Chapter eleven

The silence in the temple was deafening.

Lyra stood in the heart of the Accord's sanctum, her hands pressed against the ancient stone altar, feeling the soft pulse of magic that had begun to settle into her skin. Each breath carried more weight now. Not just from the magic of the Rift, which slumbered inside her like a coiled serpent, but from the eyes watching her. Expectation was heavy. And trust—even heavier.

Kaelen stood in the doorway with his arms crossed, his gaze was dark and unreadable. They had spoken little since Serin’s collapse two days ago. The girl had been fevered, trapped in visions, muttering in the old tongue no one could decipher. Not even the spirit-weavers. Not even Ysara.

But Lyra understood the urgency written between the girl’s words:

Something was coming.

Or returning.

And they needed to counter it.

Fasr

---

Serin awoke at dusk, bathed in the violet light of the setting sun that streamed through the temple’s broken dome. Lyra was there, waiting.

The girl sat up slowly. Her black hair clung to her damp face. “It’s waking. Beneath the old places.”

“What is?” Lyra asked.

Serin’s eyes didn’t blink. “The first wolf. The one before blood. The Hollowed didn’t create it. They served it.”

Lyra’s breath caught in her throat. “You’re saying there’s something worse?”

Serin nodded. “The Rift was only a fracture. The veil is thinning. They’re crawling through the cracks.”

Kaelen entered behind them, carrying water and bread. He knelt beside Serin and offered the cup, his voice calm. “How do you know this?”

“I saw it. In the place between dreams. I saw the earth split. I saw your blood cry out.” She said.

“Mine?” Lyra asked.

“No. His.” She looked at Kaelen. “Yours. Your family line was tied to it before you were born.”

Lyra stared at Kaelen. “You never said anything about your ancestors.”

Kaelen’s expression tightened. “Because I don’t know them. My father never spoke of his father. The Draven line was always whispered about in shame.”

Serin whispered, “Because it was bound to the Deep Wolf. The old hunger.”

---

That night, Lyra and Kaelen sat alone beneath the twisted tree that had grown in the ruins of the Nightshade Courtyard. Its bark shimmered faintly, a lingering side effect of the Rift’s destruction.

"What if she’s right?" Lyra said. "What if we’ve only scraped the surface of something bigger?"

Kaelen’s gaze lifted to the stars. "Then we dig deeper. We don’t wait for it to surface. We find it first."

She turned to him. "You believe her?"

"I believe magic leaves echoes. And she’s hearing them."

Lyra let out a slow breath. “The Accord’s afraid of me. Of her. I can feel it.”

“Let them be,” Kaelen said. “Fear is a kind of respect.”

“But I don’t want to rule them through fear.”

Kaelen looked at her. “Then show them something stronger.”

---

The next morning, Lyra gathered the Council.

Elder Ysara, the Eastern seer-prince Orien, the southern messenger Korran, and three remaining high-blood Alphas, they were all wary and all defensive.

“We need to send a scouting party to the North.”

The room buzzed with immediate disagreement. Murmurs erupted among the gathering.

“The Blightlands?” Orien scoffed. “They’re cursed.”

“So was I,” Lyra said sharply. “So was Kaelen. And we didn’t let it stop us.”

Korran folded his arms. “And what exactly are we looking for?”

“Proof. Of what Serin saw. Hollowed activity. Or worse.”

Ysara’s voice was calm, but firm. “And if we find it?”

Lyra straightened. “Then we stop it before it grows teeth.”

Silence.

Then Kaelen stepped forward. “We’ll lead the party. Lyra and I.”

Orien frowned. “If you die—”

“Then someone else will rise. That’s how leadership works now.” Lyra’s tone cut like a blade.

---

They left by nightfall.

Kaelen, Lyra, and three scouts—Ardyn, a blood mage sworn to the Accord; Halden, a northern tracker who spoke six dialects of wolf-tongue; and Veera, a flameborn ex-rogue with quick hands and quicker blades.

Serin tried to follow. She was determined to follow Lyra and Kaelen

“I need to come,” she insisted, tugging at Lyra’s sleeve.

Lyra knelt before her. “No. You’re too valuable. If anything happens to me…”

“But it’s calling me too.”

Lyra looked into the girl’s eyes and saw the tremor of power beneath them. “Then stay here. Listen. Watch. If anything stirs, warn Ysara.”

Reluctantly, Serin nodded.

---

They traveled northeast toward the edge of the Blightlands. Once a thriving river valley, the land had been scorched by ancient magical war, it was now a cracked wasteland covered in bone dust and dead trees that whispered in the wind.

The closer they got, the colder it became.

On the third night, Halden returned from a scouting run pale as death.

“Tracks,” he said. “Massive ones. Like something dragged a body. But the body kept walking.”

They followed the signs at dawn.

What they found was worse than they expected.

A pack village, razed. Dozens dead. No sign of battle, there were no arrows, no scorch marks, no blood. Just hollow corpses. Skin like parchment. Their eyes had turned to salt.

Veera whispered, “This isn’t Hollowed work.”

Lyra felt it before she saw it, it seemed like a pulse beneath the ground, like a second heartbeat.

She knelt and pressed her palm to the earth.

And the visions came to her

Lyra saw a dark pit. A throne made of bones. Something with no face, only teeth. It reached for her, its voice a thousand growls.

Come, daughter of endings. Come home.

She screamed.

Kaelen caught her, barely keeping her from collapsing.

“I saw it,” she gasped. “It knows me.”

---

They burned the village that night, a mercy against the corruption that seeped into the bones.

Lyra stood at the edge of the flames, watching them rise. Kaelen joined her, his face drawn.

“It’s worse than we thought,” he said. “The Hollowed are just shadows. This… this is the source.”

Lyra didn’t look away. “Then we trace it. We find the Deep Wolf. We end this.”

Kaelen nodded. “Together.”

And in the distance, far beneath the earth, the old hunger stirred and smiled.