Her whisper hung in the air like a curse, two voices layered on top of one another—her own trembling tone, and a deeper resonance that was not hers at all. "He walks…"
The rune carved into my palm flared until my nerves screamed. I staggered, clutching my hand against my chest, but the pain only deepened. The sigil no longer belonged to me. Its edges bled and cracked, rewriting themselves into a jagged crown-shaped glyph that pulsed with its own rhythm. My skin hissed where ash fused with blood.
The floor of the chamber groaned as if it recognized its master. Stone split in crooked veins, shadows curling upward like living smoke, slithering into the arches above. The Aurikhan Veil trembled, each pillar straining beneath an invisible weight.
Dahlia's lips parted again. The sound that followed was not hers. It was a chant older than our world:
"Velkhan thoruun, Crovath silenyr, Othrel moruun drae…"
("By silence bound, the crown is risen, the oath of flesh undone.")
Her voice was a duet of the familiar and the alien. I tried to see only her—the woman who had carried me through fire, who I had sworn to never leave—but the echo inside her drowned her out.
The cracks widened. From them bled faint threads of shadowfire, licking the stone in patterns I had only seen once before—etched into the water bones of ruined temples long swallowed by time. The Bloodsong Choir's sigils, half-buried, were awakening.
The mark on my palm seared hotter, chaining me to her every breath. I understood it with the clarity of doom: Dahlia was no longer entirely mine.
The Shadow Crown had found its tongue—and it spoke through her.
---
I roared, my throat tearing with the sound. The chamber shuddered beneath it, dust falling from the beams as if the walls themselves recoiled from my defiance. My wolf surged, no longer content to be buried under flesh and reason. Claws ripped from my fingers, curved and dripping moonfire, veins burning with silver heat that tore against the crawling dark.
Her body convulsed in my arms, black veins snaking up her throat, her lips trembling with whispers that weren't hers. My hand—my cursed, burning palm—seared against her chest as I pressed it there. The rune flared, a crown of fire and shadow carved into my flesh, bleeding light and ash into her still heart.
"Velmora shai ven, draen ulthura," I whispered through clenched teeth.
("I bind my war to you, and your breath to mine.")
But another voice, colder, older, answered from within her mouth:
"Nathruun silor, Veyrathuun kraelor, eshthra ven drae…"
("Your war is silence, your bond is ash, your vow is broken.")
Her back arched, her scream a duet of her own soul and the Crown's echo. My wolf lunged higher within me, eyes blazing as though the moon itself had set fire inside my skull. I pressed harder, desperate, blood running from my hand and dripping into the shadows that tried to claw their way out of her chest.
Was my love enough? Could flesh, vow, and fury ever stand against a god's hunger? The question clawed at me, even as I fought to crush it beneath my rage.
She convulsed again—body caught between my oath and the Crown's will. For a heartbeat I thought I saw her eyes, just hers, surface through the dark.
Then the rune flared brighter, as if daring me to prove I could hold her against the silence.
---
The world shifted. Her scream in my arms dissolved into silence, and I felt myself ripped through the tether of the rune into the hollow of her dream.
Dahlia knelt in chains of shadow, her wrists bound by leashes that rooted into the ground like veins of night. Above her, the moon hung broken, bleeding silver into the soil. Her hair whipped in a wind that had no source, her lips trembling with prayers unsaid.
From the darkness behind the shattered light, the Witness's voice slithered—each word a hook sinking deeper into her skin.
"Yield, and you will never bleed. Resist, and his oath will burn him to ash."
The leash tightened, dragging her lower, forcing her knees into the black earth until it cracked. Shadows coiled around her throat, a crown of silence pressed to her skull.
Then the chant rose again, whispering through the marrow of the dream, vibrating the very roots beneath her:
"Ethurion velar, Noxthuun veyra, Silvarreth undral…"
("By root and silence, the Old Father wakes, the veil shall bleed.")
She clenched her fists, trembling, and pulled against the shadow-leash. Every tug tore light through the dark, but I felt the pain in my own veins outside—the rune in my palm burning hotter, my flesh splitting as if her resistance was carved directly into me.
The Witness's whisper grew sharp, pressing like a blade against her ear.
"Your strength is his undoing. Break the leash, and you break his flesh. Kneel, and you both may yet survive."
Her breath hitched. Blood—hers, mine—ran down the leash in twin streams, binding us tighter, bleeding into the roots beneath the broken moon.
