Night descended like a warning. Rain hissed against the trees as Raymond and Arkon slipped through the undergrowth, the last of the temple ruins fading behind them.
Their cloaks were soaked, their breath pale in the chill air. Every crack of thunder seemed to echo too close, too deliberate. “They’re following us,” Raymond whispered.
“I know.” Arkon’s voice was calm, low. “Three trackers. Imperial scent-hunters. They mask themselves with salt and ash, but the Flow betrays movement.”
Raymond glanced over his shoulder, hand tightening on his staff. “Then why aren’t we fighting?”
“Because they’re bait,” Arkon said. “The real threat comes behind them.”
Lightning flashed, briefly illuminating a sigil burned into a nearby tree: a serpent coiled around a sunburst.
“The Inquisition,” Arkon murmured. “They’ve come sooner than I thought.”
They reached the edge of Wraith Marsh by midnight. Mist coiled across the black waters, carrying the stench of rot and old bones.
Trees jutted from the mire like fingers clawing for air. Each ripple shimmered with faint ghostlight. Raymond hesitated. “This place feels wrong.”
“It is,” Arkon said, stepping onto a half-sunken boardwalk. “Centuries of blood and betrayal stain this ground. Perfect place to hide.”
“Hide? You mean die,” Raymond muttered, following reluctantly.
A whisper slid past his ear. Go back… before it remembers you… He spun around. Nothing. Just fog.
“Don’t listen to the dead,” Arkon said without looking back. “They crave warmth. Give them none.”
Raymond swallowed hard and pressed on. The path narrowed until they were walking single file. Each step squelched through muck that seemed to breathe.
Then, something moved beneath the water. A shape, too long and too quiet. “Master?” Raymond whispered.
Arkon stopped. “Stay still.”
The marsh rippled. A black tendril broke the surface, scaled, shimmering faintly blue, and lashed toward them. Raymond ducked as it whipped overhead, striking a tree and slicing it clean in half.
A serpent the size of a wagon rose from the swamp, eyes burning violet. “Spirit beast,” Arkon said sharply. “Born of the Flow’s corruption. Move!”
The serpent struck again. Arkon slammed his cane down, releasing a shockwave of golden light that threw mud and water into the air.
The creature shrieked, scales hissing, but did not fall. Raymond raised his staff, heart pounding. “What do I do?”
Arkon’s voice was like thunder. “Heal it!”
“What—heal”
“Now!”
Instinct took over. Raymond thrust his palms forward. Golden light surged from his hands, streaming toward the serpent. It struck the beast’s wounds, not to destroy, but to mend.
The creature recoiled, confusion rippling through its massive body. The magic in Raymond’s veins twisted, pain and warmth colliding. He felt the serpent’s agony, its hunger, its centuries of torment.
And then, he felt something else. A shadow, whispering in his mind: You would heal the cursed? Foolish child. All healing demands a price…
The pain spiked. Raymond screamed. The serpent lunged, jaws wide. Arkon moved, too late. Raymond’s instincts flared. His healing light shifted to crimson.
It slammed into the serpent’s chest like fire. The creature convulsed, shrieking, before collapsing into the mire. Steam rose where it fell. The air smelled of burnt blood.
Raymond stood trembling, hands shaking, his light fading to gold again. “I didn’t mean to”
“I know,” Arkon said quietly. “You saved us.”
“But I killed it.”
“Yes.” Arkon stepped forward, eyes somber. “And the Flow will remember.”
Raymond looked down at his hands. The spiral mark over his heart pulsed brighter, then dimmed. His first scar had deepened.
A horn echoed through the marsh, low, metallic, and cold. The fog began to shimmer with runes of light. “They’re here,” Arkon said.
Figures emerged from the mist, their silver armor glinting faintly. Each bore a mask shaped like a serpent’s skull, their robes trailing faint gold sigils that pulsed with life-drain energy.
At their center walked a woman in white, hair like frost, eyes like molten amber. “Inquisitor Seraph Vale,” Arkon murmured. “Of course.”
