The march had barely begun when the fissures split wide, vomiting wraiths of shadow, their claws screeching against stone like knives dragged across bone. The Hollow Order had not waited—they had been waiting.
Wolves broke formation first, fur bristling, fangs snapping as they tore into the first wave. The Ironsworn shifted seamlessly, spears locking into a living wall of iron, their oaths chanted with every thrust:
"Velmorr shael drael! Iron binds, shadow breaks!"
Above, dragons wheeled in formation, scales glinting against the bleeding sky, fire raining down in sheets. Kaelthys's roar cracked the night:
"Coroneth drael! Burn unmake!"
The battlefield shuddered under their fury.
Damon fought at the center, the Scar blazing black fire across his arm, his claws cleaving through wraithflesh that screamed like tearing parchment. But with every strike, the Scar burned hotter, hungrier. It drank shadow as if starved.
Dahlia staggered against the pressure. The vesselhood throbbed in her veins, whispering with each fallen foe. Voices spilled through her skin, cold and triumphant:
"Shael coroneth drael… Each kill feeds the chain… Feed him, feed him, unchain him…"
She pressed a trembling hand against her chest, as if she could still the pulse. The truth bit her deeper than the wraiths' claws—every victory was hollow. The more they fought, the more Veyrathuun stirred.
The wraiths broke, bodies unraveling into smoke, the pack and Ironsworn standing bloodied but alive. Yet Dahlia's whisper bled through the silence, cracked and sharp as glass:
"This isn't war. It's worship. He's feasting on us."
The Scar pulsed in Damon's veins, answering her truth with another whisper from the abyss:
"Coroneth unchain… blood is altar, battle is hymn…"
And the victory they had carved felt suddenly like defeat.
~ Dahlia sees what none of the others dare admit—the god is already feeding, and each battle pushes his awakening further.
---
The campfire's glow was dim and cold, choked by ash. After the Hollow Order's ambush, the air still smelled of scorched iron and shadow-wraith smoke. But Damon didn't linger among the others—he pulled me away, his grip firm on my wrist, until we found the hollowed ruins of a tower half-buried in rubble.
He shut the world outside the moment his mouth crashed against mine. No oaths. No chants. Just his teeth grazing my lower lip, his hunger raw, desperate. My back struck the crumbling stone wall, dust showering as his body pressed into mine.
Clothes gave way under his hands, torn aside without hesitation. Leather straps loosened, fabric bared skin, and soon there was nothing between us but heat and breath. Damon's hands gripped my waist hard enough to bruise, dragging me flush against him.
His kiss deepened—hot, demanding, consuming. My gasp spilled into his mouth as he lifted me easily, pressing me higher against the cold wall, his body caging me there. I wrapped my legs around him, pulling him closer, closer still.
"Dahlia…" his voice rasped, thick with need. He didn't finish the thought—his lips trailed down my throat, teeth grazing my skin before he claimed me fully, filling me with a force that drove every breath from my chest.
I clung to him, nails raking down his back as my head fell against the stone. Each thrust sent sparks scattering through my veins, each movement driving me further from prophecy, further from fear, until there was only us—heat, sweat, the sound of our bodies colliding in reckless rhythm.
The tower stones groaned beneath the force of us, but Damon never let me fall. His hands gripped me tighter, his mouth capturing mine again, our moans swallowed into each other's hunger.
Time fractured—seconds stretched into eternity, pleasure cresting higher, tearing me apart in waves. My cries filled the ruins, his growls grounding me against the storm of sensation. We shattered together, breaking and remaking ourselves in fire and release.
When it was done, I sagged against him, trembling, my body still echoing with aftershocks. Damon's forehead pressed against mine, his breath ragged, his heart pounding in rhythm with mine.
For the first time, the whispers in my veins were silent. For the first time, I wasn't the vessel of a god. I was only his.
~ In the quiet aftermath, I realized—I had forgotten fear, prophecy, even my own scars. I felt only Damon's hands, Damon's body, Damon's love.
