ELLIOTT'S QUEST: A Relicbound Adventure

Chapter 2: The Mark of Dawn

Chapter 2: The Mark of Dawn

The fire had long since burned down to embers by the time Auren spoke again.

He sat in silence, elbows on his knees, staring at the glowing mark through a tear in his armor. The sigil pulsed faintly — golden at first, then fading to a dull crimson, as if undecided what it wanted to be.

Every pulse felt like a heartbeat that wasn’t his own.

Lyra sat opposite him, scribbling into her tattered journal. Her quill scratched against the page with furious precision — half notes, half theories, and a few curses aimed at “cosmic incompetence.” The camp around them was still. The soldiers who had survived the night huddled inside their tents, pretending they weren’t afraid of their commander anymore.

“Stop staring at it like it’s going to talk,” Lyra muttered without looking up. “You’ll only make it nervous.”

Auren shot her a look. “You think this is funny?”

“I think humor is the only thing standing between us and collective hysteria.” She blew on her page, ink glimmering in the faint firelight. “Besides, you’re the one glowing. If anyone should be nervous, it’s me.”

He grunted. “It said my name, Lyra. It knew me.”

She paused mid-sentence. “You’re sure?”

“I heard it. In my head. It called me the first flame.”

Lyra’s brow furrowed as she flipped through a section of her notes. “The first flame… that’s an old term. Pre-Sigil era. The priests used to say it meant ‘the spark that began creation.’ But that’s just myth. No mortal could—” She stopped. “Unless…”

Auren waited.

“Unless you’re connected to the Sigils through blood,” she finished slowly. “There are legends — old bloodlines, said to be forged by divine light itself.”

He frowned. “You think I’m one of them?”

“I think you’d be a lot easier to study if you were less stubborn about destiny,” she said dryly. Then, more softly, “But yes. It’s possible.”

He leaned back against a rock, exhaling. The night air was heavy with the smell of smoke and wet earth. “You always wanted proof the gods existed,” he said. “Now we’ve got it — and they’re dying.”

Lyra snapped her book shut. “Maybe they deserve to.”

He looked up sharply, but she avoided his gaze. “You saw what their wars did to us,” she said quietly. “How many kingdoms burned because priests argued over which Sigil shone brighter? Maybe the world’s better off if the gods fade.”

Auren didn’t answer. He didn’t believe in the gods, not really — not after what he’d seen. But whatever the truth was, the mark on his chest made him part of something ancient, something vast, and it terrified him more than any battlefield ever had.

At dawn, the company rode again.

The storm had cleared, leaving behind a sky of cold silver and drifting fog. The crater still burned in the distance, a silent wound in the world. None of them dared go near it again.

Their destination lay east, toward the ruined city of Marathen, once the seat of the Sigil’s guardians — now abandoned, its towers buried in mist. If the Sigil of Dawn had fallen, the scholars there might have left records explaining why.

Lyra rode beside Auren, her horse kicking up mud with each stride. “We’ll need to pass through the Shadow Vale,” she said, scanning a half-burned map. “That means crossing the old trade bridge.”

“Still standing?” Auren asked.

“Mostly.”

“That’s comforting.”

She smirked. “You asked.”

Behind them, the soldiers rode in grim silence. The younger ones kept stealing glances at Auren — not out of respect, but fear. They’d seen the mark flare in the night, seen their commander stand unharmed in the center of a storm that burned trees to ash. To them, he wasn’t entirely human anymore.

Lyra noticed. “You’ll need to talk to them soon,” she said quietly.

“I’ll give them orders when they need them.”

“That’s not what I meant. They don’t follow orders from gods. They follow people. Right now, they don’t know which you are.”

Auren didn’t respond. He rode on, eyes fixed ahead. The fog thickened until the road vanished beneath it. He could hear the river ahead — a rushing, endless roar.

And then, through the mist, the bridge appeared.

Or what was left of it.

The old trade bridge had once been a marvel of dwarven engineering — stone arches spanning a chasm hundreds of feet deep. Now half the arches had collapsed, leaving jagged gaps and a narrow, broken path. The river below raged with molten color, glowing faintly with magic — a remnant of the shattered Sigil’s fallout.

