The Hollow Fang Tavern hummed with uneasy quiet. UV lanterns cast jagged shadows over the bar where Jax polished glasses with a rag stained brown from old blood. The scent of wolfsbane and pine resin clung to the air, mingling with the metallic tang of freshly sharpened blades. Nina's sketches papered the walls prophetic smudges of charcoal depicting wolves with hollow eyes and a chalice bleeding light.
Lira paced the cellar, her boots scuffing Orion's maps. The chalice sat on the workbench, its obsidian surface glinting like a dormant beast. Let me in it whispered. She pressed her palms to her temples, her heterochromatic eyes flicking to the relic. "Not today."
Upstairs Ryen winced as Mira stitched the gash on his side. "Hold still" she muttered, her wolf-gray braid fraying. "Unless you want this scarred worse than Kael's throat."
Kael leaned against the hearth sharpening a dagger. The firelight softened the edges of his scar but deepened the shadows in his eyes. "The hybrids won't wait for your stitches to heal Thorn. We need to move."
"Move where?" Jax called down, tossing a grenade casing like a coin. "We don't even know where Orion's holed up."
Nina's pencil scratched across her sketchpad. "The shadows say… north. Where the trees scream."
A chill crept through the room.
Vesper came at dusk.
She stood in the tavern's doorway backlit by Eclipsion's neon haze, Selene's locket dangling from her clawed hand. The burn scars on her face twisted as she smirked. "Cozy."
Ryen lunged but Lira blocked him, her claws unsheathed. "Why are you here?"
Vesper tossed the locket onto the bar. It clattered beside a half-drunk glass of bloodwine. "Selene's hiding in the Frostspire ruins licking her wounds. Orion's army is mobilizing. You've got days maybe hours before he…"
A howl cut her off, guttural and wrong, like metal grinding bone.
Kael snarled. "Too late."
The Siege
Hybrids swarmed from the Eclipse Wilds, their eyes glowing sickly silver. Some ran on all fours, limbs elongated. Others dragged broken wings through the mud. Orion's rejects.
"Lights!" Lira shouted.
Jax cranked the UV lanterns to full blast. The hybrids recoiled, hissing, but the largest a hulking thing with a wolf's muzzle and vampiric talons lunged through the glare.
Ryen fired, silver rounds tearing into its chest. It barely slowed.
Lira grabbed the chalice. Heat surged through her veins as the relic awoke, its hum syncing with her pulse. Together it purred.
She slammed it onto the bar. Light erupted, pure and searing, shredding the first wave of hybrids to ash.
Vesper stared, her claws trembling. "How did you…"
"Later" Lira barked. "There's more."
The fight left scars.
Mira's herbs couldn't save the human refugee with the shredded throat. Nina's hands shook as she sketched his body, the lines blurring with tears. Kael stood guard at the door, his dagger dripping hybrid blood, his silence heavier than the corpse.
Ryen found Lira on the roof, her silver-streaked hair plastered to her neck with sweat. The chalice pulsed beside her, its light dimming.
"You used it" he said.
"I had to." Her voice cracked. "It wanted… more."
He sat, his shoulder brushing hers. "We can't keep reacting. We need a plan."
She touched the locket around her neck Selene's, twin to her own. "Orion wants me to lead his army. Maybe I should."
Ryen stiffened. "Lira…"
"Not like that." Her eyes hardened. "We infiltrate. Burn his lab from the inside."
Vesper waited in the cellar, tracing the scars on her arms. "I know where the lab is" she said as Lira descended. "Orion's deep in the Eclipse Wilds, where the trees grow teeth."
Lira crossed her arms. "Why help us?"
Vesper's laugh was bitter. "He promised me power. All I got was this." She flexed her claws, the silver tips chipped. "I want him dead."
"And after?"
"After?" Vesper met her gaze. "I'll disappear."
Lira tossed her a UV grenade. "You're with us until then."
Orion's Smile
The lab's amber tanks buzzed, their hybrid specimens floating in silent obedience. Orion watched the tavern's siege through a cracked monitor, his gaunt face lit by static.
"Bravo daughter" he murmured.
A hybrid knelt beside him perfect, pristine, its eyes glowing crimson and gold.
"Ready the others" he said. "It's time she met her siblings."
The Pact
At dawn the group gathered in the tavern's cellar.
Kael etched a map of the Wilds into the table. "We'll need allies. The Fringe slummers hate Orion. The Howling Quarter's rogues too."
Jax snorted. "You think they'll side with a hybrid?"
"They'll side with survival" Lira said. The chalice glowed in her hands, its light etching Orion's coordinates into the wood.
Nina slid a sketch across the table a wolf and a vampire, back to back, their claws intertwined.
Ryen gripped Lira's hand. "We do this together."
Somewhere north the trees screamed.