The sun never rose.
Instead, the sky cracked open with pale fire of the eclipse, bleeding darkness over the treetops like spilled ink. Winds howled through the ruins, carrying with them the smell of rot and ash. The forest trembled. And somewhere beneath the earth, a seal that had held for millennia unraveled like thread soaked in blood.
They had arrived too late.
The black stone pulsed—a heart awakening. Jain stood at its edge, Veyna clutching his cloak, her eyes with dread, and Tardyn standing behind them both, sword drawn.
Lyra was already at the center.
Her body ringed in wards hastily carved into the dirt with trembling hands and hope too fragile, her blade was drawn—not just as a weapon, but as a promise. She moved between the pulsing stone; eyes locked on the threat. The wards she'd carved into the earth flickered beneath her boots, trembling with each gust of wind that tore through the clearing.
The runes flickered then failed.
A sound ruptured the clearing. Not a roar—worse. A whisper stretched too long, dragging across memories. It dragged through the bones of the forest like rusted chains scraping over stone, shaking the world from its roots.
From the black stone rose Valac'turr, the Devourer.it did not walk. It unfolded, tearing its way into reality as if existence itself had been holding its breath. Jain staggered back as the sky bled shadow and the air thickened into something that tasted of ash and blood.
Valac'tuurr towered over the forest like a living nightmare, its body not born of flesh but twisted from dark, root like tendrils—writhing and pulsing with a sick, demon rhythm. It had no face, not truly. Just a jagged crown of thorned black growth where a head might be, and a single eye—burning red like a dying star—buried deep in the twisted mass.
That eye watched. Not just with sight, but with a terrible knowing. It peered into Jain's soul, past the flesh, past the mask, past the man. Jain. The key.
Its form was ever-shifting, like a tree uprooted in a storm and turned to smoke. Tendrils extended from its back like broken wings, each moving with terrible purpose, curling through the air as if tasting the fear around it. Lightning arced across the sky behind it, silhouetting its jagged limbs and razored claws, sharp enough to shred thought from the mind.
Where it stood, the earth cracked and bled shadow. The ground itself recoiled, unable to bear its weight. It breathed and the world grew colder. Not with frost, but with the memory of death.
This was not a god.
This was a hunger
And it had finally awakened, the air thick with sulfur and old magic.
Then the first scream shattered the silence.
It came from the treelined—a howl, too long and too wide to be human. Then another, then dozens. Eyes gleamed in the dark—red, lidless, unblinking.
The town close by.
The people of the village—gone silent the day before, shutters closed streets empty—had never fled. They had been consumed. Possessed by Valac'turr. And now, they came crawling on all fours, limbs twisted at unnatural angles, mouth opened far too wide, faces peeled back in grotesque, stretched mockeries of smiles.
"Here they come!" Taryn shouted.
The possessed surged forward.
Lyra didn't wait
She stepped from the circle, light flaring at her fingertips. With a cry, she hurled a spear of energy into the horde. It hit the first wave like a comet, detonating in a storm of white fire. three of the revenants exploded in midair, their bodies reduced to black mist.
She spun, both hands drawing glyphs midair—arcane sigils that shimmered, then fired off in all directions like arrow of light. The second wave fell screaming, seared by pure will.
But there were too many.
Jain moved to help her. Veyna grabbed his arm. "No! The mark—it's reacting. Stay inside the circle!"
"She knows what she's doing," Kael grimly, already casting a wall of metal that shattered a charging group. Veyna leapt in beside her, blade ignited. One swing cleaved the ground splitting five possessed in a shockwave of molten earth.
Kael conjured spiked barricades, hammering back the revenant while Rian unleashed torrents of blue flame, lighting up the night with walls of burning sapphire. Tardin's weapons, born of shadows, twisted and danced in his hands—each strike cutting clean, each kill silent.
Siera stepped forward, eyes cloud like. "Begone," she said—and the world cracked. Her voice shattered air and bone alike, disintegrating a dozen enemies in a single breath.
Jain remained at the circle's heart, the stone pulsing. Time bent around him—movement slowed, air compressed into blades he hurled with impossible speed, ripping through the possessed like wind through leaves.
But Lyra was everywhere.
A blur of light, her spells Strucks with precision and fury. When they surrounded her, she burned them. When they fled, she chased. Her magic shone like the last star before the night.
Lyra fought like a storm—lightning, pure will. Each spell lit the night. Every step forward burned with purpose. "Fall back!" Veyna called, but Lyra didn't hear. Or didn't care.
Then stepped from the forest.
Elander. Her old mentor. Twisted, possessed.
Lyra blade of light met his heart. He didn't scream. He smiled.
And the earth cracked.
From nowhere Valac'turr appeared, valac'turr—titanic, rotting, crowned in bone and shadow. His eye, a red sun in his chest, flared open. The possessed dropped to their knees.
Lyra stood alone.
She lifted arms. Light blazed from her veins. She pulled everything—her Gift, her life, her soul—and unleashed it in a wave of white fire.
The blast incinerated the nearest possessed, shook the trees, silenced he night.
But valac'turr didn't burn.
He struck.
A tendril pierced her chest. Jain screamed, catching her as she fell. Her light dimmed.
"I'm sorry, "She whispered. "You were worth saving."
Then she was gone.
Valac'turr voice echoed—not spoken, but fell. "You are mine."
The mark on Jain's neck ignited. He dropped, Lyra in his arms, as the shadows swirled. His eye opened—black and empty.
"Run, " he told the others.
And they did.
Behind them, Valac'turr, now anchored in flesh, rose over the world once more—watching, waiting, smiling with a thousand stolen mouth, releases a wave of energy possessing Jain halfway.
Suddenly a rage of anger went through him, and Jain was getting out of control, almost possessed.
"Don't let her death be in vain" Kael shouted, a spark through Jain veins, his eyes opened.