Raymond’s head snapped up. “Vale? You mean”
“Yes,” Arkon said softly. “Elysia’s sister.”
The Inquisitor raised her staff. “Master Arkon,” she called, voice carrying like a blade through fog. “You stand accused of forbidden arts and harboring an unregistered wielder. Surrender the boy.”
Raymond stiffened. “Unregistered”
“They mean you,” Arkon said grimly.
He stepped forward, leaning on his cane. “If you want him, Seraph, you’ll have to earn it.”
The Inquisitor smiled faintly. “Then let the Flow judge us.”
Her staff struck the ground. The runes around them flared alive.
The swamp erupted in light. Arkon moved first, his cane transformed into a staff of radiant gold, carving sigils midair. Shields of energy rippled outward, deflecting incoming blasts of silver fire.
Seraph countered, her magic cold and precise. She moved like a dancer, every gesture deadly. Chains of light erupted from her staff, coiling toward Raymond. “Run!” Arkon shouted.
But Raymond didn’t run. Something inside him rebelled, an instinct born of defiance and fear. His hands rose. The golden energy in his veins ignited again, brighter, fiercer.
He struck the ground. The energy exploded outward in a pulse of healing force that turned into pure shockwave. The chains shattered. The marsh hissed.
Seraph stumbled back, eyes wide. “That power!”
Arkon turned toward Raymond, astonished. “You opened the second gate…”
“What, what gate?” Raymond gasped.
But before Arkon could answer, the ground beneath them cracked. The serpent’s corpse, the one Raymond had slain, twitched. Its eyes glowed gold.
Then, impossibly, it moved again, rising from the mire reborn, its wounds sealed by the same power that had killed it. Raymond’s heart froze. He had healed the beast’s death.
The serpent lunged, not at him, but at the Inquisitors. Seraph shouted, her wards flaring, but the monster tore through them with divine rage. Water exploded. Fire and light clashed in chaos.
Arkon seized Raymond by the arm. “We’re leaving!”
“But”
“NOW!”
They vanished into the fog just as the serpent’s roar split the night.

Latest Chapter
CHAPTER 6B – THE SERPENT’S DREAM (Part Two)
At first, there was no pain, only stillness. Then the world began to breathe. Raymond opened his eyes to find himself lying on water that didn’t ripple.The surface reflected a sky of cracked mirrors, and beneath the translucent waves, he could see his own face, hundreds of versions of it, each one whispering something he couldn’t quite hear.He tried to move. His body obeyed, but it felt slow, heavy, as if gravity itself was trying to pull him deeper. Where am I…? Inside yourself, the voice replied, soft as silk. Where you buried me.The water darkened. The reflection smiled back at him, not kindly. “You,” Raymond breathed. “You’re the thing inside the scars.”Not a thing. A memory. The first healer. The last serpent. The line blurs, doesn’t it?The reflection’s mouth moved perfectly in time with his own. Its eyes bled gold. Do you even know why you were chosen, Raymond Miller?He clenched his fists. “I wasn’t chosen. I was unlucky.”The reflection laughed, a brittle sound like break
CHAPTER SIX A– THE SERPENT’S DREAM
The wind carried the smell of wet stone and iron. By the time Raymond and Elysia reached the safehouse, a crumbling monastery half-swallowed by vines, the sun had already vanished behind the Veil’s rim.The structure crouched against a cliff, its stained-glass windows black with centuries of dust. Elysia pushed open the warped door; it groaned like something waking from a nightmare.“Used to belong to the Order of the White Sigil,” she said. “They were healers before the Empire hunted them down. The Flow here is thin but steady, we can rest, for a few hours at least.”Raymond nodded, lowering himself onto a stone bench. His body ached; every breath felt like pulling shards of glass through his lungs. “I didn’t think healers could get hunted,” he muttered.Elysia shrugged out of her cloak, lighting a dim blue flame in her palm. “Anything that can undo death frightens rulers. They want control, not compassion.”The flame’s light painted her face in fractured hues, tired, haunted, but un
