The air shifted before the sound reached us. A pressure, like the whole forest had drawn one breath and refused to release it, crushed against my chest. Then the hymn broke open—low, guttural, layered, a thousand throats howling in harmony. Trees rattled as if hollow bones. The soil cracked beneath my boots, lines splintering outward like veins of fire.
It wasn't sound. It was an infection of reality. Each note bent the world around it—air shivering, stone liquefying, shadows burning brighter than light. My glyphs flared, molten, as if seared into my flesh from within. The hymn slid through marrow and sinew, carving its rhythm into the deepest parts of me. I tried to breathe, but the song was already inside, swallowing every breath I thought belonged to me.
I staggered, knees threatening to buckle. The pack tightened its circle instinctively. Mira's hand pressed against my arm, steadying, even as her own jaw clenched to hold back the tremor. Lucian's blade was out, his eyes locked outward, teeth bared against the invisible tide. Jareth watched me, suspicion simmering like a knife tip under the ribs. The twins lingered just beyond, their unease palpable, like they weren't sure if I was the anchor—or the breach.
Damon's presence cut through the chaos. His command rolled across the circle, sharp, commanding, but I felt the edges fray. Even his voice strained beneath the hymn, every syllable nearly stolen, devoured by the choir's descent. His gaze found me through the quake, eyes carved from shadow and fire, but I couldn't tell if he saw me—or the glyphs burning through my skin.
The song grew heavier. Every heartbeat matched its rhythm. The Bloodsong Choir wasn't singing to us. It was singing through us.
---
The hymn thickened, a suffocating pressure that made even breath feel like betrayal. Damon's hand clamped around my arm, trying to drag me behind his frame, but Mira stepped between us with a growl that split the storm.
She stood like a blade, eyes burning against Damon's command. She is not a burden. She is the center whether you like it or not.
The words struck harder than the hymn. Damon's jaw locked, fury and fear bleeding into the same expression. But before he could answer, Jareth's voice cut through like a blade dipped in oil.
The girl is a liability. We bleed for her, and for what? Every step she takes drags us closer to ruin.
The twins shifted restlessly, uncertain, their eyes flitting between leaders, between truths. Lucian's hand flexed over his blade, silent, but his stance curved toward Mira.
And I—my name was everywhere. Whispers in Damon's growl, echoes in Mira's defiance, venom in Jareth's accusations. Except I couldn't tell if it was truly them speaking or the Bloodsong Choir twisting their voices into blades.
Every syllable lanced through me as if the hymn had burrowed into my marrow, prying bone from bone.
---
The horizon shivered, then split. A line of black ash tore across the treeline, unraveling like a wound in the sky. Shapes seeped out of it—no longer the hollow husks we had fought before. These were worse. Bodies woven from bone fragments and soot, their ribcages warped into cages that clattered with every tremor of the hymn. Their mouths gaped wide, but the sound didn't come from their lips. It came from everywhere at once—inside my lungs, the marrow of my bones, the spaces between thoughts.
The hymn condensed into weight. Branches cracked overhead as if bent by invisible hands. Roots tore upward from the soil, writhing like veins. Shadows stretched unnaturally long, seeping out across the clearing as though trying to drown us in their reach.
Lucian moved first, his bow already drawn. The silver-fletched arrow shot true, piercing one creature square in the chest. For a heartbeat, it staggered, its body unraveling into a thousand drifting particles. But before the ash even touched the ground, the shape reformed—every fracture stitching back together with a slow, deliberate grace.
Another arrow, another shatter, another resurrection. Each failure only deepened the chill in the air.
Mira cursed under her breath. Jareth's grip tightened on his blade. Damon's stance was iron, but his knuckles whitened around his weapon.
These things weren't here to die. They were here to sing.
And the song was only just beginning.
---
My body betrayed me before my voice did. A heat like wildfire cracked down my arm, racing to my chest until it tore me off my feet. I hit the earth hard, glyph-fire crawling under my skin like living chains, each sigil burning into my veins. My scream was swallowed by the hymn — and then twisted back through the Choir, multiplied and fed to the night.
