The ruin still groaned, stone veins splitting beneath our feet. Dahlia's hand seared against my Scar, her palm trembling, yet she held on. Her eyes—no longer glazed or half-lost—cut sharp and alive, burning with the faint shimmer of starfire buried in black glass. But I saw it: vesselhood was coiling inside her, waiting for a crack.
The Scar pulsed through me like molten iron. Every beat was a lash. My veins sang with shadow and moonlight clashing, eating each other alive.
Her breath rattled. Her voice broke against my ear, words edged with defiance and despair.
"This isn't freedom. It's a cost."
The Scar writhed at her admission, coils tightening around my flesh, as though it laughed at both of us. Not mine. Not hers. A chain that belonged to something deeper.
A whisper hissed through the abyss below—older, colder, a voice too vast for bone or blood.
"Vorenn drael shaelth… ultherra coroneth… feasting binds, resistance bleeds…"
Dahlia arched in my arms, her body trembling as though lightning had found her spine. Her lips parted, and prophecy spilled unbidden:
"Ultherra shael coroneth drael… the wolf bleeds, the vessel breaks… unmake or unbound…"
I felt it then—the truth neither of us wanted. Her awakening had not cut the chain. It had doubled it. My Scar and her vesselhood had twined into the same lock, the same key, the same curse.
Two wills on one chain.
And at the other end, something vast tugged.
---
The Scar throbbed, but Dahlia's gaze broke past me—past the chain and abyss—to the shadows moving through the ruin's edge.
The pack.
Marlow and Veyra staggered side by side, their twin blades dulled and dripping with black ichor. Jareth's armor hung broken across his chest, one arm wrapped tight in torn cloth. Lucian carried a wound that smoked where Hollow steel had cut deep, his jaw set against the pain.
Bloodied. Exhausted. But alive.
Her lips parted, and her voice—her true voice—cracked the air like glass.
"Where's Mira?"
No one spoke. Not at first. Even the ruin seemed to hush, save for the distant grinding of the abyss.
It was Veyra who finally bowed her head, a strand of blood-matted hair falling across her cheek. "She stayed… drew the Hollow blades on herself. Gave us the opening to cut through the Rift. When the god stirred…"
The rest fell away. They didn't need to say more.
Dahlia's body shuddered in my arms. Her eyes, sharp with awakening, dimmed beneath grief sharper than prophecy's claws. Her hand slipped against my Scar, not from weakness but from sorrow so vast it hollowed her chest.
I could only hold her tighter. My wolf rose then, mourning in the only voice it had left. The howl tore free, raw and unguarded, echoing across the ruin like a wound made sound.
The abyss answered, whispering almost hungrily:
"Vorenn drael shaelth… ultherra feasts through loss…"
Dahlia trembled, her voice breaking against my chest. "She died for us. I lived for her death."
I had no words. Because she was right. Her survival—her awakening—had been bought with Mira's blood.
And that was the first truth she faced upon opening her eyes.
---
The pack's grief still weighed heavy when the sky above the ruin split with the beating of wings.
A shadow passed over us—vast, jagged. Ash rained like snow.
Two shapes unfurled their wings—those who followed Serathion splintered creed.
Myrrath Veilshard, eyes like molten glass, cold and unyielding, the strategist who whispered doom in every shadow.
Aelirion the Dawnspire, golden and radiant, keeper of draconic law, feathers of light woven in his mane.
Their wings arched like judgment.
"The vessel breathes still. She must die."
The ground quaked again, a low growl from beneath the ruin. A voice whispered from the abyss, darker than the Hunger's chorus:
"Shael draevor… coroneth ultherra… the chains unbind."
Then another thunder broke the air. The rest of the Conclave answered, their wings blotting the fractured sky.
Kaelthys the Dreadscale landed first, his scales jagged black and crimson, warlord's fury radiating like flame. His voice shook stone: "If she dies, we are already lost."
Zorathion the Stormclaw followed, lightning still flickering in his breath, his stance before Dahlia protective, not accusatory.
