Dennis did not fall asleep quickly.

  The room Marta had given him was small but clean. A narrow bed stood against the wall beside a wooden table and a single chair. The window overlooked the village road, though at night it showed little more than the faint glow of lanterns and the shadowed outlines of rooftops beneath the moon.

  The candle on the table had burned halfway down before Dennis finally lay back. The mattress creaked softly under his weight. For several minutes he simply stared at the ceiling, listening to the quiet.

  It was strange how deeply the village slept.

  Back home, even the late hours carried noise—cars passing, distant voices, the low electric hum of a world that never truly stopped moving. Red Hollow was different. The silence here felt older, heavier, as though the forest surrounding the village listened for movement in the dark.

  Dennis folded his hands across his chest.

  He tried not to think about what Alric had said earlier. That had not worked.

  The world accepted your arrival but refused your placement.

  The phrase sounded less like prophecy and more like a bureaucratic mistake. If this world had offices and paperwork, Dennis imagined someone somewhere staring at a ledger and wondering how a man had appeared without records.

  Except here, the mistake had consequences.

  Dennis lifted his left hand.

  Even in the dim candlelight the lantern-shaped mark on his wrist remained visible. The glow had faded since earlier, but the shape was still there beneath the skin—too precise to be a scar, too deliberate to be an accident.

  And he knew with quiet certainty that it had not been there before the door.

  He turned his wrist slowly.

  The lines curved together like the frame of a lantern, thin and exact.

  “So what are you?” he murmured.

  The mark did not answer.

  Of course it didn’t.

  Dennis rubbed his face with both hands. The exhaustion pressing against his bones was real now. His body had reached the point where fear and confusion could no longer keep it awake forever.

  But his mind refused to rest.

  It drifted back home.

  To the unread message from his daughters.

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  To the voice note still waiting on his phone.

  The phone itself sat in his pocket. He had checked earlier. No signal. The battery had barely moved.

  For a moment he considered listening to the voice message anyway.

  Then he stopped.

  Hearing their voices here—so far from anything familiar—felt dangerous in a way he could not fully explain. As though doing so might break something fragile inside him that was barely holding together.

  Dennis sat up slowly.

  The floorboards creaked beneath his feet as he crossed the room toward the window. Outside, the village lay quiet under the moonlight. A lantern burned near the road where someone stood watch. Beyond the rooftops, the dark line of the forest stretched across the horizon.

  He rested one hand against the window frame.

  Prayer had always been a simple thing for him. Quiet words before work. A brief moment of reflection during difficult days. Nothing dramatic.

  But this world had already proven that simple things could carry weight.

  Dennis bowed his head slightly.

  “Lord,” he said softly.

  The word felt different here.

  More real.

  “I don’t understand what’s happening,” he continued after a moment. “That’s not unusual. I usually don’t.”

  He gave a faint, tired smile.

  “But if this is something important… if I’m here for a reason…”

  His voice faded.

  Dennis looked down at the mark on his wrist again.

  “…then I’m going to need help.”

  The room remained silent.

  Outside, the wind moved softly through the trees.

  Dennis closed his eyes and simply stood there, breathing slowly.

  Then warmth spread across his wrist.

  It came suddenly, like sunlight touching cold skin.

  Dennis’s eyes opened at once.

  The lantern-shaped mark glowed faintly beneath the surface of his skin. Not bright, but strong enough to outline the shape in pale gold.

  The light pulsed once.

  Then again.

  Dennis stared at it in stunned silence.

  The warmth faded slowly, leaving the mark dark once more, but the sensation remained—steady, almost reassuring.

  He flexed his fingers.

  Something had changed.

  Dennis was still studying his wrist when a quiet knock sounded at the door.

  He turned as it opened.

  Alric stepped inside carrying his lantern. The shutters were open now, allowing the warm flame within to illuminate the room with soft amber light.

  For a moment the two lights—the lantern and the fading glow of the mark—seemed to mirror each other.

  Alric noticed it immediately.

  He said little. He simply observed Dennis’s wrist with calm, practiced attention, as though confirming something he had already suspected.

  “The Mark answered,” he said at last.

  Dennis leaned back against the table, still trying to understand what had happened.

  The idea that the mark had responded to prayer felt both comforting and unsettling.

  Alric explained only briefly. According to him, the Pilgrim’s Mark was not merely a symbol. It awakened under certain conditions—moments of truth, commitment, or burden. Words spoken with genuine conviction could sometimes stir it.

  Dennis listened in silence.

  The explanation sounded strange, but the warmth lingering in his wrist was impossible to ignore.

  Alric eventually set the lantern on the table between them. The flame inside burned steadily.

  “You should rest,” he said.

  The words were simple, but the meaning behind them was clear enough.

  Morning would bring movement.

  The Bright Court would not forget what had happened in Red Hollow. Their return was not a matter of if, but when.

  Dennis nodded slowly.

  He was too tired to argue.

  After Alric left the room, Dennis lay back on the narrow bed. The candle had nearly burned out now, its small flame flickering against the walls.

  He looked once more at his wrist.

  The mark had gone quiet again.

  But it no longer felt like a wound.

  It felt like a promise.

  Sleep finally came.

  Outside, the forest shifted softly in the night wind. Somewhere beyond Red Hollow, forces older than the Bright Court had already begun to stir.

  The road between worlds had opened again.

  And the world had noticed.

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