Chapter fifteen

The Gate pulsed.

Not with life but with memory.

Each beat was a cry from the dead, echoing through the frost-choked air as if the earth itself mourned what had once been buried and now begged to rise. Lyra stood at the edge of the valley, wind whipping her cloak around her legs, eyes locked on the iron-bone monolith that stood crooked in the center of the desecrated grave field.

She couldn’t look away.

Because it was looking back.

The air was heavy with old magic that was older than the Hollowed, older even than the Rift. This was ancestral. Primeval. A kind of quiet madness stitched into soil and sky.

Kaelen stood beside her, hand resting near the hilt of his blade. “It’s... watching.”

Lyra nodded, her voice thin. “It remembers me.”

“You’ve never been here before.”

“I don’t have to be,” she whispered. “I was born from what it holds.”

Behind them, Veera and the scouts had set perimeter wards. Halden crouched near the treeline, muttering tracking incantations, while the child—the Seer girl they’d rescued—sat beside the fire, murmuring strange lullabies in a language no one recognized.

The runes carved into the gate shimmered, then flared.

Blood-red.

Veera sprinted toward them. “We’ve got movement—north ridge. Three, maybe four cloaked figures.”

Lyra turned sharply. “Anyone from the Circle?”

“Can’t tell. They’re not shifting. But they’re not Accord either.”

Kaelen exchanged a look with her. “What now?”

“We make contact. But I go first.”

“You’re not going alone,” he growled.

She smiled grimly. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

---

They met the intruders at the rise of the ridge—four figures clad in ash-gray cloaks, faces shadowed, boots caked with the red mud of the valley.

The tallest among them stepped forward and pulled back her hood.

A woman. Mid-thirties. Sharp features. Hair braided with bone and feather.

“I was told you would come,” she said.

Lyra narrowed her eyes. “By who?”

“By the Gate.”

Kaelen stepped forward, tense. “Who are you?”

“We are the Vowbound,” the woman said calmly. “Descendants of the Moonborne who first sealed this place. We’ve waited six generations to finish what they couldn’t.”

Lyra stiffened. “There were survivors?”

“Scattered and Forgotten. But the line endured. We are the last of those who swore to guard the Seal.”

Veera approached, frowning. “If that’s true, why only show yourselves now?”

The woman looked at Lyra. “Because the Gate woke when she did.”

Lyra felt it then—recognition. Not from the woman, but from something deeper. A sense of being called home by a place that had never been hers.

“We’re not here to guard,” Lyra said softly. “We’re here to end this.”

The woman inclined her head. “Then come. Let us show you what the first Moonborne left behind.”

---

Beneath the ridge, the Vowbound had carved a small cave into the hillside, it was hidden by illusion wards and old, buried blood magic. The moment Lyra stepped inside, her bones ached with memory.

Torches lit as they passed.

Ancient glyphs lined the wall, designed in silver, not ink. Moonlight seemed to cling to the surfaces even underground.

They stopped before a massive mural—a painting scorched into the stone.

It showed a woman cloaked in white, flame in one hand, a wolf curled around her shoulders. She stood before the Gate, alone, while shadows clawed at the edge of the frame.

“She was the first,” said the Vowbound leader. “Elira the Moonforged. Your ancestor.”

Lyra stepped closer. “She sealed the Hollowed.”

“She bargained with them. Burned her wolf to fuel the ward. The price of sealing the Gate was her own soul.”

Kaelen’s voice dropped. “Is that the curse?”

“In part. What lived in Elira’s blood never died. It passed on. You are the last inheritor. The final match in the dark.”

Lyra turned to face her. “You believe that makes me the key.”

The woman’s gaze did not waver. “Or the end.”

---

That night, Lyra dreamed.

Not of blood.

Not of flame.

But of a field of stars.

In the dream, she stood on a cliff’s edge, staring down at a forest bathed in moonlight. A voice whispered behind her, it wqw familiar, feminine, laced with sorrow and pride.

“They’ll ask you to choose.”

Lyra turned, but saw no one.

“They’ll tell you there’s only one path. But they’ve all forgotten—fire doesn’t choose.”

The stars began to burn brighter. Her skin prickled.

“It consumes. It renews. You are not here to follow.”

She opened her mouth to speak, but the dream unraveled into ash.

---

THE NEXT DAY

Lyra awoke before dawn.

The child—the Seer—was already awake, standing by the gate’s edge again, whispering into the wind.

Lyra approached slowly.

“You shouldn’t be this close,” she murmured.

The girl turned, eyes shining silver-white.

“He’s almost through,” she whispered. “He knows you’re ready.”

Lyra froze. “Who?”

The girl blinked. “The Hollow Sovereign.”

Lyra’s blood turned to ice.

“Did he speak to you?”

“No.” Her voice dropped. “He screamed.”

---

By midday, scouts returned with news.

A caravan had been ambushed near the western rim. The attackers left no bodies—but carved the word REVELATION into a stone in fresh blood.

Kaelen paced as Lyra stood silent, calculating.

“They’re sending a message,” he said. “The Iron Circle’s testing your reach.”

“No,” Lyra said quietly. “They’re marking sacrifices.”

She turned to the Vowbound leader. “What do you know about Revelations?”

The woman’s face went still. “It’s not a word—it’s a rite. A Hollowed awakening. They offer blood willingly. The Sovereign uses it to bleed through.”

“Then they’re preparing to open the Gate.”

“Worse,” she said. “They’re preparing to merge it.”

---

That night, the decision was made.

They would strike the Gate before the rite could begin.

Kaelen organized two strike teams—one to protect the Seer child and another to hold the ridge.

Lyra would lead the third to the Gate itself.

The Vowbound prepared a sealing circle.

“Once you enter,” the leader warned, “you must reach the Hollow before it finishes bonding with the Gate. If it does, we can’t unbind it.”

Lyra stood at the head of her team, Kaelen at her side.

He pulled her close. “If things go wrong—”

“They won’t.”

“Lyra—”

She kissed him. Not soft. Not gentle. A promise and a warning all in one.

“We end this,” she whispered.

And they moved.

---

The gate pulsed louder now. Like a heart.

As they approached, the shadows thickened. Smoke curled from the ground. Runic fire twisted in the air.

From the mist, a figure stepped forward.

Tall. Armored in bone. Antlers crowned his head.

The Hollow Sovereign.

He didn’t smile.

He grinned.

“So this is the fire’s final daughter.”

Lyra didn’t blink. “This ends here.”

“Oh, no,” he purred. “This begins with you.”

He lifted a hand.

The air ripped.

Shadow-beasts spilled forth—half-flesh, half-magic. The Gate behind him opened like a wound.

Kaelen shifted with a roar, launching into the fray.

The Vowbound circle lit.

And Lyra stepped into the storm, her hands glowing with moonfire, her voice rising in ancient tongue:

“Blood to seal. Flame to bind. I name the end—mine.”

The Sovereign laughed.

And the war for the Hollowed Gate began.