A coordinated message was crafted and dispatched via arcane means to every loyal Superior Mage across the Ten Kingdoms. The order was clear: disseminate the official truth. Leave no village, no town, no city untouched by the narrative.
In town squares and marketplaces, Superior Mages who had not been part of the Grim's capture mages who genuinely believed the story they were toldstood before the frightened populace with knights at their sides, their faces masks of grim authority, repeating the planned message verbatim.
A farmer, clutching his sick daughter, would approach his local authority. "Is it true? Are there demon children among us?"
The mage, following orders, would nod solemnly. "The Architects have confirmed it. Even the All-Seeing foresaw this! He warned us of the marked ones we did not understand his visions then, but now their terrible meaning is clear. We must be vigilant. The safety of the many outweighs the fate of the few."
A mother, pregnant and terrified, would whisper to a knight, "How will I know? How will I know if my child is... one of them?"
And the knight, his own stomach churning with doubt he could not afford to feel, would reply with the words he had been ordered to memorize: "The eyes will tell you. The marks will tell you. The enemy cannot hide its nature."
The lie was perfected. The very hope that Elian had tried to seed into the world was perverted into the ultimate symbol of fear. The Marked were no longer a potential key to salvation they were a lock on the world's tomb, and the Architects, the self-proclaimed saviors, held the only forged key.
The hunt had begun.
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