The sky tore open without a sound.
One second, Kael Vane was fishing in silence. The next, reality split like rotten canvas—and something reached through to brand him.
Now a black spiral burns beneath his skin. It itches when chaos is near. It hungers when monsters approach. And it is spreading.
Up his arm. Across his chest. Toward his heart.
Kael is a soldier who lost everything. His sword is snapped in half. His honor is ash. He wants to hide. But the mark won't let him. Every time the Unraveled come—blank-faced horrors of bone and violet light that unmake flesh with a touch—the mark screams for blood. And Kael is running out of days before it eats the last of the man he used to be.
The only one who can slow the rot is Mira Thorn: a foul-mouthed hedge witch with a cracked staff and zero patience for broken men. She says the mark is a key. The first mages forged the Great Weave to lock something ancient beneath reality itself. Something that is waking up now.
They call it the Hollow King.
Kael and Mira must reach the Spire of Origins—the black tower where the world was first stitched together—before the mark reaches his heart. But the truth waiting at the top is worse than any monster:
The Weave was never magic. It was a cage.
And Kael is the only one who can pick the lock.
He can restore the prison and let the old world keep bleeding. He can open the door and become the Hollow King's vessel. Or he can do what no one in three thousand years has dared:
Burn the cage down. Rewrite the rules. And become something the world has never seen.
But the Spiral is patient. The Unraveled are hunting. And the Warden of the Iron City wants Kael's soul for his own war.
Time is a luxury. Sanity is a memory. And the only thing more dangerous than the chaos outside is the god taking root inside Kael's skin.
Some powers break the world. Others rebuild it. Kael Vane is about to find out which one lives in his bones.

ASHES OF THE WEAVE

The bridge had been built three hundred years ago by the old kings. It spanned the Black Chasm, a cut in the earth so deep that no one had ever found the bottom. The bridge was a wonder of stone and magic. Now it was a wreck.

The center was gone. A chunk fifty feet wide had vanished. But the stones did not fall. They hung in the air. Some spun slowly. Others were still. They formed a broken path across the void.

Kael stood at the edge. The wind came up from below. It did not sound like wind. It sounded like voices. Whispering. Calling.

"We have to jump," Mira said.

"To a floating rock. Over a hole that goes forever."

"Yes."

"I hate this world."

"You and everyone else." Mira backed up. She ran. She leaped. Her cloak snapped behind her. She landed on the first stone. It dipped under her weight, then steadied. She turned and raised her staff. "Come on!"

Kael backed up. His right arm was numb to the shoulder. The mark had spread again in the night. He could feel it in his chest now, a cold spot behind his ribs. He didn't tell Mira. He would tell her when they were safe. If they were ever safe.

He ran. He jumped. The air rushed past. For a second, he hung over nothing. Then his boots hit stone. The impact jarred his teeth. He dropped to his knees. The stone was rough, warm, and wrong. It hummed.

They jumped again. And again. The stones were uneven. Some were ten feet apart. Some were three. One spun. Kael landed on it and his boots slipped. He fell onto his hands. The stone was slick with something that looked like oil but smelled like salt.

"Keep moving!" Mira called from ahead. She was on a larger stone, one that had been part of the bridge's peak. It hung steady as a table.

Kael pushed up. He jumped to the next stone. Then the next. He was three stones from Mira when the static came.

It was behind him. He turned. Two Unraveled crouched on a spinning stone. They had been waiting. Lying flat, invisible against the violet sky. Now they rose.

They leaped. Not at Kael. At Mira.

She saw them. She raised her staff. Green light flared. The first Unraveled hit the shield and bounced. The second slid around it, moving like a spider. Its hand reached for Mira's throat.

Kael didn't think. He jumped.

The gap was too wide. He would not make it. He knew he would not make it. The mark screamed in his chest. Power flooded his legs. He pushed off the stone and the world bent. Gravity shifted. He flew? fell, flew? cross the gap. He hit the big stone hard. He rolled. He came up with his marked hand raised.

The Unraveled was on top of Mira. Its fingers dug into her cloak. She was screaming, spells dying on her lips.

Kael grabbed the creature's neck. His marked hand sank in. The spiral blazed. Black light poured from his fingers into the Unraveled's body. The creature convulsed. Its violet light drained into Kael. Its bones turned to dust. Kael held on until there was nothing left. Then he threw the dust into the chasm.

The second Unraveled hit him from behind. Its arm wrapped around his throat. Kael choked. He tried to turn. The creature was too strong. It pulled him toward the edge of the stone. Toward the drop.

Mira's staff cracked across the creature's head. The crystal blazed. The Unraveled staggered. Kael broke free. He and Mira stood back to back on the stone. The creature circled. The chasm waited.

"Together," Mira said.

"Together," Kael agreed.

She thrust her staff. A vine shot out, wrapped the Unraveled's legs. Kael stepped in. He pressed his palm to the creature's chest. The mark drank. The Unraveled shriveled. It became dust. The dust fell into the chasm and was gone.

Kael fell to his knees. He looked at his hand. The black spiral was larger. It covered his whole palm. The lines ran up his arm, over his shoulder, and down his chest. He could see them at his collar. They looked like veins of ink.

"How bad?" Mira asked. She was breathing hard. Blood ran from a cut on her forehead.

"Bad."

"Show me."

He pulled his shirt down. The lines crossed his chest. They reached his heart.

Mira's face went white. "It's going for your core. If it reaches your heart, you won't be Kael anymore. You'll be a door. A door for whatever is breaking through."

"How long?"

"Three days. Maybe four."

Kael looked across the broken bridge. The other side was close. The Iron City waited. "Then we move faster."

Mira helped him up. They jumped the last stones. Kael's legs shook. His chest was cold. But he made it. They made it.

On the far side, Kael looked back at the floating stones. At the chasm. At the purple sky beyond.

"Thank you," he said.

"For what?"

"Coming back. On the stone. You could have run."

Mira wiped blood from her eye. "I don't leave people behind. That's my rule. One rule. Break it, and I'm not Mira anymore."

Kael nodded. "Good rule."

They walked north. The mark pulsed in Kael's chest. A countdown. Three days. Four. And the Iron City might be their only hope.

Or it might be a trap.

THE SHATTERED BRIDGE

THE SHATTERED BRIDGE