Chapter 13: The Goddess in the Ashes

~Omniscient

The wind that rolled through the obsidian gates was sharp with mountain chill, slicing through the silence like a blade unsheathed. Three masked figures stood as still as statues in the courtyard, the moonlight catching the strange runes etched into their cloaks. Before them stood Aeron, Alpha of Obsidian, cloaked in shadow and suspicion.

He narrowed his eyes. “Who are you?”

The tallest of the trio stepped forward. His mask was bone-white, the sigils across its surface glowing faintly like embers beneath ice. His voice, when it came, was heavy with centuries.

“We are the Horax. A sacred body of hunters gifted with the binding power of celestial magic. Guardians of the realm. Destroyers of corrupted gods.”

Aeron’s posture stiffened, the name tugging at the farthest corners of memory. “Why are you here? Why now?”

“Because if you are to understand what is coming,” the Horax leader said, “then we must first tell you what came before.”

He lifted a gloved hand, and the runes on his wrist flared to life. Mist gathered at his feet, swirling up into shapes, images—memories frozen in time.

“Long ago,” he began, “before the founding of Obsidian, before even the ancient clans carved their bloodlines into the roots of the earth, there was Lira. The Moon Goddess.”

The mist bloomed into the image of a woman—tall, ethereal, her silver hair falling like liquid moonlight, her eyes like twin stars. A crescent mark shone at her throat.

“She was beauty incarnate. Order in divine form. Bestowed with the Gift of the Moon by the Celestial Tribunal, she was charged with one sacred duty: to guide the children of night. Werewolves. Vampires. Elves of the dark glade. All were hers to bless.”

The image shifted. Lira descending from a silver eclipse, arms outstretched, touching the heads of her chosen. They wept in awe, their bodies erupting with magic.

“She gifted powers to those she deemed perfect. Those whose bloodlines carried symmetry. Harmony. Flawlessness.”

Then the tone shifted. Darkened.

“But Lira… hated imperfection.”

The scene warped. Villages burned. People screamed as divine fire rained from the sky.

“Those she judged unworthy—she cast —into shadow. She called them blemishes upon her canvas. Imperfections to be erased.”

The mist twisted into scenes of devastation. Children turned to ash beneath moonlight. Mothers impaled on silver spears conjured from thin air. Lira stood above it all, her expression untouched by sorrow or mercy. A goddess sculpting the world in her image, not mourning the clay she broke to shape it.

“She descended upon the earth not to lead it… but to perfect it. Her followers became zealots. Those who bore her mark hunted the flawed like wolves hunt the sickest of the herd. Entire bloodlines were wiped from the earth—not for crimes, but for blemishes. A limp. A stammer. A scar.”

Aeron’s jaw clenched. The tale was myth, he’d thought. Something told to pups around campfires.

And yet… it didn’t feel like myth now.

The Horax leader continued.

“Our ancestors were among those Lira blessed. Warriors, scholars, night-priests. But where others worshipped blindly, they questioned. They saw the rot beneath her light. They understood what Lira could not—that perfection is not purity. That the world is built on fracture, not flawlessness.”

The mist became clearer now. Seven figures cloaked in black standing before a divine throne. Their blades drawn. Their sigils burning.

“They turned against her. Formed a covenant. Swore an oath to preserve the balance. They called themselves the Horax.”

“But she was a goddess,” Aeron murmured. “How did they even hope to defeat her?”

The leader nodded, expecting the question.

“They could not—at least, not while she still held the full breadth of her celestial magic. Lira, enraged by their defiance, declared war. She would not only remake the world but raze it to its roots.”

The image shifted again—this time, darker.

A field of black stars.

And from them, the Revenants descended.

Massive beings, monstrous and sublime. Eyes like blue suns, skin like molten stone. Their bodies twisted with celestial fire, their howls bending mountains.

“She created them,” the Horax whispered. “The Revenants. Beasts forged from the discarded matter of broken worlds. Each one a living weapon. They existed only to destroy. Cities fell in hours. Rivers ran red. Forests turned to salt.”

One Revenant clawed down a cliffside. Another shattered a cathedral with a single step.

Aeron’s fists tightened. He imagined Eira standing before one of those things and his heart lurched.

“We fought back,” the Horax continued. “But we could not win with steel alone. Our ancestors turned to forbidden knowledge. They wove her magic into their own—stole it. Broke pieces of her power into runes, into blood-ink, into masks like ours. They created the Binding Ritual.”

The mist rose in a swirl of light and shadow—Lira, caught in a web of starlight, her wings collapsing.

“They drained her. Bit by bit. Not just her strength, but her divinity. Until she was mortal. And in her final moments—vulnerable.”

The illusion turned crimson. A blade pierced Lira’s chest. Her eyes, once full of stars, faded to darkness.

“She died screaming,” the Horax said. “Not in pain. In rage.”

Silence fell. The mists ebbed away. Only moonlight remained now, spilling across the stones like silver blood.

Aeron’s voice was a low growl. “I’ve heard fragments of that story before. Whispers in temple ruins. Legends in the old books. But why tell it to me now?”

The Horax stepped forward. His mask gleamed like bone in the dark.

“Because she has returned, Alpha Aeron. Reborn not as a goddess… but as flesh.”

Aeron’s breath hitched. “Reincarnated?”

“Yes. Not celestial this time. But powerful nonetheless. Her soul lies in a vessel—one that even she may not fully understand yet.”

“And you’re certain of this?”

The Horax didn’t move. “We felt it. When we stumbled into an elf village that was destroyed by magic far above anything of this world.”

“Where was the village situated?” Aeron asked, his arms crossed behind his back.

“The hills of Trepidation.”