Lyla stepped forward, her boots scraping against the stone floor of the ruined chamber.The air around her still crackled with the aftershocks of her battle, but the thing she had fought the thing that should not have existed was gone.Not dead.Not defeated.Just… waiting.She exhaled, rolling her shoulders, forcing herself to remain steady.She had won this fight.But she had not won the war.The Marked Ones were still above, somewhere in the city ruins.If they were still alive.She could feel the weight of something shifting above her, the city itself stirring as if it had finally woken up.And whatever had been waiting here for centuries was no longer willing to stay hidden.Lyla inhaled sharply and moved.The chamber stretched endlessly, its towering walls covered in strange, pulsing carvings that flickered in and out of existence.Every step felt like she was walking between worlds.Between what was real and what was not.Her fingers brushed the stone, tracing the symbols. They
The darkness pressed in.Thick. Heavy. Alive.Lyla stood motionless, her breath steady despite the wrongness that wrapped around her like unseen chains.The voice inside her head was her own, but not hers echoed through the vast nothingness that surrounded her."You do not understand what you have become."She clenched her fists, her claws flexing.She did not like being told what she did and did not understand.“I know exactly what I am.”The darkness shuddered.And the voice laughed.It was not a sound meant for the living.It crawled down her spine like cold hands, curling into the marrow of her bones."Then why do you fear it?"Lyla did not move.She did not flinch.She did not give it the satisfaction.Because she did not fear.And if this thing thought it could break her, it would learnIt was too late.She was already unbreakable.The air shifted.Slowly.The weight of the void around her began to change.Lyla inhaled deeply, cataloging every sensation.The coldness of the ston
The city lay in ruins, but it was not dead.Lyla stood at the edge of what had once been a great civilization, its blackened spires piercing the sky like the ribs of a beast long decayed. A jagged path led into the heart of the forgotten city, where the weight of something ancient pressed against her skin like unseen hands.She inhaled deeply.The air here was wrong.Not stale. Not rotten.But empty.It held no scent of life. No trace of time. As if nothing had ever lived here or if something had, it had been erased so completely that even the memory of its existence had been swallowed by the void.The Marked Ones stood behind her, their silver eyes flickering with unease. They were warriors, born for battle, bred for war. But even they sensed the unnatural stillness, the unnatural waiting.They did not ask if they should go forward.Because Lyla had already taken the first step.And once she moved, there was no turning back.Their boots crunched over broken stone, but the sound was q
The stars above flickered like dying embers, their cold light unable to touch the darkness that pressed against the ruins.Lyla sat on her throne of broken stone and shadows, her silver eyes scanning the horizon.The wind carried the scent of blood.The remnants of the war with the Elders still clung to the land, but the battle was no longer her concern.Because something else had awakened.Something that had been waiting.And now, it had begun to move.She could feel it in the air, in the way the shadows stretched longer, the way the night seemed to last just a little too long.The Marked Ones had noticed it too.They did not speak of it.They did not need to.They were warriors.And warriors knew when something was hunting them.The Marked Ones moved through the ruins in silence.Their silver eyes flickered with unease, their weapons always within reach.Even after everything they had faced the packs, the Elders, the throne that had nearly broken them this was different.There was n
The fires had long since died, but the scent of blood still clung to the air.Lyla stood at the highest point of the ruined Eastern Keep, staring out over the land she had claimed.Victory had been hers.The Elders were gone.The old world had crumbled at her feet.But this this silence, this weight pressing down on her chest this did not feel like triumph.The Marked Ones moved below, carrying out their duties in eerie quiet, reinforcing the stronghold, tending to the wounded, stacking the bodies of the fallen.There should have been a celebration.There should have been relief.Instead, there was waiting.Because even though they had won, everyone knewThis war was far from over.The wind howled through the broken stone, sweeping through the remains of the keep.Lyla had claimed this throne by blood.By strength.By proving to the world that she was unbreakable.But sitting upon it now, she did not feel like a ruler.She felt like a weapon waiting to be used again.Her hands curled
The ruins of the Eastern Keep stood like a skeletal remnant of the past, charred stone and broken walls marking the battlefield where the Elders had made their last stand.Lyla sat on the crumbling remains of what had once been a throne not hers, not yet.Her warriors moved like shadows around her, tending to the wounded, sharpening their blades, fortifying their defenses.Victory had come at a cost.But even as the last embers of war smoldered, Lyla knewThis was not peace.This was the space between battles.And something was already watching from the dark.She could feel it.A shift in the air.Something just beyond the veil of what she could see.Not an enemy.Not an army.Something else.She stood slowly, the weight of power humming beneath her skin.The wind whispered across the broken stones.And thenA voice.Low. Ancient. Patient."Do you feel it, too?"Lyla’s breath stilled.She turnedAnd at the edge of the ruins, standing against the dying light of duskA figure waited.It