AUTHORS NOTE.
DEAR LOVELY READERS, I AM EXTREMELY SORRY FOR THE MIXUP,I ACCIDENTALLY UPLOADED THE CHAPTER OF MY OTHER BOOK. I AM EXTREMELY SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION The Hollow did not weep when they left—but it watched. As Lyra stepped beyond the boundary of ancient stone and into the frostbitten woods, she felt the forest's eyes upon her. The runes hummed softly behind her like a heartbeat slowing down. She turned once more, committing the sanctuary to memory. This place had changed her. Awakened her. But it was no longer safe for her. Not with Dren’s minions still echoing in the shadows. Kaelen walked beside her, silent but steady. They moved fast to the north, through the wildlands where few dared to roam, a place between packs, marked only by bones and forgotten names. Lyra adjusted her cloak and asked, “How far is the Accord?” “Far enough that no one remembers it exists,” Kaelen replied, scanning the terrain. “But I’ve walked this path before. Once.” She caught the tension in his voice. “What happened?” “I wasn’t welcome.” She blinked. “Why?” Kaelen’s jaw tightened. “Because I carried death with me.” --- By nightfall, they made camp near the edge of the Obsidian Crags, where jagged stones jutted like broken spears from the earth. Kaelen built a fire, its smoke curling upward into the black sky. Lyra wrapped herself in her cloak and sat beside him, her thoughts running wild. “What will the Accord do when they see me?” she asked. Kaelen stared into the flames. “They’ll test you. Not just your blood—but your truth.” Lyra frowned. “What does that mean?” “They’re old wolves. They believe power without purpose is corruption. They’ll look into your mind. Your memories. Your fears.” Lyra didn’t flinch. “Let them look. I’ve got nothing to hide.” He finally looked at her. “Everyone has something to hide.” A silence fell between them. But this one wasn’t cold. It simmered. She reached for the knife Kaelen had given her, the obsidian blade with the carved hilt. “Then I’ll pass their test. For the curse. For my pack. For us.” Kaelen didn’t answer right away. But the flicker in his eyes said everything. --- The next day, the terrain grew cruel and dangerous. Snow turned to black shale beneath their boots. Ice-covered cliffs towered overhead, and narrow passes forced them to walk single file. Lyra’s wolf, once a quiet presence, was now restless beneath her skin. Every sound, every scent, felt sharper. Her wolf was threatening to come to the surface. Kaelen stopped abruptly at the edge of a ravine. “We’re close.” Lyra peered into the chasm. Mist swirled at the bottom, and across it stood a crumbling bridge of stone and iron. Hanging from one of the pillars was a sigil — a crescent moon within a spiral. “The Accord’s seal,” Kaelen said. Lyra stepped forward, but Kaelen caught her arm. “There’s a trial here.” “What kind?” “They’ll conjure it from your mind.” Before she could speak, the stone beneath her feet cracked. Magic surged from the sigil. The world tilted. And Lyra fell. --- She hit ground—not stone, not snow, but scorched earth. Smoke filled the air. Flames danced around her, licking at ruins. She stood in the middle of what had once been a village, it was now ashes. Her heart pounded. Voices rose from the flames. “You failed them.” She turned. A figure emerged, it was her foster mother from Shadow Ridge, cruel-eyed and smiling. “You were always weak.” Lyra shook her head. “This isn’t real.” “But the pain was,” the woman spat. “You let us beat you. Let us shame you.” Another figure appeared—Ryn, her foster brother. Bloodied, broken. “You could’ve stopped it. But you didn’t.” “No!” she growled. “I was a child!” The flames twisted. Now Kaelen stood among them, silver bleeding from his eyes. “You’ll destroy me too,” he said hollowly. Lyra fell to her knees. “Stop—this isn’t who I am.” The world darkened around her “You’re the curse,” the voices whispered. “You were never meant to survive.” But something stirred inside her. It wasn't rage and it wasn't fear. It was resolve. She stood, lifting her chin. “Maybe I was never meant to survive. But I did. And I will.” Her hands ignited and silver flame roared from her skin. The illusions screamed at her wildly. Suddenly The fire vanished. She stood once more at the edge of the ravine. Kaelen was beside her, watching, breathless. “You passed,” he whispered. The bridge groaned—and then shifted, reshaping into a gleaming path of light. --- The Vireyan Accord did not greet them with banners or guards. They were met by silence and then they heard a voice. “You carry the scent of death, Kaelen Draven.” A woman stepped forward. She seemed to be ageless, whith pale skin inked with runes. Her eyes were silver, like Lyra’s. “Elder Ysara,” Kaelen said, bowing his head. Lyra mirrored him, bowing deeply to her. Ysara studied her. “And you must be the moon-marked.” “Yes,” Lyra said, standing tall. “I’m Lyra Thorne. Daughter of no one. Mate to Kaelen Draven.I am cursed and trained. And i am not here to beg.” A low murmur moved among the other Elders emerging from the ruins. Ysara’s lips curled. “Good. We do not listen to beggars. Only to those who are ready to bleed.” --- That night, Lyra was given a room in the ancient stone fortress nestled behind the cliffs. She sat alone by a fire, breathing steadily. A knock came. Kaelen entered. She looked up. “Did they decide?” “They’ve agreed to hear your case,” he said. “But there’s a catch.” “Of course there is.” “They want you to