The tome’s whispers surged in my mind, promising everything I sought—but warning me that the Void’s will also sought me. I saw the fear in my parents’ eyes. I was no longer their son. I was something else, something touched by darkness. A year passed in the quiet gnaw of whispers, the veined blackness crawling beneath my skin, the shadows bending unnaturally around me. Makuda had become a cage, its stone streets confining me.