Woven Between Her War And My Weakness

The storm began with silence.

Not thunder. Not fire. Not alarms.

Just the silence before everything fell apart.

I didn't sleep after the portal broadcast. Not really. My body lay down, sure, but my mind kept racing. I kept replaying that moment—the girl with the Mark, the flash of the Queen's voice, the trembling in Kael's fingers when she whispered about war.

Now, hours later, the sun hadn't even risen, and Kael was already moving.

"Gear up," she said, her voice clipped.

I blinked, still wiping sleep from my eyes. "What's wrong?"

"Scouts didn't return last night."

That was all it took to jolt me fully awake.

The perimeter of the outpost was always shifting. We didn't have permanent fences, just motion sensors, broken signs, tripwires. But that morning, they were all offline.

Kael led our search party. I followed just behind her, fingers brushing my blade. Ashi flanked the left, her rifle already drawn. We moved through the overgrown ruins of what used to be a train station. Concrete pillars crumbled around us. Ivy crept along rusted rails. And there—

Boot prints. Fresh.

Kael crouched low, touching them with gloved fingers. "Too many. They didn't scatter. They were led."

Ashi narrowed her eyes. "Tracked?"

"No," Kael whispered. "Herded."

That was when the bomb exploded.

I woke up with my ears ringing. Dust clouded the sky, blotting out the weak sunlight. Someone was shouting, but it sounded like it came from underwater. My chest burned. My left arm was bleeding. But I was alive.

Kael wasn't far. She was already dragging me behind a slab of concrete, shielding my body with hers as another round of gunfire cracked above us.

"They found us," she hissed.

The Royal Guard. Ambush style. Ten or more. All Marked. We weren't prepared.

We fought hard.

Kael moved like a shadow. Fast, deliberate, deadly. Her blade caught one soldier across the neck before spinning into another. Ashi went full sniper mode, covering us from a collapsed archway. I held my own, my Mark sparking like it had a mind of its own. Fire leapt from my palms without warning.

We pushed them back, barely.

By the time we returned to the outpost, three of our people were dead. Four more injured. And the Mark on my hand? It had changed. Again.

A new ring had formed around it.

"You need to rest," Kael said.

I shook my head. "We can't afford rest. Not now."

She grabbed my arm—gentler than usual. "Your body is burning itself out. Your Mark is evolving faster than we can track. You're changing."

I swallowed. "And if I stop, what? We wait for the Queen to pick us off?"

Her voice cracked. "You think I don't see you fading?"

That broke something in me.

I turned away. "I'm fine."

"You're not," she said, softer now. "And I can't lose you too."

I stopped. "Too?"

Kael looked away, her jaw tightening.

"You loved someone else."

"Don't," she warned.

"Tell me."

Silence.

"Her name was Yra," Kael said finally. "She had a Mark. She believed in peace. Believed we could talk our way through this war. She died trying."

I didn't speak.

"She was soft," Kael continued. "Like you. She made me believe there was more to life than killing."

I touched her hand. She didn't pull away.

"Maybe we still have time," I whispered.

That night, a stranger showed up at our gates.

Unarmed. Alone. Young. Maybe sixteen.

He held out his hand to the guard and said one thing: "I know where the seventh Mark is."

By the time Kael and I met him in the war room, he was already drawing maps across the table. His name was Ezren. And if he was right, the final Mark was hidden beyond the Broken Wastes, past what remained of the capital.

"Why now?" I asked.

"Because the Queen will find it soon," he said. "She's sending her Seers. You have days. Maybe less."

Kael looked at me. "You believe him?"

"I don't have the luxury not to."

We left the outpost at dawn.

Kael, Ashi, Ezren, and me.

This was different. No big party. No full squad. Just us. The Marked. The ones with something to lose.

We traveled through the tunnels first, then into the open. The Broken Wastes lived up to their name — scorched earth, lightning storms in the distance, bones of cities long dead.

At one point, we passed through a field of old towers — metal spires warped by time. Each one humming faintly. My Mark responded to them, glowing slightly brighter as we moved through.

Kael was on edge.

"Too quiet," she said. "It's never this quiet."

We made camp under a broken dome. The fire crackled low. Ezren spoke in riddles. Ashi cleaned her rifle like it was a prayer. And me? I couldn't stop thinking about Kael's story.

She caught me staring.

"What?" she asked.

"Nothing," I said. "Just wondering what we'll do when this is over."

She gave a sad smile. "Over? Rae… this doesn't end. Not for people like us."

"Then we make a new ending."

She didn't respond. But when she lay down that night, her head rested near mine.

I dreamed of fire. And someone calling my name from beyond it.

We reached the Echo Valley by sunset the next day.

It wasn't a valley.

It was a crater.

Circular. Perfect. Like something massive had been carved out of the earth.

In the center? A tower.

Old. Cracked. But pulsing with light.

My Mark went berserk.

"It's here," I said.

Ezren nodded. "The last Mark sleeps inside."

We approached carefully. The wind howled like a warning. Kael had her blade out. Ashi scanned the area.

At the tower's base, we found stairs leading down.

And the deeper we went, the colder it became.

In the final chamber, a single pod stood upright. Inside?

A girl.

Floating. Glowing. Her Mark — a perfect mirror of mine, but inverted.

"She's the seventh," I whispered.

Kael stepped forward. "Then we wake her."

As her hand reached the console, alarms flared.

"They found us," Ezren said.

Kael's eyes met mine. "We hold them off. You get her out."

I didn't argue. I moved fast.

The pod hissed open.

Her eyes blinked.

"Who are you?" she asked.

I smiled through tears. "Someone who needs you."

Gunfire erupted above us.

The war had arrived.

And we were ready.

To be continued....