The ruin groaned around me as I rose with Dahlia's limp body clutched to my chest, her pulse barely a thread beneath my touch. My scar seared like molten iron, pulsing with its own heartbeat, each throb spilling black fire into the cracked stone beneath my boots. The ground split, veins of shadow darting outward like roots devouring soil, drinking deep of my blood and vow alike.
Gasps spread among the Ironsworn survivors. Even my wolves took a step back, their hackles raised. Fear threaded their voices as they whispered through clenched teeth.
"The chain moves on its own."
Moonlight faltered. Shadows quivered. Every heartbeat pressed deeper, a tide of hunger bleeding from me into the land itself. The ruin was no longer stone—it was feeding, drinking me, drinking her.
The scar writhed hotter, binding tighter. Whispers bled from the fissures opening at my feet, old syllables that churned ash in the lungs.
"Veyrathuun shael… ulthera coroneth… draem'vol nox undral…"
(The Devourer breathes… the crown descends… dream-void swallows all.)
I clenched my teeth, refusing to let Dahlia slip from my grasp. But the truth pressed like iron across my bones—every drop of will, every oath I spilled was not mine alone anymore. It fed the Hunger. It spread through the soil.
And the earth answered, trembling beneath me as if to remind me: my blood no longer belonged to me.
The ground drank from me—my veins fueling the Crown's reach, my war already becoming its feast.
---
The ruin's tremor pressed into my marrow until the world split, not around me—but inside. My vision bled into the mindscape, a storm-lit abyss where my wolf emerged, towering, its fur torn between halves. One flank burned white as moonfire; the other crawled with black ash, ember-eyed, snarling as if I were its enemy.
Its voice rattled the stone of my skull.
"Your war feeds it. Every vow you make, every oath you spill—it bleeds into its maw."
The scar throbbed in answer, glowing like a brand of shackles, and I clenched my fist. No. Not mine. Not hers. This chain will be forged into a weapon. Oathbound or damned, I'll wield it against the Crown itself.
The wolf circled me, claws sinking into the dream-ground. Its snarl cracked like thunder.
"Then forge it quick—or she burns first."
The image of Dahlia shuddered into view—her body wreathed in shadow-smoke, her lips parting with fragments of the ancient tongue.
"Ulthera shael… vorenn'thuun coroneth drael…"
(The vessel breathes… the Devourer crowns the flesh…)
The wolf bared its fangs, eyes split in moon and void.
"You have little time, Alpha. Master the chain—or bury her beneath it."
The scar writhed hotter, biting into my veins as if agreeing with the beast.
I knew then—I had no eternity for vows. Either I bent the chain to my will, or Dahlia's vesselhood would consume her before my war even began.
---
Her body twitched against my chest, lashes fluttering as though she dreamed inside a storm she couldn't escape. Then her lips parted, breath spilling like smoke, words spilling like knives.
"Ulthera shael… vorenth coroneth… Veyrathuun undral…"
(The vessel breathes, the crown ascends… the Devourer unbinds…)
Each syllable seared the air. The ruin around us shivered, and my scar blazed, veins knotting into chains that wanted her voice swallowed in silence.
For a breath—just one—her true voice broke through, trembling, desperate.
"Damon… don't let it use you…"
The words stabbed deeper than the Crown's whispers ever could. My scar coiled tight, as if trying to choke her humanity back into shadow, but I crushed her closer, pressing her head to my chest. No chain. No hunger. Nothing will silence her.
The shadows in her veins writhed like living ash, feeding off the tension. I felt it—her resistance gave me strength, but it also fed the Hunger, lashing through the scar like a whip.
The Crown's murmur slid beneath her voice, layered in hers, layered in mine:
"Vorenn'thuun coroneth drael… shael veyrathuun ulthera…"
(The Devourer crowns the flesh… the vessel bleeds the rising…)
Her defiance fueled my fury—but with every beat of my heart, the Hunger sank its teeth deeper into us both.
