Chapter 464: The Mark Beneath the Ash

The Day Before Sophia Regained Consciousness

Orion, Daniel, and Caspian were listening far more closely now.

So were Mary and Brynhild.

The shift in the room was unmistakable. Every casual posture had straightened. Every wandering thought had narrowed to the same point.

Orion leaned forward slightly.

"What rocks?" he asked.

His gaze moved between Sam, Helios, and Jeffery.

"And what inscriptions?"

Sam hesitated before answering.

"I don’t know exactly what the inscriptions mean," she said quietly. "It wasn’t a language I recognised. Not one I’ve ever seen before."

She gave a small shake of her head.

"It was... foreign."

Jeffery nodded at once.

"That’s true," he said.

Orion turned to him.

"You’re certain?"

"Yes," Jeffery replied. "I drew the rocks after all, along with the inscriptions on them."

A faint crease appeared between Orion’s brows.

"Do you have the drawings with you?"

Jeffery grimaced.

"No. They’re with Ronan."

Jeffery lifted a hand in apology.

"I’m sorry. He told me to go with Orion and Sophia, and just like Sam and Helios, in order to move faster—to keep up with the speed of Noctis—I left every weight behind, and that includes the drawings about the rocks."

Orion did not respond immediately.

Jeffery went on.

"But like Sam said, the language on the rocks... none of us could understand it. We couldn’t even guess what it meant," he told them.

Helios shifted slightly.

"The rocks themselves were strange," he added.

Orion turned to him.

"In what way?"

Helios hesitated, clearly trying to find the right words.

"It looked like the floor beneath them had been burnt."

Mary’s eyes widened.

"Burnt?"

Helios nodded.

"Yes. Not just scorched on the surface. The ground itself looked damaged—darkened and hardened, like it had been exposed to intense heat."

He shook his head slowly.

"But that’s the part that makes no sense," he added. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

"There’s no way a fire could start around that place, not with how much snow falls there," Helios said quietly. "Nothing grows close enough. There’s no dry brush, no exposed resin trees, no oil deposits—nothing volatile. Even lightning would not behave like that."

"Were the burn marks recent?" Mary asked them. "The way you speak, it’s like it showed signs that it was recent."

"Yes," the three of them said at once.

"It was recent. Not extremely so, but maybe like it happened months ago? It was that recent," Sam told them.

"The bodies you guys found there were about as old as some people’s forefathers, which means that no one lives around there that should be able to start a fire—and in different places at that," Orion said.

"Yes, it just doesn’t make sense," Helios said with a nod.

Jeffery spoke again.

"And there was something else."

Orion looked back at him.

"There’s always something else," he muttered lowly.

"When we touched the rocks," Jeffery said, "we could feel a vibration. It was faint, but one could feel it. It was like something was running through the rock itself."

A faint, unsettled silence followed his words.

"We didn’t say much about it at the time," Jeffery added. "We agreed that when we got back to the pack, we would talk about it properly. All of us."

Helios nodded once.

"That’s because we didn’t even know what to talk about regarding the rocks. We didn’t understand it after all. But one of the rocks was different."

Orion lifted his head slightly.

"How?"

"The other one we saw was alone—nothing else with it—but there was one that was not alone," Helios said. "It was in the middle of several others. Placed around it."

Mary drew a slow breath.

"Like a shrine?"

Helios considered the word.

"...Something like that," he said carefully. "But not the way the shrine outside the pack is built. And not the way the one inside the pack is built either."

His expression tightened.

"The structure was different. The spacing was different. Even the way the rocks were positioned felt... deliberate in another way."

Jeffery nodded in agreement.

"It didn’t look ceremonial," he said quietly. "At least not in any way we recognise."

The room fell silent.

Everyone absorbed the information slowly, carefully, as if turning fragile glass in their hands.

Caspian was the first to speak.

"Perhaps Madam Tyler can tell us more," he said. "She may be a fanatic—"

"Fanatic or not, we know that she has more knowledge about most things than we do," Orion cut him off.

Caspian nodded.

"That’s true. She has knowledge of forgotten rites, ancient structures, and even knows about black magic. Maybe she can tell us what this formation—" he gestured to Helios, Sam, and Jeffery "—is about."

Orion was quiet for a moment.

Then he looked back at Sam and Helios.

"...Do you think any of this could be connected to the beast in the cave?"

The question shifted the weight of the entire conversation.

Jeffery hesitated.

"I don’t know," he admitted.

Sam inhaled slowly.

"It could be," she said. "Remember I told you about how the beast called to the monsters and how I felt like it was the one watching us? Perhaps everything is linked to it... but I don’t know for certain."

"And also," she added, "just outside the cave where the beast was, there was a slab of rock that looked similar to the ones we saw."

Orion frowned. He had not taken note of anything like that.

"Really?" he asked her.

"Yes," she said with a nod. "But we were all so preoccupied with the fight that I didn’t get a closer look. I’m hoping Ronan will notice and get information about it."

"Let’s hope so too," Daniel said with a nod.

Orion turned to Jeffery.

"Do you remember anything about the rocks? Even if it’s a minute detail? Like the inscription?"

Jeffery’s face scrunched slightly, as though he were forcing himself back into the moment.

"I can try," he said. "I can write what I remember, but I’m not sure it’ll make that much sense," he told them.

"It doesn’t matter," Orion told him, then moved toward the door.