Chapter thirteen

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 over the edge of Kaelen’s bandages. He winced but didn’t wake. Even unconscious, he looked like a man half-ready for battle,jaw tight, hand clenched near the dagger beneath his bedroll.

“Rest, Alpha,” she murmured, brushing a hand over his forehead.

She rose, stepping into the quiet morning.

The Accord’s encampment outside the Blightlands buzzed with quiet tension. Scouts were sharpening blades, mages meditating around containment circles. Veera nodded at her from across the field, fire magic flickering beneath her fingertips.

Elder Ysara emerged from her tent as Lyra approached.

“You didn’t sleep,” the old woman said.

“Not for lack of trying,” Lyra replied.

Ysara’s gaze swept over her. “The magic is changing you.”

Lyra didn’t answer.

“Don’t fight me, child. I’ve seen what happens to those who believe themselves stronger than the remnants of the Rift.”

Lyra’s voice was cold. “Then what would you have me do? Abandon it? Let it rot and spread and twist everything in its path? You know what lies beneath that pit isn’t done.”

“No,” Ysara said quietly. “It’s just beginning.”

A long pause stretched between them. Finally, the elder reached into the folds of her robe and handed Lyra a sealed scroll.

“What’s this?”

“A name. A place. South of the Accord’s reach. The Flameborn Archives. It was forbidden years ago—too unstable. But if you want answers about what the Rift tried to latch onto inside you, you’ll find them there.”

Lyra clenched the parchment. “And what if I find more than I want?”

Ysara met her eyes. “Then you’ll know if you’re meant to wield it,or to burn with it.”

---

By midday, the others were ready to move. Kaelen stood despite Veera’s protest, still pale but steady.

“I’m not leaving you alone in this,” he said.

“You should rest.”

“And you should fear what might come,” he shot back. “We’re even.”

She almost smiled.

Veera, Halden, and two scouts rode with them. The forest south of the Blightlands was dense and unfamiliar—no pack claimed it, no markers guided the way. Just tangled branches, twisting vines, and the scent of magic gone stale.

On the third day of travel, the woods changed.

The trees no longer bore leaves. They dripped with amber sap that pulsed faintly. Lyra dismounted, walking forward as a hush fell over the party.

The air thickened.

A glow flickered into visibility across the trunk of a dying elm. Another shimmered near its roots. Words carved in a tongue she didn’t recognize but that her magic understood.

“Do not speak your name here,” she murmured.

Kaelen drew beside her. “What does it mean?”

“This forest remembers.” Her fingers twitched. “It remembers too much.”

They entered the ruins of the Archives that evening.

Or what remained of them.

Half-sunken into the earth, the tower and its outbuildings were scorched, warped by fire long extinguished. Stones bore claw marks. Some looked melted. Yet faint glimmers of warding sigils hovered in the air, resisting time.

“This is where your magic leads?” Kaelen asked.

Lyra nodded once.

As the others made camp, she stepped inside the blackened archway. The Archive’s air was thick with memory. Not dust. Memory. Voices hissed between the stones. Words trapped in time.

She pressed her hand to a broken doorframe—and fell into darkness.

---

A vision took her.

She stood in the Archive as it once was, there were towering shelves of spells, gold lanterns, firebloods walking in crimson cloaks. And in the center: a girl, no older than sixteen, standing with her hands aflame.

Lyra stepped closer.

The girl turned. Her eyes were silver.

Lyra gasped. “No. It’s not possible.”

The girl was... her. Or someone who bore her face.

The image flickered. The girl screamed, flames devouring the room around her. Others tried to contain it—but the fire wanted to escape. Not to kill. To warn.

One voice rose above the others.

“She’s a Vessel. She carries it. Seal her!”

Chains of fire lanced through the room. The girl dropped to her knees.

Then everything turned to ash.

Lyra staggered back to the present, heart racing.

Veera rushed in. “Lyra! What happened?”

“I saw her,” she whispered.

“Who?”

“My bloodline. The first Moonborne. They locked her away because she tried to warn them.”

“Warn them of what?”

“That the Hollowed wasn’t just a force,it was a cycle. Something that keeps trying, again and again, through different vessels.”

Kaelen stood in the doorway. “And now it’s trying through you.”

---

They didn’t sleep much that night.

Lyra sat by the ruins, fingers trailing ash. She had taken the vision’s memory—every word, every flare of magic—and sealed it behind her ribs.

But the truth settled like an ember in her lungs.

She wasn’t just someone born into a curse.

She was part of its origin.

Kaelen sat across from her, sharpening his blade.

“You’ve changed.”

She glanced up. “Say that like it’s a bad thing.”

“No,” he said. “Like it’s real.”

She met his eyes. “Will you still follow me? Even if this ends... badly?”

He sheathed the blade. “I didn’t follow you because I thought we’d win.”

“Then why?”

“Because you make me want to try.”

Silence settled.

Then Lyra whispered, “If I lose control... you stop me.”

Kaelen’s voice was steel. “I won’t need to. You’ll come back.”

---

They departed at dawn.

The others still didn’t know the full truth, and Lyra wasn’t ready to tell them.

Not yet.

Let them still think she was the girl who broke the curse.

Let them still believe the monster was dead.

Because the real threat wasn’t the Rift.

It was what waited for its echo.

And Lyra knew now,it wasn’t done with her.

It was only just beginning.