The dreams came first.
At night, when the Savage Moon hung low and sickly in the sky, Lyra's mind slipped into realms not her own.
Visions clawed at her from the depths of memory — not hers, but those of the blood that cursed her veins.
She stood in the halls of a forgotten castle, its stone walls covered in black ivy, its floors slick with water and blood.
Portraits lined the corridors, their faces slashed beyond recognition, their eyes bleeding shadow.
The air reeked of rot.
Lyra moved through the ruined keep like a ghost.
She knew this place.
Though she had never set foot here before, she knew.
The seat of the Forsaken Line.
The place where her ancestors had ruled, fallen, and been damned.
In the great hall, a woman sat upon a crumbling throne.
Tall, severe, crowned with a circlet of thorns and silver.
Her hair was pale as snow.
Her skin, cracked like broken porcelain.
And her eyes — those endless, hollow eyes — mirrored Lyra's own.
The woman spoke without moving her lips.
"You carry our curse.
You carry our sin.
And you will carry our end."
Lyra reached out, desperate for answers.
But the vision shattered under her touch, dissolving into a maelstrom of screams and blood.
She awoke gasping, drenched in sweat, the sigils on her arms burning with cold fire.
Callan was there.
Standing at the threshold of her tent.
Silent.
Watching.
He said nothing.
He never did anymore.
Lyra wiped the blood from her nose with a trembling hand and rose to her feet.
There would be no rest tonight.
Or any night to come.
By day, the fortress grew.
Walls of sharpened bone and black stone stretched higher toward the choked sky.
Within its shadows, her Pack sharpened their blades and honed their claws.
Preparing.
Waiting.
But Lyra could feel the change.
The air tasted different.
The whispers grew louder.
Korrin and Rhea met in secret, hidden in the forgotten crypts beneath the fortress.
There, among the bones of those who had died screaming, they plotted.
"We cannot let her lead us to ruin," Korrin snarled, his voice a low rumble. "She is no queen. She is a curse made flesh."
Rhea's jaw tightened.
She remembered the day she had knelt before Lyra.
The day she had accepted her mark.
But now…
Now she saw only the inevitable end that awaited them if they stayed bound to her madness.
Vaela joined them, her witch's eyes sharp with cold calculation.
"The spirits whisper," she said. "They say the Savage Moon hungers for her. It will not be satisfied until it has devoured her mind, her soul."
She leaned closer, her voice a serpent's hiss.
"And if we are bound to her… we will be devoured, too."
They agreed in blood and silence.
When the time came, they would strike.
Together.
Before Lyra dragged them all into oblivion.
Meanwhile, Lyra prowled the edges of the valley, seeking answers.
The ruins whispered to her.
The stones bled memories when touched.
The trees moaned with voices long dead.
In one forgotten glade, she found the remnants of an ancient rite: a circle of broken totems, each carved with the mark of the Savage Moon.
At the center, a basin filled with black water that reflected not the world, but something beneath it.
She peered into its depths.
And saw herself.
Not as she was.
Not as she had been.
But as something else.
Something monstrous.
A creature of hunger and fury, wreathed in silver flame, crowned in bone.
Her hands dripped with the blood of those she had once loved.
Her Pack lay dead at her feet.
The valley burned around her.
And in the distance, a voice laughed.
The same voice that had haunted her dreams.
The voice of her blood.
Lyra staggered back, clutching her head.
The ground spun beneath her feet.
The spirit within her — once a silent whisper — now roared with glee.
She sank to her knees.
For the first time since she had seized her crown, she felt fear.
Real, soul-deep fear.
Not for her enemies.
Not for her empire.
But for herself.
For what she was becoming.
For what she could no longer stop.
Night fell again.
The Black Eclipse loomed nearer.
The Savage Moon turned a deeper, darker crimson.
The Pack grew restless.
The captains sharpened their knives.
And Lyra?
Lyra sharpened her soul.
She would not fall.
She would not break.
She would reign — even if she had to tear the stars from the sky and set the world ablaze to do it.
In the deepest hours of darkness, as the mists closed in and the walls of her fortress groaned under unseen pressure, Lyra whispered a vow to the valley itself:
"You will not take me.
I will take you.
I will devour you."
The Savage Moon howled in answer.
And somewhere, deep beneath the earth, the ancient blood of the Forsaken Line stirred.
Waiting.
Watching.
Hungering.
The seeds of betrayal had been sown.
And soon…
They would bear bitter, bloody fruit.