Prologue
PROLOGUE
The ground trembled beneath Mac’s feet, a slow, steady pulse that resonated through the ruins. Dust swirled in the dim light, disturbed by the rhythmic hum rising from beneath the cracked stone floor. Something ancient stirred beneath her fingertips, something that had not woken in centuries.
The Cursor.
She hadn’t meant to find it. It had called to her, its presence a whisper in her bones long before she’d stepped foot in the ruins. Now, as she knelt before it, she felt the weight of its power pressing against her ribs, a presence both alien and familiar.
A pulse of energy rippled outward, rattling the broken columns around her. Mac gasped, barely managing to steady herself. The others had warned her not to touch it, not to even get close. But the Cursor had already chosen.
A voice, neither hers nor truly foreign, murmured in the depths of her mind.
Balance must be restored. The Source must remain sealed. You have been chosen.
Images crashed into her thoughts, overwhelming and fragmented, a vast network of ley lines unraveling, ancient glyphs glowing with desperate light, a gateway formed of stone and energy pulsing like a heartbeat. And then, shadow. Something watching. Waiting.
Mac staggered back, her breath ragged. The world around her blurred as the energy within the Cursor settled, no longer fighting, merging. The warmth of it wrapped around her chest, as if it had always belonged there.
She wasn’t a warrior. She wasn’t a scholar. But the Cursor had decided otherwise.
And if the visions were true, the world didn’t have much time left.
