The storm lashed against steel and leather as Selene's army carved its way through the Blackstone Pass. Lightning clawed at the skies, painting the jagged cliffs in bone-white flashes. Below them, the abyss roared, swallowing sound and light into its endless maw.
Drakon riders soared overhead, their screeches splitting the darkness, while columns of Nightwatch soldiers trudged through the mud, their armor slick with rain and blood. Every breath Selene drew tasted of iron and stormfire.
The air was heavy—not just with the scent of war, but with unease.
Kieran rode beside her atop his obsidian-scaled Drakon, its wings tucked against the gale. His golden eyes scanned the path ahead, sharp and restless. She could feel the tension radiating from him—a storm inside the storm.
"You sense it too," she said quietly.
Kieran didn't look at her. "We're being watched."
Selene's fingers tightened on the reins. The wind howled louder, carrying whispers that didn't belong to the storm. Shadows flitted across the ridges above, too fast, too silent for mortal eyes.
Hollow Flame scouts.
But that wasn't all. There was something else—an unease within their own ranks. She had seen the glances, the murmurs behind helmets. Soldiers who once swore blood-oaths to her now averted their eyes. Fear was a sickness, and Malrik had sown it well.
"They know," Kieran said grimly. "About the boy."
Selene's heart clenched. Rael. Word of him had spread like wildfire—the child stolen from her womb, reborn in shadow, wielding powers beyond reason. To some, he was a weapon. To others, an omen of doom.
And to traitors, an opportunity.
The first strike came as the army reached the canyon bend.
Selene sensed it a heartbeat before it happened—a ripple in the ether, like a blade kissing air. She raised her hand just as arrows of black flame rained from the cliffs. The sigils on her skin ignited, a wall of silver fire erupting before the vanguard. Arrows hissed and splintered against the barrier, the heat searing the mud to glass.
"Ambush!" Kieran's roar shook the stones as his Drakon launched skyward, its wings ripping the air with hurricane force.
From the shadows above, Hollow Flame assassins descended like wraiths—figures clad in crimson, blades dripping with venom and whispers of curses. They moved faster than wolves, striking with the precision of serpents.
Steel clashed. Screams tore through the rain.
Selene dismounted in a blur, her boots splashing into the mud as her dagger leapt to her hand, its runes blazing white-hot. Shadows surged toward her, their laughter a hiss of madness. She met the first with a twist of flame, carving through his throat in a shower of sparks. Another lunged—she spun low, driving the blade into his ribs, feeling his curse unravel as he fell.
Above, Kieran was death incarnate. His war-drake tore assassins from the sky, crushing them in its jaws as Kieran moved like a god of war, his blade trailing arcs of molten gold. Every swing was a promise. Every kill, a vow.
But then—chaos.
A blast tore through the ranks from within, flinging soldiers like ragdolls. Smoke curled, tinged in Hollow Flame crimson.
Selene's heart dropped. From within.
Through the haze, she saw them—Nightwatch banners burning, soldiers turning their blades on their own brothers. Eyes black with spellfire. Voices chanting in the old tongue.
"Kieran!" she screamed, parrying another strike as blood sprayed across the mud. "The Hollow Flame has turned our men!"
Kieran landed hard, crushing a traitor beneath his boots. "How many?"
"Too many," Eryndor snarled, his axe cleaving through a corrupted soldier. His face was grim, his voice a curse. "He's inside our ranks. Malrik planned this."
Selene's blood ran cold. If the Hollow Flame could worm its way into her army here, what awaited them at the Chasm?
The storm howled louder, carrying a whisper that slithered through her mind like smoke:
"Your son leads my crown, little queen. Come claim him… if you dare." Malrik's voice. Selene's grip on her dagger turned white-knuckled. The silver fire around her flared like a dying star.
"Kieran," she said through clenched teeth, her eyes like twin moons ablaze. "Burn the traitors. All of them." and as Kieran's golden fury ignited the storm, Selene vowed in the ashes of her heart:
Malrik will fall.
Even if I have to burn the world to do it.