Dravanyx the Hollowbane dragged his scarred bulk through the ruin, hatred dripping from every syllable. "The Hollow Order are carrion. They will not have her. Not while I draw breath."
And Sylthara the Embercoil—smallest among them—hovered close, her eyes reflecting Dahlia's sorrow as if it were her own.
Finally, the elder came.
Veyltharion the Elderflame's wings unfurled like an ancient scroll, his scales dimmed with centuries, his eyes molten gold. His voice was grave, carrying the weight of old worlds:
"The abyss groans because chains break. Once he rises, Shadow World itself fractures."
The words were not prophecy, but truth. Even the scar on my arm shuddered at his voice.
Dahlia's hand trembled in mine, and the Conclave's tongues hissed.
"Vessel."
"Crown's mouthpiece."
"She carries him."
The whispers stung like ash. I bared my teeth, my wolf surging through me, my voice a growl edged in moonfire: "Enough. She is not his. She is ours. Mine."
The silence that followed was heavier than the ruin itself.
The Scar pulsed again, mocking, whispering in the abyssal tongue:
"Two vessels. One chain. Ultherra drael coroneth."
I ignored it, turning to the Conclave, to the pack, to every set of eyes torn by fear and fury.
"Join me. One last time. Not for thrones, not for crowns. For Shadow World itself. We face a god, and if we do not stand together, we will fall as bones beneath his feast."
The air trembled with their indecision. Dragons, wolves, blood, prophecy—all scattered and broken.
And in the distance, I felt it. The Hollow Order, their trail cutting closer, their blades thirsting.
We had no time left.
---
The ground split before any oath could bind us.
A quake like the shattering of a thousand realms tore through Shadow World. The sky fractured, seams of abyssal light bleeding outward as rivers buckled and flowed backward, turning their currents toward nothingness.
Above us, fire rained—not flame of sun or ember, but black fire, slick and alive, hissing when it struck stone.
Dragons reared back, their wings faltering. Wolves howled as one, their cries swallowed by the groan of the earth.
And then came the voice. Not a whisper in my head. Not the gnawing echo in my scar.
It was everywhere.
"Ultherra… draevor… coroneth… shael anhuur."
Veyrathuun.
The Shadow World itself carried his breath, bleeding his power into air, into ash, into us.
The cults heard it first. In the distance, on the edges of ruin, Hollow Order acolytes fell to their knees, clawing their own flesh in ecstasy. Their throats bled with chant:
"Veyrathuun coroneth drael… unchain… unmake!"
"Ultherra drael shaeloroth… ascendere!"
Their screams rose like hymns.
Dahlia convulsed in my grip. Her body arched, veins of light and shadow racing beneath her skin as if tearing her apart.
Her eyes rolled white. Her voice—hers yet not hers—spilled the abyss:
"Ahnulthra koreneth… the vessel is the key. The vessel is the gate."
I held her, every muscle straining against her thrashing. "Dahlia—stay with me. Fight him!"
But Veyrathuun's presence clawed through her, through us all. Even the dragons bent low, their scales trembling.
Veyltharion's ancient voice broke like thunder: "He bleeds into the waking. Not dream. Not abyss. Now."
The Elderflame's words ignited a chorus of fear and fury among the Conclave. Sylthara wept flame, feeling Dahlia's torment through her bond. Kaelthys roared a war cry into the abyss, but it was drowned by the next quake.
The Scar on my arm seared until it split open. Black ichor dripped from it, writing symbols across my flesh.
"Drael coroneth… ultherra unbind…"
Veyrathuun's rise was no longer myth, no longer prophecy.
He was here.
Not fully, not yet. But present enough that the Shadow World itself cracked under his weight.
And Dahlia—her vesselhood tethered to every surge—was already unraveling.
---
The quake had not even stilled when the first scouts stumbled into the ruin. Their armor was cracked, their faces ash-streaked, eyes wide with the kind of fear only Shadow World can carve into bone.
