The morning arrived without light.

Not really a dawn—more of a hesitation in the sky, a pale breath that slipped over the camp like an unwelcome visitor. Dylan opened his eyes before a horn sounded, before the soldiers even stirred. His body ached in all directions, heavy with an ancient fatigue, but his mind still vibrated with that black shiver lodged in his arm.

Today, Valeria and Marcus were waiting.

Today, he was going to learn.

Or get lost. Time would tell.

He got up, dressed slowly, his head still cluttered with the previous night's conversation with Elisa. Her words echoed in a corner of himself he didn't often explore—the one where hope sits next to fear, idly playing with a sword too large for it.

When he went out, Julius was already waiting for him, leaning against a post. "You look like you slept in a bear's mouth," he grumbled.

"I've known worse."

Julius raised an eyebrow. "You've known Alka, I'll remind you. The bear is a walk in the park."

A half-smile, thin but real, crossed Dylan's lips. Julius placed a large hand on his shoulder—a rare, almost paternal, almost clumsy gesture—then signaled to move forward.

---

Valeria and Marcus's tent was not like the others.

Dylan felt the difference before even entering: the air was denser, vibrating with invisible forces that brushed against him like curious fingers. Inside, chalk circles intertwined on the floor, copper apparatus hummed, jars pulsed softly like hearts in glass cages.

Valeria adjusted her glasses, curiosity shining in her golden eyes.

"Perfect. You came at dawn. That's a good sign. The power should never chase you; you must go to it."

Marcus, meanwhile, was already unrolling scrolls. "We will begin with a simple measurement. A stability assessment. Nothing dangerous. Nothing... normally dangerous."

"Reassuring."

Dylan sat on a stool.

Valeria snapped her fingers. A black sphere detached itself from a jar and floated towards them. It seemed to absorb light instead of reflecting it, like a hole in the air.

"There," she said. "It's a contained shadow. A residual one, weakly animated. It reacts to your energy. Bring your hand closer."

Dylan inhaled. Slowly, he extended his left arm.

The sphere twitched, like a nervous animal sensing a predator or a master—hard to tell.

Then

it flattened itself brutally against him.

Not an attack.

An adhesion.

Like a familiarity.

Marcus let out an "oh." Valeria, however, smiled a smile that never promised anything simple.

"You see? It recognizes you. Not as an intruder. As a... compatible channel."

Dylan gritted his teeth. "And what does that mean, exactly?"

"That your connection is not an accident," she replied. "It's a system. A link. Perhaps even a... heritage."

A shiver ran through him.

Heritage from where?

From Alka?

Or... from something else?

Julius, who had stayed back, opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. His eyes darkened—a bad sign.

Valeria brought over a second device: a glass bell containing swirling silver-grey filaments.

"Now," she said, "we will test influence. Not total control. Simply... the impulse."

Dylan swallowed. He felt his arm pulse, like a beast rearing up.

He reached out his hand.

The filaments quivered... then froze.

Time seemed to contract, a second too long, too full.

A force traveled up his arm. Gentle at first, then brutal.

Something tried to merge, to pull, to push—a dialogue without words.

Dylan inhaled, clamping his will around this pulsation that was both hostile and familiar.

"No."

A single word.

A clear blade.

The filaments exploded into a breath of icy air.

Marcus swore. Valeria took a step back, but her eyes shone with pure ecstasy.

"Perfect! You didn't let it take over. And you didn't try to crush it either. You... negotiated. That's exactly what was needed."

Dylan trembled. Sweat trickled down his back.

"You're beginning to understand," she said. "The secret is balance. Neither total domination, nor submission. A precarious partnership."

"And if I lose that balance?"

"Then you will become an extension of the Source," Valeria answered. "A shadow puppet. A living echo. A weapon that forgets itself."

She smiled softly, almost tenderly. "But you're not there yet. Not yet."

Not yet.

Charming.

---

Martissant entered without warning, as always. His boots clicked between the ritual circles. His gaze passed from one instrument to another before fixing on Dylan.

"Good progress?"

Valeria answered: "Stable. For now."

Martissant gave a curt nod. "Perfect. We need results quickly. Alka has moved troops. And... there's something else."

He pulled out a scroll. Unfurled it.

A stylized silhouette was drawn in the center.

Tall. Twisted.

And where the face should be, a black void.

"A new individual has been spotted near the old structure."

