Chapter 17 · The Gatekeeper's Gambit - Chapter 17: The Black Door Wants One

The mark burned itself onto Yun Sheng's wrist three minutes after the black door stopped talking.

Mo Han saw it happen. One second she was standing there with the rest of them, staring at the door that had just spoken for the first time in anyone's memory. The next, she gasped and grabbed her left arm. Black lines spiraled up from her wrist like ink bleeding through wet paper. They moved. Crawled under her skin in patterns that didn't make sense, geometric and wrong.

And above the mark, hanging in the air only Mo Han seemed able to see clearly, a timer started counting down. Seven days. Six days, twenty-three hours. Six days, twenty-two hours.

"What is that?" Su Jin moved first, crossing the space between them in two steps. She grabbed Yun Sheng's arm, turned it over. "What did you do?"

"I didn't—" Yun Sheng's voice cracked. "I didn't do anything. It just—"

"The door marked her." Mo Han kept his voice level even though his brain was already racing through possibilities. The black door had said bring one. Apparently it was done waiting for volunteers. "It chose.