Lyra POV The world had narrowed into silence. The kind that came after heartbreak. After devastation.The bond was gone. And the Harbinger stood above it all, smiling.A smug, inhuman smile that split his face like a wound. He turned slowly, savoring the moment, as if feeding off the ruin he had wrought.“I expected more from you, little wolf,” he said, voice velvet and rot. “But I suppose it was too easy, wasn’t it? A whisper here, a memory there... and your king tore himself apart for me.”Lyra couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.Every part of her felt hollow, carved out by the echo of Kane’s rejection. Even Thalia had gone silent, her presence curled up in some hidden corner of Lyra’s soul, wounded and refusing to rise.But there was something else now. Buried under the grief. Under the pain. It started as a flicker. A tremor in her fingertips. A breath drawn too sharply.Rage.The Harbinger kept talking, but she didn’t hear the words anymore. She only heard the blood pounding in
Lyra POV The city felt like a graveyard.Not because it was empty, but because it wasn’t. The people had returned - cautiously, with bowed heads and silent eyes - but the air held the weight of something sacred lost. The Hollow Grounds beyond the barrier still burned faintly with the remnants of their battle. The smell of ash clung to everything.They entered through the eastern gate in silence. No one spoke. The warriors moved with grim determination, their weapons still bloodstained. The witches were pale and exhausted, many of them barely on their feet. But they made it.The barrier, though cracked and faltering, had been reforged. A tether of silver light shimmered faintly over the walls, patched and held together by runes and raw willpower. It wasn’t perfect. But it was enough - for now.Lyra said nothing as she passed beneath it. She felt the familiar hum of protection brush against her skin like a sigh, but there was no comfort in it. Not anymore.They returned to the same mak
The tent around Lyra was dim, the pale blue light of dawn barely seeping through the canvas. For a moment, she didn’t breathe. Her body ached, her skin prickled, and her heart thudded like a war drum beneath her ribs.Nyxar’s voice still echoed faintly in her mind. "Go to the temple ruins. Alone."She sat up slowly, wincing as every joint protested. The shirt clung to her skin with a mix of sweat and dried blood. The bowl of now-cold water on the table beside her remained untouched since last night, just as the plate of food had gone uneaten. Her stomach curled at the thought of it.Her gaze drifted to the opening of the tent. The barrier was up again - she could feel the thrum of its magic, steady but strained. The witches had worked through the night. So had the warriors. She wasn’t sure who had dragged her back from the battlefield after Ekreth vanished with Kane and the Harbinger. She only remembered the rage. The pain. The silence Thalia had retreated into deepest parts of her, l
Lyra POV As Lyra stood beside Nyxar, the haze lifted, revealing more of the ruins that stretched beyond the immediate carnage. Crumbled walls half-swallowed by ash and time. Statues toppled. Towers broken. It was like walking through a graveyard built for gods.He moved ahead of her in silence, his long cloak trailing like smoke. Lyra followed, drawn forward despite the ache in her chest. She could feel the echo of magic here - raw, broken magic, older than any she had ever touched.“This was your home?” she asked quietly, though the answer pulsed in her bones.“It was,” Nyxar replied, his voice distant. “A long time ago. Before I became what I am now.”He stopped before a shattered archway. Vines had overtaken the stone, and in its center lay a deep scar carved into the earth, as if something had been ripped from it violently.“What happened here?” Lyra asked, stepping beside him.He didn’t look at her. “I had a mate once.”The words hit her like a thunderclap. Her breath stilled.“
Lyra sat on a worn, half-buried stone, the remnants of what might’ve once been an altar. Light streamed through the broken ceiling above - slanted, gold-tinged sunlight that pierced through the dust and fractured glass. The air here still thrummed with old power, magic older than any living soul could remember. And somewhere behind her, Nyxar lingered in the shadows, silent.She hadn’t spoken since the dream.Her hands rested limply on her knees, stained with dust and blood. Her eyes were fixed on the far wall where vines crawled over carved glyphs, half-erased by time and ash.“Do you remember what this place was?” she asked softly, unsure why she spoke aloud.Nyxar’s voice came like the stir of wind. “It was where we made promises. The first pacts. The first betrayals.”Lyra turned her head toward him slowly. “And you brought me here because…?”His gaze didn’t meet hers. “Because the temple still remembers. Even when the gods forget.”She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her body s
Lyra POV The silence lingered after Thalia’s growl had faded. A silence that felt fuller now. Less like an absence and more like a promise.Lyra sat in the dust until the ache in her body returned, dull and real. Her palms were scraped, her muscles trembling from the strain of holding herself together for too long.Behind her, she felt Nyxar shift. She turned slowly.He stood near the edge of the temple, framed by broken columns and shafts of sunlight cutting through the crumbled roof. The wind stirred his dark cloak, and in the light, the silver of his eyes caught fire.“You saw her,” he said, not a question.Lyra nodded. “She didn’t speak. But she didn’t leave.”“That’s more than most get.”He walked toward her, steps almost soundless. For once, the air around him didn’t feel cold. Just heavy. Old. Like the ruins themselves.“What happens now?” she asked. “With the Harbinger? With… Kane?”Nyxar’s jaw tensed at the name.“He’s not gone,” Lyra said softly. “Not completely.”“No,” Nyx