complete the bond.” She froze. “Now?” Kaelen stepped closer. “They believe only then can they read your bloodline completely. Only then can they know if you’re truth... or weapon.” “And if I’m the latter?” “They’ll kill us both.” Lyra stood. The firelight danced across her skin, painting her in gold and shadow. “Then let’s make the truth undeniable.” Kaelen didn’t smile. He stepped closer. The bond between them pulsed. Silver light coiled from her fingers. Gold flared in his eyes. They touched. And the world changed.It wasn’t the smooth silver mirror described in stories, nor the playful tides painted on childhood murals. It was vast and hungry, its waves were blackened by storm-winds and haunted with the breath of ghosts. They reached the coastline in three days, riding under the banner of the Accord, but even that sacred emblem did little to calm the villagers that greeted them.“Stay off the eastern shoals,” a toothless old woman warned as they secured the boats. “That sea remembers the old ones. It remembers who bled into it.”Kaelen thanked her politely and moved on.Lyra paused longer, staring into the foam-crusted surf. The wind tangled her cloak, sent her hair whipping around her shoulders like strands of moonlight caught in a gale. Behind her, Iris stood quietly, her gaze locked not on the horizon, but on the seabirds flying inland as if they were fleeing something they couldn't name.“Is this where the second seal is?” Lyra asked the girl softly.Iris didn’t look at her. “It’s undernea
The Gate was sealed. The Sovereign was gone.But Lyra couldn’t sleep.She sat by the dying embers of the Accord’s victory fires, her cloak wrapped tightly around her shoulders. The scent of ash and blood still clung to the air. Even with the sky quiet and the land no longer weeping shadow, something inside her refused to settle.Not fear. Not even sorrow.Restlessness.Kaelen had fallen asleep not far from her, curled around the small Seer child, whose name they still didn’t know. The girl had wandered into the Gate’s chaos barefoot, fearless and then simply stayed, curling beside Kaelen after the battle as though she’d belonged there all along.Lyra watched them now, trying to understand what the child was. Who she was.Because the girl didn’t speak. She only watched. With eyes too ancient for her face.And now, even the stars felt like they watched through her.A soft voice stirred the air.“You should rest, too.”Lyra turned.Elder Ysara stood at the edge of the firelight, her shad
The moment the Gate fully opened, the world bled.Reality twisted. The valley howled. Darkness didn’t pour from the tear—it poured into it, like a mouth inhaling, ready to consume. Lyra stood at the center of a vortex of wind, magic, and bone, her silver-flamed hands stretched wide, anchoring the protective stakes the Vowbound had carved into the ground.“Hold the circle!” she shouted over the chaos.Veera’s voice came from somewhere behind her, breathless. “One of the wards just snapped! We’re exposed on the west flank!”Kaelen snarled, his wolf tearing through a pair of Hollowed beasts slithering on limbs far too long to be natural. Blood sprayed the earth. His eyes glinted silver beneath the full moon.“Lyra!” he shouted. “They’re breaching faster than we can kill them!”“I know,” she ground out, voice ragged. “But we’re not trying to stop them—we’re trying to draw him out.”As if summoned, the Sovereign’s laughter cut through the storm like glass across skin.“You think I’ll fight
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
The snow began to fall again when they left the ruins of the Archives.Not the kind that signaled storm or danger. It was soft,haunting, almost beautiful but Lyra couldn’t feel it the way she once might have. The cold didn’t bite her. The wind didn’t chill. Ever since the vision, ever since the truth had settled in her bones, she felt half fire, half shadow. As though she no longer belonged entirely to the world that had birthed her.Kaelen rode beside her in silence, eyes alert to every crunch of snow beneath hooves. Behind them, Veera and Halden whispered between themselves. The two scouts, trailing at the rear, remained tense—uneasy ever since the vision at the archives had triggered a magical surge that split the ground like a wound.They didn’t ask questions.But Lyra could feel it.They feared her now.“South pass up ahead,” Kaelen murmured. “Two days’ ride to the Accord’s northern post.”She didn’t respond.He looked at her sideways. “You’ve barely spoken.”Lyra turned toward t
Smoke still curled in the sky when Lyra woke, heart thudding, breath shallow. She had dreamed again of fire, of a voice whispering her name from a chasm beneath the world. But unlike before, it hadn’t felt like a warning. It had felt like a calling. The kind only blood answered. She sat up slowly, the ache in her limbs sharper today. Every spell she’d cast at the pit had taken something from her—bone-deep exhaustion, the memory of her mother’s voice, and something else she hadn’t yet named. The magic she'd wielded hadn't just bent to her will,it had marked her in return. Kaelen stirred beside her in the canvas tent. His breath was shallow but steady. The claw wound across his ribs had stopped bleeding, but it still hadn’t closed. No ordinary blade had caused it,that much was certain. The Blightland beasts had evolved, shaped by Rift residue. The pit hadn’t just spewed darkness. It had created something. She reached for the healing salve Veera had left, spreading it carefully ove