The whispers brushed against Kazi's mind like wind through dry leaves, soft, insistent, ancient. They weren't words exactly, but impressions. Emotions. Flashes of color and sound.

She staggered slightly, clutching her arm as the amber light from her mark surged brighter.

"Kazi," Rhazir warned, "don't fight it. Let it flow."

Her eyes closed.

And suddenly, she was no longer in the chamber.

She felt a rush of heat. Saw a cracking earth. Then a flash of lightning across a black sky. Figures in long robes standing in a circle. Symbols carved into the ground, glowing in synchronized pulses. One stepped forward and raised a hand, his arm bearing the same tattoo she now carried.

She gasped, breaking the vision.

The chamber returned, and she stumbled backward off the platform.

Rhazir swiftly moved and caught her before she could make contact with the floor.

"What did you see?" he asked.

"I don't know," she whispered. "It felt like… a memory. But not mine."

"Your mark is opening," he said. "It holds pieces of the past. Of the ones who came before. The more you use it, the more it will reveal."

She shook her head, overwhelmed. "I don't want pieces... I want answers. What is this? Magic? A curse?"

"It's power," he said plainly. "Older than this city. Older than our names. And if you've been awakened, then the world has started shifting again."

Kazi paced the chamber, eyes tracing the ancient carvings on the stone. "Why now? Why me?"

"I don't know," Rhazir said. "But the marks don't lie. And they don't choose at random."

She stopped, turning to face him. "So, what am I supposed to do?"

He stepped closer. "You train. You listen to the mark. You remember."

Kazi clenched her fists. "And if I don't want any of this?"

He met her gaze. "Then it will still come for you."

Her breath caught. She knew he was right. Ever since the moment on the dance floor, her world had been unraveling. And now, buried under stone with glowing walls and stranger visions, it all felt inevitable.

"Fine," she said. "Then teach me."

Rhazir nodded once. "We start now."

He moved to the far wall and pulled down a dusty scroll tucked into a slot in the rock. Unrolling it, he revealed a map, lines spiraling outward from a central point, intersecting with symbols that mirrored the ones burned into her memory.

"Your tattoo is known as a ‘Mark.’ These here on the scroll are the known marks," he explained. "They are The Mark of Azibo and there are Eight in total. Each one tied to a different elemental line. Your elemental line… is fire."

She looked down at her arm as the amber light pulsed in quiet confirmation.

"And the others?" Kazi asked.

"They're waking up too." Rhazir stated.