---
Morning bled gray across the wastelands, a light too thin to chase the shadows. Our first night of release lingered in my body like a secret fire, but the world allowed no peace. Scouts returned before dawn, their faces pale beneath ash-streaked skin.
"The Hollow Order does not rest," one rasped. "They hunt us through every pass—like wolves that do not tire."
Damon's jaw tightened, his Scar pulsing faintly in answer. Serathion lingered near him, a silent shadow, eyes locked on the horizon where the sky tore with faint fissures of black flame. His oath sharpened with each step, a weight he carried alone.
Myrrath's voice cut the tense silence. "We cannot hold this pace. If we keep bleeding strength into skirmishes, there will be nothing left for the god himself. We should pull back, regroup—"
Kaelthys snarled, his wings flaring wide, ember-light scattering from the scales of his half-shifted form. "Retreat? Against shadows? I say we burn them from the skies until none remain."
The clash of wills sparked like iron on stone. Fangs bared, talons flexed, the fragile line of unity frayed.
Damon stepped forward, his presence silencing them. His voice was low, edged with the promise of violence. "There is no retreat. Every shadow we leave behind grows teeth. We kill our way through—every one of them, until the path is ours."
The Ironsworn slammed their shields as if in answer. The wolves growled approval. The dragons exhaled smoke, restless for flame. Yet beneath it all, the vesselhood inside me whispered again, threads of prophecy coiling through my veins like frost.
> "Nai'theron… vekthaal… udrathuun…"
(Two steps forward, three steps chained, none may flee the god's shadow.)
The words slid against my mind like oil, feeding doubt. Strategy fractured as quickly as it was spoken, and I knew—every clash with the Hollow Order didn't just weaken us. It fed him.
~ The alliance stood, but brittle as glass. Each march forward risked splintering into ruin.
---
The march pressed on, a grind of steel and ash beneath the bleeding sky. But in the rare lulls—when the Hollow Order's shadows drew back to gather strength—the Council turned rest into drills.
For me, there was no rest. Damon's Scar pulsed, hungry and restless, and the vesselhood inside me stirred like a chained storm.
Zorathion stood across the courtyard of broken stone, his hands alive with lightning. His voice was thunder wrapped in command. "If you cannot hold what I unleash, then you cannot bind what waits beneath the Scar. Ready yourself, Vessel."
The first strike split the air, a jagged lance that tore into my chest. I staggered, skin searing, bones rattling with the shock. The vesselhood pulsed in violent rhythm, aching to consume.
I forced the energy downward, tracing runes in the dirt with trembling hands—glyphs born not of my will but of the god's whispers.
> "Esh'kara ven draal… velmorr ethuun… kai'thir drael unvar."
(By blood's vessel, the chain holds. By Scar's fire, the storm bends.)
The earth burned beneath my fingers, the runes glowing with a sickly silver light. The lightning bent—twisting, folding—until it bound itself into the symbols I had etched.
I collapsed to my knees, lungs burning. Damon was there instantly, his hand steady on my shoulder, his Scar pressed to my skin. His whisper cut through the storm's roar.
"Stay with me. Anchor here—" His lips brushed my temple. "I am your chain, Dahlia. Hold to me."
Another surge came. Zorathion raised both arms, lightning crashing in twin torrents. My scream ripped from me as the vesselhood clawed for control, but Damon's grip was iron, his voice a vow against my unraveling.
> "Vorath kai'dren, ashvel unshael, thunarak vel drae."
(Scar to chain, chain to vessel, no god shall sever this bond.)
Together, we forced it down. The runes flared, then dimmed. The courtyard reeked of ozone and blood, but the storm was bound.
I sagged into Damon's arms, trembling, the realization heavy as stone in my chest. This power wasn't mine. It was a blade. And one edge was always aimed at my heart.
~ If I faltered, if I lost hold for even a breath, the vesselhood would not bind the god—it would invite him.
---
The night cracked open before we could catch breath.