CHAPTER 5C– ASH AND WHISPERS
For a long while, neither of them spoke. The Core’s glow had softened, bathing the chamber in pale light.Dust floated through the air like ash, the only sound the slow drip of liquid magic falling from the ceiling into a shattered basin. The silence felt sacred, heavy with things unsaid.Raymond pressed a hand to his chest. The second scar had gone cold again, but he could still feel something lurking beneath it, a pulse that wasn’t his.Elysia knelt beside one of the fallen guardians, her fingers brushing the cracked scales that lined its face. It was part human, part serpent, its mouth frozen in a silent scream.“They were my ancestors,” she whispered. “Bound to protect the Core until death… but they were betrayed by their own kind.”Raymond looked at her, unsure how to respond. “The Empire?”She shook her head slowly. “No. The betrayal began long before. The High Seers, our leaders, tried to ascend beyond mortality. When the ritual failed, it consumed them. Seraph’s purge only fin
CHAPTER 5B – ASH AND WHISPERS
The corridors of the Citadel twisted as if alive, walls shifting, light bending through cracks in the glass. Raymond’s boots slid on shattered crystal, his breath shallow.Every tremor sent ripples through the floor, and beneath the noise he could hear it, the whisper of the Flow, bleeding like a wound. Elysia’s voice echoed ahead. “This way!”He followed her through an archway that opened into a vast chamber, the Heart of the Vale. It was beautiful and terrible all at once.A sphere of liquid light hovered in the center of the room, pulsing with every heartbeat. Chains of glowing script bound it in place, their links cracking one by one.Around the chamber, the bodies of ancient guardians, half-human, half-serpent, hung frozen in the walls, their eyes weeping silver tears. Raymond stopped, awe and horror warring inside him. “What… is that?”Elysia’s voice trembled. “The Core. The Flow’s anchor. It’s where my ancestors tied our souls to magic itself. When the Empire burned the Vale, i
CHAPTER 5A – ASH AND WHISPERS
The air above the Vale shimmered like glass under strain. The mist that once cloaked the Citadel had thinned to threads of silver smoke, torn apart by the vibration of war horns echoing through the valley.Elysia stood on the bridge of light, her blade drawn. Behind her, the ruins of the Citadel glowed faintly, veins of crystal pulsing as if the fortress itself had awoken from a long slumber.Raymond tightened the straps of his cloak, heart pounding. The echo of his second scar still hummed in his chest, a low, unsettling rhythm that seemed to sync with the rumble of distant drums.“They’re early,” Elysia murmured, eyes scanning the horizon. “Seraph never wastes time.”“Who’s Seraph?” Raymond asked.She didn’t answer immediately. Her grip tightened on her sword hilt. “The Empire’s Blade. The one who burned the Vale the first time.”Raymond froze. “You mean, your mother’s killer?”Elysia’s eyes flicked toward him, glacial and bright. “He doesn’t kill. He purges. There’s a difference.”
CHAPTER 4C – THE SHADOW OF THE VALE
The Citadel of the Vale rose from the fog like a monument carved from moonlight. Spires of translucent stone pierced the night sky, glowing faintly from within as if the walls remembered the fires that once consumed them.Raymond stopped at the threshold, breath caught. “This place… it’s alive.”Elysia’s expression softened. “It dreams. The Flow never truly left it.”She stepped forward, and the gates responded, a deep hum rolling through the earth. The massive doors of woven crystal and steel parted slowly, revealing a courtyard choked with silver vines and glowing roots.Raymond’s eyes darted from one surreal shape to another. The roots pulsed with faint light, spreading like veins into every archway. “This was your home?”“It still is,” she said quietly. “In ways I wish it weren’t.”They entered the main hall, a cathedral of glass pillars and whispering shadows. At its center stood a throne grown from the roots themselves, empty but for a single wisp of silver flame hovering above
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