All Chapters of Marked From Birth: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

The descent into the lower mines was a plunge into a world of soot and salvation. While the upper Citadel was a sapphire cathedral of silent perfection, the depths were a cacophony of groaning iron and hissing steam. Here, the air was thick with the smell of sulfur and coal dust—a bitter, choking atmosphere that was the only thing keeping the World-Oak at bay."The roots hate the lack of light, and they hate the carbon," Vane explained, her heavy boots clanking against the rusted metal grating of the catwalk. She led Audrey and a dazed, shivering Lucas through a narrow tunnel lined with brass pipes. "The tree wants to breathe. Down here, it chokes. It’s the only place we have left."The "Resistance" was a ragtag collection of survivors. There were Silver Pack warriors who had been dragged into the pits by human engineers just before the resin took them, and servants who had lived their whole lives in the dark and knew the tunnels better than the lords knew their own bedrooms. They sat

The ash did not settle; it hovered, a suspended grey shroud that tasted of burnt history and dead miracles. Audrey stood at the epicenter of the ruin, her lungs burning with every breath of the soot-choked air. Beside her, Lucas stood with his weight shifted to his heels, his one hand white-knuckled around the hilt of a rusted infantry sword. The silence following the collapse of the World-Oak was not peaceful. It was the heavy, pressurized silence that precedes a landslide.Then, the ground didn't shake—it sighed.From the jagged, splintered remains of the Oak’s stump, a vapor began to coil upward. It wasn't the vibrant green of the forest or the sapphire of the rot. It was a color Audrey had only seen in the oldest, most forbidden scrolls: the color of Ancient Silver. It was a light so cold it felt like a burn."He’s coming," Lucas whispered. His voice was a thin thread of sound in the void. "The ghost of the first lie."The vapor solidified. It didn't take a monstrous form, which w

The First King, Solari, did not merely tower over the courtyard; he became the sky itself. His form was a swirling vortex of ancient silver and ink-black smoke, a celestial predator looking down at the insects who had dared to prune his garden. Every time he breathed, the temperature in the Citadel dropped another degree, turning the moisture in the air into jagged frost that hung like needles in the wind."The hubris of the mortal is a fascinator's plaything," Solari’s voice boomed, vibrating through Audrey’s very bone marrow. "You speak of acceptance as if it were a shield. But acceptance of the dark is merely an invitation to be consumed by it."Audrey stood in the center of the ash, her skin pale and her limbs heavy with the cold. She looked at the people around her—the wolves huddled together, the humans clutching their useless brass tools. They were fading. Their life force was being wicked away by the First King’s sheer gravitational presence."We can't fight him out here," Cae

The impact of Solari’s spirit entering Lucas’s body was not a sound, but a shockwave of absolute zero. Audrey was thrown backward, her spine hitting the volcanic glass of the chamber wall with a sickening thud. The black blood she had spilled on the altar didn’t splatter; it froze in mid-air, suspended like jagged shards of midnight.In the center of the Altar, Lucas was no longer a man. He was a pillar of agonizing, blinding silver radiance. His back arched at an impossible angle, his mouth open in a silent scream that tore the air. Audrey watched in horror as the silver filigree on his skin—the scars of his lineage—began to liquefy and move. It crawled across his face like molten mercury, sealing his eyes and tracing the lines of a crown across his brow."I AM THE NORTH," a voice boomed, but it didn't come from Lucas's throat. It came from the vibration of the mountain itself. "I AM THE ORDER. I AM THE LAW. YOUR FLESH IS MY STONE, YOUR BLOOD IS MY RIVER.""Lucas! Fight him!" Audrey

The climb from the Obsidian Altar felt longer than the descent. Without the adrenaline of the ritual, every muscle in Audrey’s body screamed in protest. The mountain itself seemed to be mourning; the stones groaned as the last of the silver resonance faded, causing small tremors that sent clouds of ancient dust choking into the tunnels.When they finally broke onto the surface of the Citadel’s main courtyard, the sight was enough to break a sturdier heart than hers.The Citadel was no longer a fortress of light. It was a skeletal ruin draped in grey ash. Thousands of survivors—wolves, humans, and former servants—were huddled in the shadows of the broken walls. The silence was the most terrifying part. There were no orders being barked, no psychic howls of the pack-bond. There was only the sound of a thousand people shivering in unison."Look at them," Lucas whispered. He was leaning heavily on Audrey’s shoulder, his face a mask of exhaustion. "They’re waiting for a King to tell them w