From the fissures that split the blackened plain, shadows poured, thicker than before—no longer wraiths shaped like men, but colossal beasts, all smoke and fang. Their jaws unhinged wider than a wolf's flank, their claws dripping molten void.
The wolves struck first, howls cutting the night, but their bodies broke like straw in the monsters' teeth. Ironsworn spears flashed, iron biting smoke, but blood painted the ground faster than oaths could be spoken. Even dragons reeled, their wings torn by claws of black flame.
The battlefield reeked of despair. The god was learning. Feeding.
Damon's Scar pulsed against me, fever-hot, and my vesselhood screamed in rhythm, aching for release. He caught my gaze across the chaos. No words. No command. Just inevitability.
We moved as one.
I pressed my palm to his Scar, the vesselhood surging up my veins like liquid fire. His growl was thunder in my bones, wolf and man both, as he let me in fully. Together, our voices wove a chant not taught, not learned—born of blood and bond:
> "Drael veyraethuun, coroneth drael unbind… Shaelthra kai'vel, ashvorum unmake."
(Shadow's spawn, be severed. Vessel and Scar, we unmake your chains.)
The pulse tore out of us, silver and scarlet entwined. The air split with a scream not of this world as the colossal beasts convulsed, their smoky flesh unraveling into ribbons of ash. One by one they collapsed, the surge obliterating them in an instant.
The silence that followed was deafening.
I sagged against Damon, lungs raw, body shaking so hard I could barely stand. His arm crushed me to him, just as ruined, his Scar still glowing like a wound that refused to close. My vesselhood throbbed in my chest, not with pain—but with hunger.
His lips brushed my ear, rough, desperate. "If we keep doing this… it will break us."
But I felt it too—the intoxicating rush. The taste of godlike power. The way his body against mine ached not just with strain, but with a craving neither of us could deny.
We trembled together, half-broken, craving release even as the abyss clawed closer.
~ Each time we unleashed it, I felt less like Dahlia, more like the god's vessel. And yet—together—we couldn't stop.
---
The battlefield slept uneasy, wolves licking wounds, Ironsworn binding cuts, dragons smoldering in silence. But Damon didn't let me stay among them. His hand found mine, grip hard, wordless, pulling me past the ruins, down to where a black river cut through the plain.
The sky above bled with fractured stars. The air smelled of ash, of iron, of us.
He pressed me into the grass before I could speak, his mouth crashing against mine—rough, starving, desperate. His hands tore at me as though prophecy itself would steal me if he wasn't fast enough.
No chants. No council. No god. Just heat.
His lips burned trails down my throat, my chest, my stomach. I arched beneath him, gasping, clutching at his shoulders as if anchoring myself to the only real thing left in the world. The river whispered against its stones, and beneath that, faint and cruel, the abyss stirred:
> "Velmorr draeun… vessel undone… shael unchain…"
But the words meant nothing when his fingers found me, when his tongue silenced every fear, when my moan shattered into the night.
I dragged him down to me, nails scoring his back, legs wrapping him tight until there was no space, no air—only him, only us. His thrust drove the breath from my lungs, sharp, consuming, a war waged in rhythm and heat.
The grass crushed beneath us, the river's edge echoing our cries, his growls tangled with my gasps, our bodies colliding like storm and fire.
He claimed me, again and again, and I broke against him, my body unraveling, not in prophecy but in pleasure so raw it left me shaking, sobbing his name into his skin.
And still he moved, relentless, tender even in his hunger, his lips swallowing every sound I made until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
When dawn finally smeared red across the horizon, I lay tangled in him, my cheek pressed to his Scar. My breath was ragged, my body wrecked and trembling, yet I had never felt more alive.
I kissed the hollow of his throat, whispering against his skin, steady, certain:
"Tomorrow, I will bind him. Tonight, I am yours."
The abyss quieted—for once, it was not the god's voice that lingered in me, but Damon's heartbeat.
---
~ The Council marches at sunrise. Not just with spears and flame—but with two lovers whose bond has become as dangerous, and as necessary, as any weapon they wield.
---