Chapter Twenty Seven - Ashes Before Dawn

Sierra’s POV

The world was fragile again. The hush after the kiss still lingered, but now it felt fractured, hollow. Every time Sierra closed her eyes, she saw the shimmer of the luminous familiar she and Malick had conjured together — a creation born of love and desperation.

It had been beautiful. Too beautiful. And that terrified her.

If she could summon something like that by accident, what else might answer her if she slipped again? What if next time she didn’t conjure light, but ruin?

Her hands wouldn’t stop trembling. She rubbed them against her thighs as she walked, the chill night air clinging to her skin like damp silk. Her throat ached with words she couldn’t force out.

Behind her, Malick trailed close. His presence was steady, his silence louder than words. She didn’t dare look back, didn’t dare meet his eyes, because she knew he could already feel it — the storm pressing against her edges. The storm she was barely containing.

And still — the pull remained.

It tugged beneath her ribs like an invisible chain, dragging her toward shadow, toward memory, toward him.

Her father’s presence had never felt so close. Not even in her nightmares.

Her breaths came uneven, shallow. She swore she could almost hear his laughter in the hush of the trees.

And worse — the whispers no longer called her Sierra.

They had shifted. Old voices in a language not taught, not meant to be spoken, curling through her bones until she could barely remember who she was.

Vaelira.

The name throbbed in her skull, hot and sharp, as if every syllable burned its way down her spine. She bit down on her lip hard enough to taste copper, but it didn’t silence the voices.

She quickened her pace, as if distance could drown them out, as if Malick wouldn’t notice. Afraid he might hear it too, though part of her wondered if he already had. His shadows knew things. They whispered to him. Perhaps they whispered her name. Her real name.

A shiver ran through her. She hugged herself tighter, but the cold wasn’t what unsettled her. It was the thought that soon she might not even belong to herself.

Her feet carried her faster, almost of their own accord. The path ahead bent toward the outer edge of the grounds, toward the black line of the forest pressing against the night sky. She hadn’t meant to angle that way, hadn’t even noticed at first, but the tug beneath her ribs sharpened the closer she drew.

The forest was calling.

And some dangerous, half-buried part of her wanted to answer.

The Crows’ POV

Far beneath the academy, in the veins of the catacombs, shadows ran thicker. The walls hummed with a pulse that didn’t belong to stone, like a heartbeat buried deep within the earth. The stale air vibrated with it, thick and coppery, like blood.

Elara and Patricia stood shoulder-to-shoulder, their candles the only light. Wax dripped like blood onto the floor, hissing when it touched the runes etched into the ground. Those runes bled faint red light as their voices twined in a halting chant of Wither-Tongue.

But it was Gloria who commanded the circle.

She had led them here. She had drawn the seal across the ancient black stone, each jagged line carved with precision, each curve deliberate. She knew words the others didn’t — words older than even the Crows’ lineage — and her voice never faltered.

Elara’s hands shook so violently her flame nearly died. Her voice cracked, uneven. “This feels… wrong.”

Patricia’s lips had gone pale, sweat streaking down her temple. She glanced at Gloria, eyes wild. “Gloria… what are we calling?”

Gloria’s smile glinted sharp, her teeth catching the crimson glow. Her eyes were fever-bright, fever-hungry. “Not what,” she whispered, palm pressed firm against the seal. “Who.”

The air dropped in an instant. Breath froze in their lungs, every candle guttering but never quite dying. The chamber seemed to fold inward, as if the walls themselves bent closer, pressing down on their ribs.

Then, with a groan that echoed like bones breaking, the seal cracked.

From its heart spilled shadow — but not like theirs. Not crow-black. Not familiar. This shadow was older, heavier, soaked in memory. Its edges gleamed red as if dipped in fire.

A feather emerged. Long. Brittle. Stained faintly with blood.

Elara stumbled back, her candle falling from her grip. It sputtered against the stone. She gagged on the stench rising from the seal, sulfur and charred bone. “Gods—”

Patricia gagged too, clutching her sleeve over her mouth. “That smell—”

But Gloria stood rooted, her head tilted like a devotee at an altar. Her face glowed with reverence as she tilted her face toward the blooming dark.

“Vaulisk,” she breathed.

The stone split further. The runes bled into black flame. The feather burned to ash in an instant, its smoke curling into the shape of wings.

Gloria’s voice dropped lower, into something that no longer sounded human. A voice threaded with command, with worship. “Awaken.”

Malick’s POV

Malick felt it before the seal broke.

A surge beneath the earth. A shudder in the marrow of the school. The air itself turned hot and heavy, crawling against his skin like fire. The walls seemed to vibrate with something wrong.

And then—her voice.

Not aloud. Inside his head.

Malick.

His chest seized. His shadows jolted awake, flaring like startled animals.

He ran. Boots hammered the ancient stone. His body carved through corridors that twisted tighter the faster he moved. The hallways seemed endless, closing in around him, stone arches bending like ribs.

Shadows spilled across the arches, whispering names. Not just Sierra — but the other one.

Vaelira.

The forbidden name. The one Gloria had hissed like poison.

It rattled through his skull, doubling with Sierra’s voice — frantic, splintered — threading into his thoughts. Don’t let them take me.

His throat closed. His vision blurred. “Where are you?” His breath tore ragged from his chest, raw with desperation. “Sierra—just hold on.”

He crashed into the courtyard, lungs burning. The night split open before him.

The forest loomed on one side, the tower on the other. And at the center of it all, he felt it — the terrible pull, stretching him in two directions, light and shadow tugging against each other.

His fists clenched. His jaw ached from grinding his teeth.

“Sierra!” he roared into the night.

Only the wind answered.

But in his head, faint and broken: I can’t stop it.

Gloria’s POV

The ritual circle shattered.

The runes buckled under a tide of black fire, the stone splitting apart like flesh.

Elara screamed, the sound torn raw from her throat, echoing down the catacombs. Patricia collapsed to her knees, hands clamped to her skull, keening through clenched teeth.

But Gloria did not falter.

Her veil slipped from her head, falling to the ground. Her face was bare, luminous with hunger and devotion. The air burned her lungs, seared her eyes, but she inhaled it like perfume, let it sting her tongue like wine.

And then — he was there.

Not fully. Not yet. But his outline formed from smoke and flame, a vast shadow taking shape. Wings curled like mountains folded against themselves, his frame cloaked in fire. The sheer weight of him bent the chamber, pressing the air thin.

Elara whimpered, her voice breaking on a sob. Patricia began to pray, half-delirious, words tripping over themselves.

But Gloria only smiled.

The voice seeped through her bones, curling into her marrow. It wasn’t sound — it was deeper. Like smoke sliding along her spine.

“You’ve done well, child.”

Her lips parted, trembling with awe. “My lord… Vorath Kane.”

His eyes opened. Molten gold. Merciless.

And he smiled — cruel, certain, eternal.

“She will come to me,” the god whispered, the chamber trembling with every word. “She was always mine.”

Sierra’s POV

Far above, Sierra clutched her chest as the shadows inside her seized all at once. Malick’s voice was calling her, but her mother’s voice — the one that had always anchored her — was gone.

The last word she heard before the black fire burst free was not her name, but a claim.

Mine.