“Mostly standing,” Auren said flatly.

Lyra offered an innocent smile. “I said mostly.”

He dismounted. “We’ll cross one at a time. Light armor only. The rest follow once it’s stable.”

The soldiers nodded. Auren stepped onto the bridge first, boots echoing against the damp stone. Each footstep sent a faint tremor through the weakened structure. He kept his eyes on the far side — a shadowed forest beyond the mist.

Halfway across, the wind changed.

It wasn’t natural wind — it whispered. It carried voices.

“Auren Kael…”

He froze.

Lyra looked up sharply. “Do you hear that?”

The voices grew clearer, overlapping, hundreds at once.

“You carry our chains… You carry our fire…”

Auren drew his sword. The metal thrummed instantly, the runes along the blade glowing to life. From the mist below, dark shapes rose — figures formed of smoke and light, faces shifting, bodies hollow.

Wraiths.

“Everyone back!” he shouted, but it was too late. The wraiths surged upward, clawing through the air, shrieking like torn metal. One lunged for Lyra — Auren struck, his blade cutting through it in a burst of white fire. The creature disintegrated, but its scream echoed through his mind like a memory.

The others drew steel, fighting desperately as the bridge shuddered beneath them. Arrows of light hissed from the mages’ staves. Each wraith that fell scattered into ash, but for every one destroyed, two more appeared.

Lyra ducked under a swing of spectral claws. “They’re drawn to you!” she shouted. “They’re guardians of the Sigil’s remains!”

“I didn’t ask for them!”

She pulled a rune from her pouch, slammed it against the bridge stones, and shouted a word of power. Blue light erupted, forming a barrier that pushed the wraiths back temporarily. “That won’t hold long!” she yelled. “We need to move!”

Auren turned to the soldiers. “Go! Get across — now!”

One by one they ran, leaping across broken gaps as the bridge crumbled. Auren stayed behind, cutting through wraiths that lunged from the mist. The mark on his chest blazed brighter with each strike, feeding energy into the blade.

“You cannot run from what you are,” the wraiths whispered.

“You are the dawn and the dusk — the end that begins.”

He roared, swinging his sword in a wide arc. A burst of light tore through the fog, disintegrating the last of them — but the blast cracked the bridge beneath his feet.

“Auren!” Lyra screamed.

The stone gave way. He fell.

For a heartbeat, he saw only light — and then the river swallowed him whole.

He awoke to silence.

His armor was scorched, his lungs burned with every breath, and his sword lay beside him, half-buried in silt. The river had thrown him onto the far shore, miles downstream. The forest around him was dark — trees twisted by magic, their roots pulsing faintly with golden veins.

He tried to stand, wincing. The mark on his chest had dimmed to a faint shimmer. “Lyra…” he whispered, but there was no answer.

Then a voice came — not hers, not human.

“You survived the fall.”

Auren turned sharply, sword raised.

A figure stepped from the shadows — tall, cloaked in grey, eyes like shards of moonlight. “You’re far from your fortress, Lightless Paladin,” it said. “The world whispers your name already.”

“Who are you?” Auren demanded.

The stranger smiled faintly. “A messenger. A warning. The Sigil chose you, but it will also destroy you.”

“I didn’t ask to be chosen.”

“No one ever does.” The figure tilted its head. “But destiny has no patience for denial.”

Auren stepped closer. “What do you want?”

The stranger reached into the folds of its cloak and drew out a crystal fragment — small, glowing with the same color as his mark. “This fell from the heavens when the Sigil broke. Find the others, or the world will burn.”

He hesitated. “Why give it to me?”

“Because,” the figure said softly, “you’re the only one left who can bear the fire.”

And then it vanished, dissolving into mist.

Auren stood alone in the forest, the shard warm in his palm. Somewhere far above, thunder rolled again — not from the sky, but from the heavens themselves.

He looked toward the horizon, where the faintest glow of another Sigil pulsed like a heartbeat in the distance.

The storm wasn’t over.

It was only gathering strength.

End of Chapter 2