---
Far from the ruin of the Veil, the sky cracked. Temples across Shadow World convulsed, spires shattering as black fire burst from their altars. The priests lifted their arms into the storm, eyes rolling white with hunger as their bodies bent in worship.
Their voices rose in one thunderous chant, echoing from desert to mountain to sea:
"Ultherra vorenth shael!
Coroneth drael!
Chain of wolf, crown of night—
Vessel bleeds, the end takes flight!"
Ash fell like snow across the cultic cities, but it was no blessing. Rivers boiled, villages sank into shadow, and the black rain turned every drop of water into a mirror of endless mouths.
The priests howled as the Hunger answered, their throats splitting with shadow-fire, yet they screamed in rapture:
"Veyrathuun shael coroneth ultherra!
Noxthuun drael, vorenn ultherra!"
(The Devourer rises, the crown ascends! Night consumes, bonds unmade!)
Not just a vessel. Not just a crown. Their prophecy bent, warped, exalting: Damon himself—the wolf who carried the scar—was no longer merely chained. He was the key. The one who would loose the Silence upon every bond and oath the world had left.
Their cries tore across the realms, crowning Damon not only chain-bearer, but the fulcrum—the hinge of the Devourer's final release.
---
The cults' cries carried like thunder into Damon's marrow, searing across his scar. His arm blazed as if molten iron had been poured through his veins, the rune twisting into new shapes he had not chosen. Every syllable of their prophecy etched deeper into his flesh.
His wolf's voice snarled inside the cage of his skull:
"Vorenn shael… leash or blade. Choose."
(Leash or blade. Choose.)
The scar pulsed like a living chain, constricting his muscles until he could scarcely breathe. Dahlia stirred weakly against him, whispering fragments of the same tongue, the Crown's hunger speaking through her dreams. He could not wait.
Damon bared his fangs and roared, slamming his branded arm into the shattered earth. Shadows and moonfire exploded outward in a violent wave, tearing cracks through the stone. The Veil's ruin shuddered, foundations splitting as if the land itself recoiled.
The chain writhed, screaming through his nerves with a thousand phantom voices:
"Ultherra drael! Coroneth veyrathuun!"
(Bond undone! The Devourer crowned!)
But Damon forced his will into it, every heartbeat a command. "Not leash. Weapon. Mine."
The ground fractured open beneath his hand, and in the stone a new symbol burned—half a wolf's snarl, half the Crown's jagged sigil. Moonlight bled into shadow, shadow into flame.
The chain trembled, bending—partially. Not submission, not victory. It writhed in defiance, caught between leash and blade, oath and hunger.
For the first time, the Crown flinched. For the first time, Damon felt the chain hesitate.
The bond had shifted, but not fully. Damon had wrestled it into something unstable, half-shackle, half-sword. If he faltered, it would devour him. If he mastered it, it might devour gods.
---
The fractured sigil still smoked when Dahlia convulsed in his arms. Her back arched, every muscle taut as though lightning had seized her veins. Her eyes snapped open, glowing with the blinding afterglow of the Crown. For a heartbeat, Damon saw no mate—only a vessel where gods might crawl.
The ruin groaned under their feet, tremors cracking pillars that had stood for centuries. Dust rained down like falling ash. The whispers that had once haunted the edges of his scar surged into a single roar—no longer a murmur in the dark but a storm breaking free.
"Shael veyrathuun! Coroneth drael ultherra!"
(The Devourer stirs! The Bond is broken!)
The chain writhed across his arm, feeding on his heartbeat, on Dahlia's breath, on the very ruin around them. Shadows gnashed like teeth, devouring moonlight and stone.
Then the Crown's voice thundered through both their veins, as undeniable as blood.
"Veyrathuun shael coroneth ultherra… The Devourer has tasted."
Damon's teeth cut into his own lip, the taste of iron grounding him against the wave of hunger. But deep down he knew—his vow, his defiance, had not starved the Crown. It had fed it.
The Hunger had awakened—and Damon's vow may have just fed its first feast.
---