The Thing That Answers

Liana Pov

Morning didn’t arrive.

The darkness just… thinned.

Light seeped through the reinforced window like a reluctant witness, pale and cold, touching nothing gently. I hadn’t slept. I hadn’t closed my eyes long enough to dream. Every time I tried, the Mark pulsed soft at first, then sharper, like a warning tap against bone.

Wake up.

Pay attention.

The door unlocked without sound.

I didn’t turn.

“You’re breathing like you’re preparing for a fight,” Cassian said behind me.

“Good.”

I faced him slowly.

He wasn’t alone.

Two men stood in the hallway armed, quiet, professional.

Not guards. Not muscle.

These ones watched like surgeons watch an incision.

My stomach tightened.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked.

“Down,” Cassian replied.

“Somewhere the house doesn’t pretend to be polite.”

That told me everything.

I didn’t resist. Resistance would have been pointless—and worse, predictable. Instead, I followed, bare feet silent against stone, the Mark warm and awake beneath my skin.

The elevator descended longer than any building should allow.

The air changed as we went down cooler, heavier, metallic. By the time the doors opened, the smell hit me.

Steel.

Electricity.

Old blood scrubbed too clean.

The room wasn’t a dungeon.

That was the worst part.

It was circular. Smooth walls reinforced with something darker than concrete. Glass panels embedded with thin lines of light. Monitors. Restraints bolted into the floor unused, but ready.

This wasn’t a place of punishment.

It was a place of observation.

Cassian stepped inside first.

“This room doesn’t belong to belief,” he said.

“It belongs to truth.”

My throat tightened.

“And what truth do you want?”

He turned to face me.

“What happens when no one tells you what the Mark is supposed to do.”

One of the men activated the system.

The lights dimmed. The air vibrated—low frequency, like a heartbeat under the floor.

My ears rang softly.

The Mark flared.

Hard.

I gasped, clutching my shoulder as heat spread through my chest, down my spine, into my limbs. Not pain. Not exactly.

Recognition.

The symbols on the walls etched so faintly I hadn’t noticed them began to glow.

They were the same.

Not exact.

But close enough to make my vision swim.

“You built this… for it,” I whispered.

“For things like it,” Cassian corrected.

“I didn’t expect it to respond to you.”

The vibration intensified.

My knees buckled.

Cassian was there instantly not touching, just close enough that I could feel him like gravity.

“Don’t fight it,” he said.

“Let it move.”

“I don’t know how!”

“You do,” he said quietly.

“You just weren’t allowed to.”

The cult’s voices echoed in my skull.

Obey.

Contain.

Suppress.

No.

The Mark burned white-hot.

I screamed not in pain, but in release.

The room reacted.

Glass cracked. Lights shattered. One of the men slammed into the wall as if pushed by an invisible hand.

Cassian didn’t move.

He watched.

The sound tore out of me raw, feral, ancient. Something coiled under my skin unspooled, stretching outward, tasting the air.

I saw things.

Not visions.

Memories that weren’t mine.

Stone temples collapsing.

Cities choking on ash.

A seal breaking and the world learning too late what hunger really was.

I dropped to my knees.

The vibration cut off instantly.

Silence crashed down.

I was shaking. Sweating. Alive in a way that terrified me.

Cassian crouched in front of me, eyes sharp, unafraid.

“What did you see?” he asked.

I swallowed hard. “Not gods.”

“Good,” he said.

“Not demons either.”

His jaw tightened.

“Then what?”

I met his gaze.

“Warnings.”

The word hung heavy.

One of the men whispered, “Boss… the readings—”

“Get out,” Cassian said without looking away from me.

They didn’t hesitate.

The door sealed behind them.

We were alone.

The Mark cooled, settling into a slow, steady pulse—like it was satisfied. For now.

“You didn’t break,” Cassian said.

“You didn’t lose control.”

“I did,” I whispered.

“I just didn’t lose myself.”

Something shifted in his expression then.

Not dominance.

Respect.

“You’re not a seal,” he said slowly.

“You’re a threshold.”

The word settled into my bones.

“And you,” I said hoarsely,

“aren’t my keeper.”

His mouth curved not a smile.

“I know.”

I pushed myself to my feet, legs unsteady but mine.

“You want to know what I am?” I asked.

“Then stop treating me like a thing you own.”

“And if I don’t?”

I stepped closer, close enough that the air between us tightened again.

“Then the next time it wakes,” I said softly,

“you won’t be standing.”

Silence.

Then quiet, dangerous amusement.

Cassian straightened.

“Welcome to the real problem,” he murmured.

The lights flickered back on.

The room exhaled.

And I knew deep in my blood that nothing in this house would ever fully obey again.