The forest air shattered and then stilled, every breath heavy with a silence that wasn't silence at all—it was worship. My hand trembled in the air, glyphs burning like veins of fire beneath my skin, and the Choir of ash knelt deeper, foreheads pressed to the earth as if I were something they had awaited for centuries. Not prey. Not a vessel. Something higher. Something binding.
Damon's snarl split the stillness, sharp enough to rattle the marrow in my bones. He closed in behind me, his hand clamping hard around my wrist as if to rip me back from the abyss. Step away, Dahlia. His command burned with authority, but it was a howl against the tide. The glyphs didn't dim. The ash didn't rise. They sank lower, surrendering further, as though my pulse alone commanded them.
I swayed between two worlds—Damon's furious grasp anchoring me, the Choir's silent reverence chaining me deeper. Their presence pressed at my ribs, a weight and a yearning, as though their very dust wanted to crawl beneath my skin and rest there. My breath came ragged, heart racing against the truth: they weren't holding me hostage. They had already given themselves over.
The glyphs flared violently, brighter than when the Oath had been carved into my fate, and my veins sang with a rhythm I didn't understand. It wasn't possession. It wasn't power. It was belonging, and it terrified me more than any blade or curse.
Damon's growl broke again, desperate this time, not just angry. This isn't you. They can't have you. But his voice, his dominance, even his fury—it only scattered like sparks against the storm swelling inside me.
Because the Choir wasn't trying to take me. They were waiting for me.
---
Damon's hand tightens around my arm, his pull sharp and unyielding. He tries to drag me back, away from the kneeling ash-figures, but the ground itself seems to rise against him. The Choir surges as one, a living tide of cinder and shadow, their bowed forms shifting forward, interlocking like a wall. Their faceless reverence brims with something older than obedience—an instinct that does not bend even to his command.
I feel the air fracture between us. His growl thunders low, carrying the weight of the Alpha Oath, the authority that has broken armies and cowed beasts. Yet here, it strikes an unseen barricade, dissolving into silence as if the Choir drinks it whole. For the first time, his dominance fails.
A flicker of disbelief crosses his face—then fury swallows it whole. His beast strains under his skin, rattling his bones, desperate to reject what it cannot overpower. The veins in his neck cord, his claws threaten to rip free, and still the wall holds. His rage is a storm, but even storms cannot shake stone.
I stand caught between them—Damon's refusal burning hotter than flame, the Choir's devotion folding around me like ash-born chains. And beneath my skin, the glyphs blaze brighter, binding me closer to what he most fears.
---
I stumble back from Damon's fury, my breath catching, my throat raw from words that won't shape themselves. The Choir moves with me, as though my trembling body is their compass, as though even my hesitation is law written into their ash. Damon snarls, tearing at the invisible wall holding him, his Alpha command thrashing like a caged beast, but it crashes uselessly against their reverence.
I clutch my chest, begging—though I don't even know to whom. Damon, the gods, or myself. I don't want this. The words scrape out broken, half-sob, half-confession. I don't want them. I don't want any of this. But the Choir only listens deeper, their heads bowed, their hollow mouths echoing silence like a vow.
Then it burns. Gods, it burns. The glyphs carved beneath my skin ignite, searing veins with ash-light, crawling up my arms, threading across my throat. I glance down, horrified, and see the cracks forming—thin fissures glowing like molten scripture written into my flesh. I choke on a scream.
Damon sees it too. His fury collapses into fear, his eyes wide, beast recoiling as though the sight of me wounds him. His voice cracks through his rage—my name, nothing else, nothing more, as if it's the only thing that could hold me back from being consumed.
But I already feel it. The shift. The binding. I'm no longer only Moonblood. Something older has taken root in me, rising from marrow and curse alike. My reflection in Damon's terror tells me the truth:
I am bound. Not just to him. Not just to prophecy.
But to the Choir itself.
---
The leading figure of ash drifted through the haze, its form breaking and reforming with every step, as if the veil itself resisted its solidity. The others parted like smoke before a storm. My throat locked, every nerve screaming to retreat, yet my feet betrayed me, rooted in the pull of their recognition. Damon's growl was thunder at my back, but even that did not stop what came next.
The figure raised a hand, pale as charred bone, and lowered it toward my brow. I wanted to flinch, to recoil, but the glyphs beneath my skin ignited, answering before I could move. When its finger brushed me, it was neither pain nor comfort — it was both, a searing ember pressed into the core of my being. A mark flared to life between my eyes, an ember sigil that burned without consuming, branded in a light older than fire itself.
Its voice was a fracture in silence, broken yet eternal: The Gate-Bearer walks the turning path. The Choir bends, the Choir serves. The words cracked reality like glass, each syllable carving into me as if written on the marrow of my bones.