One fell to his knees, breath ripping through his chest. "Alpha… they march. The Hollow Order… their war-host rises again."
The second spat blood before whispering: "Shadow-drakes… cursed blades… they do not creep this time. They come in force."
The ruin darkened as if their words summoned the storm.
And then—the name we all dreaded.
"Serathion."
The scout's voice trembled. "The Ashwing rides at their front. His oath remains. The vessel will die."
A hush burned the air. Dahlia shivered against me, her skin still alive with the pulse of the abyss.
My wolf snarled inside me, a sound I had no control over. Serathion's shadow was close—closer than prophecy's comfort, closer than any mercy.
The Drakhen Conclave hissed among themselves. Myrrath Veilshard muttered calculations, already weighing odds. Aelirion's golden wings shuddered, law and honor binding him but fear gnawing at his tongue. Sylthara pressed her coils close to Dahlia, embers dripping down her scales like tears.
And the Hollow chants carried through the air, distant but closing:
"Veyrathuun coroneth drael… ultherra shaeloroth draevor!"
"Unchain the vessel… break the gate… drown the light!"
The Ironsworn who still bore my mark raised their spears, iron heads glowing faintly in defiance. Their leader, scarred and worn, spoke like a vow: "We swore to you, Alpha. We'll bleed before the Hollow Order touches her."
Another voice, hoarse but steady, carried among them: "Even against Serathion."
Their courage was no balm. It was tinder.
Because they all knew.
We could not run anymore.
Veyrathuun was stirring. Dahlia was unraveling. Serathion was coming.
War was no longer a shadow.
It was inevitable.
---
The ruin became a council chamber, though no banners hung here—only cracks in the stone and the distant groan of Veyrathuun's stirring.
For the first time since this war began, all who had bled and broken stood in one circle. Wolves, Ironsworn, dragons, and a vessel who bore a god's chain.
Marlow and Veyra leaned against each other, their twin blades sheathed but never far from hand. Jareth's eyes burned like coals, Lucian's jaw was set, iron-tight with grief for Mira. The Ironsworn circled with their spears, shoulders squared, iron hearts ready for the impossible.
The Drakhen Conclave loomed opposite them—Kaelthys, scarred jaw tight with war-lust; Zorathion shielding Dahlia with a wing's shadow; Dravanyx glowering, his vendetta with the Hollow Order etched deeper than his scales; Sylthara trembling but refusing to yield; and at the center, Veyltharion the Elderflame, his voice a slow-burning fire.
"The abyss groans because the chains break. Once he rises, Shadow World itself fractures. You cannot kill a god. Not with steel. Not with flame."
Arguments flared like sparks. Myrrath hissed about strategy, Aelirion spoke of law and consequence, Kaelthys barked for blood, while the pack demanded vengeance for Mira.
But Dahlia—still trembling from vesselhood's tether—raised her voice above the storm.
"If vesselhood binds me… it may also chain him."
The words struck like lightning.
The wolves snarled. Dragons hissed. Even the Ironsworn shifted uneasily.
I felt my Scar burn under her truth. A god bound through her veins, bound through me. The cost would be unbearable.
Still—I listened.
The circle fell into silence, broken only by the echo of Veyrathuun's whispers that bled through the ruin walls:
"Coroneth drael… ultherra shael… two vessels, one chain, one unmaking."
I met Dahlia's eyes. They were hers—not prophecy's glaze, not the abyss's black. Hers.
"We do not run," I said. My wolf's voice layered over mine, a vow that cracked the ruin. "We fight."
And so the war council began. Secrets dragged from ancient tomes. Glyphs etched in ash and blood. Forbidden rites whispered by drakhen tongues that had not spoken them in centuries. Every scrap of knowledge that could wound a god was laid bare.
But the clock ticked. Each tremor, each groan of the abyss was Veyrathuun's shadow crawling closer.
We would not have forever.
We had only one chance.
And it had already begun.
---
⚔️ End of Chapter 44 – The Fallout of Awakening ⚔️