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Chapter 67: Shard of Kairon
The writ stirred at dawn.
It had lain in silence for days, cold and inert against Dante’s chest. Even when the mark pulsed its rhythm of poison through his veins, the writ gave nothing—neither warning nor comfort.
But now, as the sun’s first light slipped through cracks in the burned walls of the Cinder Wards, the relic shivered. Thin threads of light bled from its etchings, coiling in the air like smoke. Dante jolted awake.
Aria, still curled near the embers of the fire, sat upright, her hand instinctively going to her dagger. “What is it?”
Dante held up the writ. The glow had formed a lattice pattern, geometric and shifting. Not random—directive.
“It wants something,” he said. His voice was gravel, his body still raw from the mark’s fever.
Aria ros
