Chapter 1 – The Mark That Shouldn't Exist
They always told her she was cursed.
But no one told her why it felt like fate.
It began the night the moon bled.
The skies over the northern city of Valderin turned red—every soul in the kingdom stood in terrified awe as the heavens cracked like broken glass. Elders whispered of old prophecies. The Church rang the bells until their arms blistered. Children were hidden in cellars, and mothers carved sigils on their doors in chalk and desperation.
But Lyra?
She bled.
Alone in the worn attic of the orphanage she had never truly belonged to, Lyra clutched at her chest, where something beneath her skin burned like fire laced with ice. She writhed in silence, her knuckles white on the edge of her thin blanket, her body convulsing as the mark formed beneath her collarbone. Dark, ancient, swirling like ink that refused to settle. She couldn't scream. She couldn't breathe.
And just before she passed out, a voice—not human—brushed across her ear like smoke:
"Found you."
She woke the next morning with the windows shattered and frost lining her eyelashes, despite the summer sun. Her nightdress was torn in places she couldn't explain. And under the stained collar, her skin pulsed with something unholy.
They didn't see it.
Not the Sisters who ran the orphanage, not the others who mocked her for being strange. But she felt it. Every second. A pull. A shiver. A hunger.
Something—someone—was watching.
And that was when the shadows started whispering.
At first, she thought she was mad.
She'd walk down the alley near the apothecary, and the shadows would move without wind. Whispers curled around her like dark lace—soft, coaxing, impossible to trace. Then came the dreams: red skies, black rivers, a throne carved from the bones of stars.
And a man with eyes like the abyss itself.
Tall, robed in midnight, his face only partially visible. But his voice…
"Mine."
She'd bolt upright every time, clutching her chest, panting, the mark on her skin searing like a living brand.
Still, she tried to ignore it. To survive. She stole herbs from stalls, helped the sick, mended books in the back of the dying temple for a coin or two. The priests avoided her. The cats adored her. And the crows—oh, the crows followed her like sentinels. Always watching.
But two nights ago, everything changed.
She saw the Enforcer.
They were only sent for one reason: to hunt those touched by the Abyss.
That same night, a hooded woman found her near the broken shrine of the Moon God and handed her a scroll sealed with black wax. "Run, child," she said, "before he comes for you."
Lyra opened the scroll and read one line:
"You are the last marked Omega. The Abyss Prince has claimed you."
She hadn't slept since.
Now, rain crashed down on the city like vengeance from the gods. Her feet were soaked, her lips bloodied from a fall, but she didn't stop running. Not when she could hear them behind her—the Enforcers in gold armor and with blades that shimmered with holy light.
She turned sharply into a shadowed alley, gripping the scroll and the satchel of herbs like her life depended on it—because it did.
The mark on her chest blazed so fiercely she cried out. Her knees gave. The air warped. Darkness thickened.
And from the center of that impossible black… he stepped through.
The Abyss Prince.
He was taller than any man she'd seen, and more terrifying than any demon she'd dreamt of. His long coat moved like liquid night, stitched with silver that glowed faintly as if alive. His face was cold perfection—sharp jaw, full mouth, and those eyes... like galaxies dying.
Time stopped.
Her breath hitched. Her legs forgot to move.
"Lyra," he said softly.
It was the first time he spoke her name aloud. It shattered her. That voice—it wasn't meant to be spoken on Earth. It was velvet and power, sorrow and need.
"W-who are you?" she asked, trembling.
His lips curled. "I am the one who marked you."
He lifted his gloved hand, and shadows obeyed. The Enforcers behind her screamed as darkness rose like smoke and swallowed them whole. No blood. No mess. Just silence.
"I…" Her throat caught. "I'm not… I didn't ask for this."
"No," he murmured, stepping close. "But I did."
His hand hovered just above her mark, and her entire body shuddered. The cold vanished, replaced with a heat that sunk into her bones. She was burning. She was unraveling. She felt seen, claimed, known.
"You're mine, omega."
She should've run. Should've screamed.
But she whispered instead, "Why me?"
He smiled then, a rare, haunted thing. "Because your soul called to mine in a time before time. Because your blood remembers me, even if your mind does not."
Then, he vanished.
And Lyra collapsed in the rain, her lips parted with the taste of fate.
The mark on her chest now glowed.
And the war between light and abyss had officially begun.
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