. Thin. Her eyes were red from crying. She held her brother's hand. The boy was nine. The mark was on his shoulder. Small. Black. Turning slowly.