Still she lifted her chin, defiance flickering in her eyes even as the shadow crown pressed heavier.
---
Far from Aurikhan Veil, the ground convulsed as ancient temples collapsed into their own shadows. Mountains split, rivers bled into dust, and the sky tore wider—its fractures glowing like wounds.
In the ruins of rival sanctuaries, priests clawed at their faces and howled to the heavens, voices laced with madness. Their chants merged into a single fevered dirge:
"Korathuun vel'dris, shaem ulthar veyra…
Crown of shadow, blood of moon,
The eldest silence comes too soon."
The words shattered into thunder. From every cult's throat rose the same shard of prophecy, spoken as if dragged out by the Old Father himself.
The revelation twisted through the broken world: When the Shadow Crown descends, no oath, no bond, no vow shall hold. Not love, nor loyalty, nor the pacts carved in blood. All would be devoured, consumed not by fire, not by blade, but by hunger.
And Damon felt it. Even as his palm burned against Dahlia's chest, even as her body convulsed beneath his hand, the truth cut into him. The rune seared deeper, pulsing in rhythm with her shadow-breath. His heart screamed what the prophecy declared false—that love could hold her, that his vow could anchor her to this world.
"Velmora shai ven, draen ulthura…" he whispered again, voice breaking.
("I bind my war to you, and your breath to mine.")
But the prophecy hissed through his veins, laughing at him.
Hunger waits. Hunger devours. Hunger loves nothing.
Still he roared his denial, even as the world itself seemed to sneer at his defiance.
---
Through Dahlia's shuddering chest, Damon's vision bled into hers. The Hollowroot towered in the dreamscape—a tree of bone and ash whose roots gnashed like teeth. And beneath it, the crowned figure stepped closer. Its form was vast, its face veiled in endless shadow, its presence devouring every spark of light.
Damon's wolf howled through his throat, a sound raw enough to crack stone.
"She is mine!"
But the Crown laughed through Dahlia's lips, two voices woven together—hers and the hunger's.
"Ulthera nox, velith sha'dren. She is vessel. She is throne."
The rune on Damon's palm screamed in flame. Black fire and scarlet blood laced together, clawing up his flesh. He fell to his knees as the mark spread across his wrist, searing into his forearm like molten iron. The scent of burned wolf-blood filled the chamber.
"Korathuun shael veyra…" hissed the Crown through her mouth.
("The bond is sealed, and the war is bound.")
Damon clenched his teeth until blood filled them, but the truth carved itself into him. The brand was no longer a mark of his oath—it had become a scar of chain. A tether binding him to Dahlia, and Dahlia to the Crown.
Every heartbeat fused them deeper. His vow, once a weapon, was now a prison. His love, once salvation, had become the Crown's leash.
Still he pressed his scarred arm against her body, burning his voice into the silence:
"Velmora shai ven, draen ulthura!"
("I bind my war to you, and your breath to mine!")
But the Crown only laughed louder, and Dahlia's veins darkened further with its shadow.
---
Dahlia's body jerked in his arms, her eyes flickering between abyss and memory. For a heartbeat the black mirrors shattered—her true gaze broke through, raw and desperate.
"Damon!" Her own voice, ragged, clawed out of her throat.
Then the moment was gone. Her body collapsed, shadows steaming from her veins, her skin pale as ash.
Damon gathered her against his chest, the scar blazing from palm to elbow. He felt her fading warmth against him—and the void gnawed at his soul.
The Crown's murmur rippled through the chamber, crawling from stone, ceiling, ash:
"Veyrathuun vorenrrhul coroneth ulthera…"
("The Devourer rises… the crown has chosen…")
The sound was not thunder, not chant, but hunger given voice.
Damon's teeth bared, blood dripping from his palms. He roared into the silence, a vow sharp enough to wound heaven itself.
"I will tear down gods before I lose her!"
The rune on his arm pulsed, sealing his defiance in flame and scar.
But the truth had already been written in shadow:
The Shadow Crown had a vessel—
And Damon bore the scar that bound him to its hunger.
---
If your heart stopped with Damon's roar and Dahlia's fleeting voice, give this chapter your Power Stone. Every vote pulls our wolves back from the abyss and fuels the war they cannot yet win. Let's push this story higher together—stone by stone, howl by howl. 🩸🌑🐺
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