The hymn shifted with me. Its cadence bent when I convulsed, as though the Choir wasn't only singing at me anymore — it was singing through me. Every fracture in my body became an instrument, every cry a note they carried into the air.
"Dahlia!" Damon's roar ripped through the din. His arms were around me in a breath, dragging me against his chest, trying to steady me — but he couldn't, not against this storm.
"Don't stop her!" Sareth's voice cut sharp as a blade. His hands were raised, symbols scrawled into the dirt in frantic motion. "She isn't bound — she's attuning! You silence her now, and the Choir will tear her apart!"
"Attuning?" Damon's voice was half snarl, half terror. He held me tighter, as if sheer force could cage the fire out of me. "She's breaking! You'd kill her to prove your cursed theory?"
Sareth's reply was ragged, desperate, spit flying with the words. "Not theory — truth! Do you think they'd answer her if she wasn't chosen? Do you think they'd burn her if she wasn't a vessel?"
I heard them clash, not with fists but with fury, their voices shaking the already-cracked ground. Damon's rage was fear wearing armor; Sareth's defiance was obsession edged with belief. The others stood caught in the rift — not siding with one or the other, but staring at me.
Because it wasn't really about them. It was about me, and whether my body could survive being carved open by a hymn older than blood.
---
Dirt filled my mouth as I lay half-wrecked, my body seizing in rhythms I couldn't control. The glyph-fire wasn't just burning now—it was humming, a cruel counterpoint to the hymn. I wanted to bite down, choke it back, but every time I fought it the fire tore deeper into me, like barbs sinking into bone.
So I did the unthinkable. I let go. I opened my lips and whispered the fragments that blistered in my skull. They came jagged, broken, scraped raw from my throat—yet the moment they slipped free, the hymn shifted. The ash-bodies froze. The sound wavered, not gone, but caught mid-breath, as if waiting. Listening.
The silence was worse than the noise. Every eye turned on me. Mira was the first to move, kneeling close, her voice urgent but soft—don't stop, keep going, they're answering you.
But Jareth's roar cracked across her words, full of terror and fury—she's joining them, can't you hear it? The twins flinched, their hands tightening on their blades, faces pale. Even Lucian lowered his bow as if afraid another arrow would damn me.
The hymn hovered like a storm holding its breath, and I realized in that fractured heartbeat that every soul—my pack, the Choir, even the fire in my own veins—was waiting to see which way I would turn.
---
The night cracked apart with silence. One moment the forest was a hive of endless screaming hymn, the next it was gutted clean, strangled of sound. The sudden void hit harder than the noise, a suffocating pressure. Dahlia was still on her knees, trembling, her lips shivering around the scraps of the hymn. The last trace of her voice lingered in the dark like a ghost refusing to leave. Glyph-fire scrawled across her skin burned brighter, spilling out in wild arcs until she looked less like flesh and more like a torch planted in living earth.
The pack flinched back as if the blaze might consume them. Damon's claws sank into the soil, jaw clenched hard enough to crack bone. His fury was naked, unashamed — but behind it, the shadow of fear flickered, raw and helpless.
Then it came. A single voice. Clear. Human-shaped but inhuman still. The Choir's tone cut closer than any before, slipping straight into marrow. "Daughter of the Hollow Song."
The pack froze as the ash-born figures shifted. Not striking. Not screaming. They moved as one, bending in slow, terrible reverence. Knees of smoke and ruin touching the forest floor. Every shape bowed to her.
The world tilted. Mira gasped, clutching her chest. Jareth cursed under his breath. Even Sareth staggered back, eyes wide with disbelief. But Damon did not move. He only stared at Dahlia — his mate, his claimed, his torment — with fire bleeding in his gaze, like rage was the only anchor left holding him upright.
And Dahlia knew. The horror hit colder than any blade. The Choir did not hunger to claim her — not anymore. They already had. They bowed because they recognized her.
⚔️ To Be Continued…
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