I staggered, clutching my chest as the weight of it dragged me deeper into the Choir's orbit. Damon's snarl cut through the cavern, raw and savage, his Alpha command lashing against them like a whip — but the ash-figure did not bow to him. It bowed to me.
"The Gate-Bearer," they echoed in one voice, reverence laced with terror. My name, my blood, none of it mattered anymore — I was theirs.
Damon's fury tore through the air, too violent to be contained. His hands trembled at his sides, claws nearly breaking through skin. He could not stand the word, could not endure their submission. His bond to me, his claim, was being rewritten before his eyes.
And I… I felt the crack widening inside me, a fissure where Dahlia Moon ended and something far older began to awaken.
---
The moment the ash-mark burned into her skin, something inside me snapped. My voice tore the air raw. Release her, or I'll rip this cursed forest to shreds.
The Choir didn't flinch. They swayed like smoke, like my rage was nothing but wind against a tide. My oath burned in my veins, binding me, dragging every shred of my strength into one truth: protect her. Protect her. But what if protection meant tearing her from prophecy's hand? What if destiny itself was the enemy?
I felt my beast thrashing inside me, snarling against chains I could not break. The ground split beneath my feet, roots snapping, stone groaning, as if the earth mirrored my fury. Yet she stood in their light, her skin seared with a mark I could not erase.
Her voice trembled when she spoke my name—Damon—but she did not move. My own pack, blood-sworn, shadow-bound, watched from the treeline with horror carved into their faces. They had seen me destroy armies, silence Alphas, crush men into dust with a single command. But not this. Not prophecy.
For the first time in my life, my dominance broke against something I could not kill.
And it terrified me more than death ever could.
---
The forest quaked with Damon's fury, but I couldn't let it consume everything. My legs shook, yet I tore free of his grip and stumbled forward into the Choir's tide. My chest burned with terror, but my voice broke through anyway — raw, trembling, desperate. Stop.
The word didn't sound like mine. It rang, low and thunderous, carrying through the ash-thick air as though a hundred echoes repeated it. The Choir froze, every silhouette shivering as if the command had struck marrow. My throat was dry, but another word spilled out, unbidden — kneel.
The sound rippled like a storm through glass. One by one, the figures of ash folded downward, heads bowed, smoldering hands pressed to the earth in reverence. Their movements weren't obedience to me but to something older that had chosen my voice as its vessel.
Behind me, Damon snarled, torn between rage and horror. The pack didn't breathe, not even when the nearest shadow raised its faceless head toward me, glyphs flaring in rhythm with my pulse.
I stood there, trembling, their fire alive in my veins, their silence answering to my command. For the first time, it wasn't Damon who shielded me. It was them.
---
The Choir had knelt, but their stillness was only a pause. One figure rose slightly, glyphs igniting along its hollow form. Its voice cracked the air, not loud, but felt in the bones:
"When the Hollow comes, your blood will burn the Gate. Choose the Alpha or the End."
The words landed like stones in my chest. The forest seemed to inhale sharply, holding its breath. Damon's growl died in his throat, raw and uncertain, as if even he could feel the weight of the prophecy pressing against the world.
Then, as if the wind itself had claimed them, the ash-figures crumbled. Dust swirled in gentle eddies, drifting over roots and leaves. The hymn had ended. Only my own ragged breathing filled the silence, and the ember sigil on my skin throbbed hot and alive, branded into me.
The forest was still. Too still. Even the wind had gone quiet, leaving only dread in its wake. Something had shifted. Something that no pack, no Alpha, could stop.
I touched the sigil, feeling the heat pulse through my veins. It was not just a mark—it was a promise, a warning, a chain I could not ignore.
The Hollow was coming.
---
Damon's chest heaved, eyes blazing with a storm I could not name. He stepped closer, every inch of him taut with unspent fury and fear. His hands trembled as he reached for me, but I did not flinch. I could feel it now—the Choir still there, humming beneath my skin, threading their rhythm through my veins.
"I feel them," I whispered, voice raw, almost unsteady. "They didn't leave. They're inside me… still."
Damon's lips parted, a growl caught between sound and restraint. He swallowed hard, jaw tight, eyes darkened with a storm I had never seen. Then, almost in a whisper that carried across the tense clearing, he said it, each word heavy with possessive fire:
"No prophecy will take you. Not while I breathe."
The words hung between us, a fragile, defiant tether to the world as it shifted around us. I could feel the sigil under my skin pulse in response, as if mocking his vow—or daring him to test it.
The forest remained quiet. Too quiet. And in that suspended heartbeat, I realized the truth: the Choir had not only left their mark—they had bound a new path to me, one that neither Damon nor any pack could control.
I was no longer just the hunted, the fragile Moonblood. I was the Daughter of the Hollow Song—and the Hollow was coming.
---
Do you think Dahlia should try to wrest control of the Choir's power immediately, or let it guide her for now, risking further influence over her will?