He placed the parchment in front of Dylan.

"He's looking for you."

Dylan felt a cold pressure in his arm, like an internal claw-strike.

"Who is it?" asked Julius.

Martissant inhaled, slowly.

"The scouts call him: The Source-Bearer."

Valeria finally paled—a first.

"If he's linked to the same source as Alka... then he's not a creature. He's an avatar. An intermediary. A consciousness."

"He's coming for you, Dylan," Martissant said gravely.

"And I'm not certain if it's as an enemy. Or an ally. Perhaps as... a reclamation."

Dylan felt the camp around him recede, as if the tent walls were pulling away.

Someone—something—wanted to see him.

Not for his abilities.

Not for his loyalty.

For what he was becoming.

The Count added, lower, almost respectful:

"Prepare yourselves. This new chapter will not be a battle. It will be a choice."

Dylan swallowed.

A choice, yes.

But one whose options were not yet known.

He placed his hand on his left arm.

And the beast beneath answered.

---

The silence that followed Martissant's declaration was heavier than all the words exchanged. Dylan felt everyone's gaze weighing on him: Valeria's scientific curiosity, Marcus's studious concern, Julius's protective loyalty, and Martissant's cold calculation. They all waited for his reaction. All of them, except the shadow growing within him.

"A choice," Dylan repeated, his voice surprisingly calm. "You say that as if I had options."

"Everyone has options," Martissant countered. "Even if it's only between two evils."

Valeria approached, her scientific excitement tempered by a new caution. "If this entity is a 'Source-Bearer,' it means it is much closer to the origin of the power than you or Alka. It could have answers. Answers we've been seeking for months."

"Or it could be the judge, jury, and executioner," Julius grumbled. "We're not sending him as an offering to a shadow on a parchment."

"Nobody is sending Dylan anywhere," Martissant said, but his gaze remained fixed on Dylan. "But we cannot ignore this. If this Source-Bearer is looking for you, it will find a way. Better to control the conditions of the meeting."

Dylan felt a pulse in his arm, not painful, but insistent. It was a different sensation from Alka's burn. Older, deeper, like the echo of a heartbeat from the world's foundations.

"He's right," Dylan said, surprised by his own words. "He's going to come. I can feel it."

He raised his left arm. The stigmata were no longer simple black marks. They seemed to breathe, subtle veins of shadow pulsing under his skin, reacting to the mere mention of the entity.

Valeria held her breath. "The correlation is... direct. Your essence is reacting to the potentiality of its presence. It's a sympathetic connection."

"In plain Common, Valeria?" asked Julius, impatient.

"It means they are already linked, in a way," Marcus explained, his eyes gleaming behind his spectacles. "Like two instruments tuned to the same frequency."

"Then we prepare the ground," Martissant declared, taking control of the situation. "Julius, double the guards on the perimeter. Tell them to report any anomaly, but under no circumstances are they to engage. Valeria, Marcus, I want everything you have on containment rituals, neutralization circles. Dylan..."

All eyes turned to him once more.

"... you will continue your training. But we will modify it. We are not going to learn to control the power. We are going to learn to dialogue with it."

---

The days that followed were the strangest of Dylan's life. The training became a form of violent meditation, a constant tug-of-war with the thing lodged in his arm.

Valeria had created a circle of runic stones, a space where energies were amplified but also contained. Inside, Dylan would sit, eyes closed, and plunge into himself.

"Don't fight the current," she would tell him, her voice a guide in the inner darkness. "Follow it. Trace it back to its source."

And Dylan would plunge. He let himself be carried by the flow of shadow, not as a master, but as an explorer. It was a terrifying journey. He felt Alka's presence, distant, like a blot of acid ink on the canvas of energy. But beyond her, he felt something far vaster. A silent, cold immensity, an ocean of shadow from which all power emanated. The Source.

And he felt something else. A consciousness moving on the surface of that ocean, slow, inexorable, heading towards him. The Source-Bearer.

Who are you? he projected mentally, as Valeria had taught him.

The reply was never in words. It was a sensation. A weight. An antiquity so profound it became crushing. And a question in return, always the same, silent and insistent: Why do you resist?

"Because I don't want to be absorbed," Dylan answered one day, aloud, emerging from his trance, exhausted and trembling.

Valeria noted something on her parchment. "That's the right answer. The fear of dissolution is what maintains your individuality. It's your anchor."