Lyra POVThe gates slammed shut behind her with a clang that echoed down the empty streets like a warning bell. Lyra didn’t flinch.She stood still, her eyes fixed on the place where Kane had vanished into the trees - the memory of him, burned into the horizon like a scar.Elara barked orders, sharp and efficient, snapping the guards to motion. Wards flared faintly across the gate’s surface, light trailing like glowing veins through ancient stone. The perimeter was sealed. For now.But Lyra didn’t move.She could still feel it - him. That terrible, twisted echo of what once tethered her heart. Her fingers curled unconsciously, her palm grazing the pouch at her hip. The obsidian shard pulsed once, like it sensed the shift. Or the danger.“He wasn’t alone,” she said softly.Elara turned back to her, eyes wide. “You saw others?”Lyra shook her head. “No. But I felt them. Like… breathing behind a door. Waiting.”The other witch - Dalen - stepped closer. “We should alert the council.”“The
Lyra POVThe scouts returned at dawn.Mud-streaked, hollow-eyed, their wolves panting from the long run. They came with no injuries - but no peace, either.“The eastern tree line,” one reported, voice gravel-rough. “There’s movement in the hollows. Shadows that don’t cast light. It’s him. We know it.”Lyra nodded, absorbing each word like stone absorbing rain. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She simply said, “Then we fortify. Every outpost from Hollow Reach to the Veil Spine gets fire runes and silver-lined weapons. No one patrols alone. If anyone sees him - him, not shadows, not dreams - they report to me. Directly.”The scouts hesitated, glancing between one another, then nodded.The war council convened by mid-morning. Nyxar stood at her right, silent as ever, while Elara ran point on magical defenses. The barracks had been roused hours before sunrise. Steel clanged in every courtyard. Witches painted wards on armor, blood-mixed sigils glowing faintly against the leather.And stil
Lyra POV The pyre stood at the edge of the Hollow Grounds, where even shadows seemed afraid to linger.Smoke curled upward in slow, lazy spirals, black against a bruised sky. The earth beneath Lyra’s boots felt scorched, barren - like it remembered too. The scent of charred wood, old blood, and unspoken goodbyes clung to the air, suffocating.She stood alone.The others waited behind the circle of warded stones, where the barrier shimmered like a ghost in the dying light. Not one of them crossed it. Not Nyxar, not Elara, not the witches who still whispered her name like a half-broken prayer. They knew this was not a moment meant to be witnessed.Grief, Lyra had learned, wasn’t something that could be comforted. It wasn’t something you wrapped in soft words or shared through tears. It was a blade, and she had been holding it for days - bleeding quietly from the inside.Now it was buried in her chest, where no one could see it but her.Kane’s body lay wrapped in his old wolfhide cloak
Lyra POV The battlefield had gone silent. Smoke drifted in slow spirals, carrying the scent of charred magic and iron. The fires were still burning, but no one moved to put them out. The witches stood frozen in their circles, eyes wide. Warriors clutched weapons they would never raise. Because all eyes were on her and on him. Kane knelt at the heart of the broken ring, cracked stone glowing with sigils that no longer pulsed. His hands dug into the earth, breath coming in ragged gasps, and his back arched in pain as the Harbinger’s presence writhed inside him - like a second heartbeat made of shadows and fire. But it was still Kane’s face. Still his eyes. Lyra stepped forward slowly. She couldn’t feel her feet. Couldn’t feel her hands. Only the pulsing ache in her chest - the last thread of their bond, frayed and bleeding. Ekreth stood to her right, arms folded, waiting like a vulture made of smoke and starlight. His wings curled inward as if to shield her from what came
Lyra POV The air reeked of blood and burning wards. From the highest spire, Lyra watched shadow creatures pour through the eastern breach - just as planned. Their forms rippled with unnatural grace, bones wrong beneath stretching skin, eyes like coals. The trap was set. Glyphs flared to life in a massive ring around the breach, turning the battlefield into a burning cage. And still they came. The creatures weren’t slowed by fire. They thrived in it. “Fall back to second line!” Elara shouted, sword dripping with black ichor. “Protect the witches! Get the civilians below-” A bolt of shadow tore past her and struck the ground at Lyra’s feet. The stone cracked. The heat of it sizzled against her skin even as she raised a shield instinctively. She spun. And there he was. Kane. No mask. No armor. Just him - worn leathers and that familiar, twisted expression of grief and rage. His eyes, however, were not his own. They blazed with the Harbinger’s mark - red, ringed in black. Hi
Harbinger POVThe darkness welcomed him like an old friend.It moved when he moved. Breathed when he breathed. Twined around his shoulders like a living mantle as he drifted through the ruins of the old forest temple, the shattered remnants of gods long forgotten crushed beneath his feet.Kane sat in the center of the stone circle, head bowed, sweat beading at his brow despite the cold. He hadn’t moved in hours.Still resisting.The Harbinger tilted his head, amused. He circled the boy slowly, boots making no sound on the broken marble. Kane’s energy flickered - unstable. Like a flame exposed to too much air.“You're unraveling,” the Harbinger said softly. His voice was silk over razors, ancient and echoing. “And still, you cling to her.”Kane’s jaw tightened. “I’m not yours.”The Harbinger crouched behind him, a whisper at his ear. “No. Not yet. But you will be.”A flick of power, and the circle of runes flared beneath them, casting everything in a red glow. Kane flinched but didn’t
Lyra POVThe scouts returned at dawn.Mud-streaked, hollow-eyed, their wolves panting from the long run. They came with no injuries - but no peace, either.“The eastern tree line,” one reported, voice gravel-rough. “There’s movement in the hollows. Shadows that don’t cast light. It’s him. We know it.”Lyra nodded, absorbing each word like stone absorbing rain. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t blink. She simply said, “Then we fortify. Every outpost from Hollow Reach to the Veil Spine gets fire runes and silver-lined weapons. No one patrols alone. If anyone sees him - him, not shadows, not dreams - they report to me. Directly.”The scouts hesitated, glancing between one another, then nodded.The war council convened by mid-morning. Nyxar stood at her right, silent as ever, while Elara ran point on magical defenses. The barracks had been roused hours before sunrise. Steel clanged in every courtyard. Witches painted wards on armor, blood-mixed sigils glowing faintly against the leather.And stil
Lyra POVThe gates slammed shut behind her with a clang that echoed down the empty streets like a warning bell. Lyra didn’t flinch.She stood still, her eyes fixed on the place where Kane had vanished into the trees - the memory of him, burned into the horizon like a scar.Elara barked orders, sharp and efficient, snapping the guards to motion. Wards flared faintly across the gate’s surface, light trailing like glowing veins through ancient stone. The perimeter was sealed. For now.But Lyra didn’t move.She could still feel it - him. That terrible, twisted echo of what once tethered her heart. Her fingers curled unconsciously, her palm grazing the pouch at her hip. The obsidian shard pulsed once, like it sensed the shift. Or the danger.“He wasn’t alone,” she said softly.Elara turned back to her, eyes wide. “You saw others?”Lyra shook her head. “No. But I felt them. Like… breathing behind a door. Waiting.”The other witch - Dalen - stepped closer. “We should alert the council.”“The
Lyra POV The silence lingered after Thalia’s growl had faded. A silence that felt fuller now. Less like an absence and more like a promise.Lyra sat in the dust until the ache in her body returned, dull and real. Her palms were scraped, her muscles trembling from the strain of holding herself together for too long.Behind her, she felt Nyxar shift. She turned slowly.He stood near the edge of the temple, framed by broken columns and shafts of sunlight cutting through the crumbled roof. The wind stirred his dark cloak, and in the light, the silver of his eyes caught fire.“You saw her,” he said, not a question.Lyra nodded. “She didn’t speak. But she didn’t leave.”“That’s more than most get.”He walked toward her, steps almost soundless. For once, the air around him didn’t feel cold. Just heavy. Old. Like the ruins themselves.“What happens now?” she asked. “With the Harbinger? With… Kane?”Nyxar’s jaw tensed at the name.“He’s not gone,” Lyra said softly. “Not completely.”“No,” Nyx
Lyra sat on a worn, half-buried stone, the remnants of what might’ve once been an altar. Light streamed through the broken ceiling above - slanted, gold-tinged sunlight that pierced through the dust and fractured glass. The air here still thrummed with old power, magic older than any living soul could remember. And somewhere behind her, Nyxar lingered in the shadows, silent.She hadn’t spoken since the dream.Her hands rested limply on her knees, stained with dust and blood. Her eyes were fixed on the far wall where vines crawled over carved glyphs, half-erased by time and ash.“Do you remember what this place was?” she asked softly, unsure why she spoke aloud.Nyxar’s voice came like the stir of wind. “It was where we made promises. The first pacts. The first betrayals.”Lyra turned her head toward him slowly. “And you brought me here because…?”His gaze didn’t meet hers. “Because the temple still remembers. Even when the gods forget.”She swallowed the lump in her throat. Her body s
Lyra POV As Lyra stood beside Nyxar, the haze lifted, revealing more of the ruins that stretched beyond the immediate carnage. Crumbled walls half-swallowed by ash and time. Statues toppled. Towers broken. It was like walking through a graveyard built for gods.He moved ahead of her in silence, his long cloak trailing like smoke. Lyra followed, drawn forward despite the ache in her chest. She could feel the echo of magic here - raw, broken magic, older than any she had ever touched.“This was your home?” she asked quietly, though the answer pulsed in her bones.“It was,” Nyxar replied, his voice distant. “A long time ago. Before I became what I am now.”He stopped before a shattered archway. Vines had overtaken the stone, and in its center lay a deep scar carved into the earth, as if something had been ripped from it violently.“What happened here?” Lyra asked, stepping beside him.He didn’t look at her. “I had a mate once.”The words hit her like a thunderclap. Her breath stilled.“