The city loomed like a carcass flayed open, its spires split and bleeding black fire. The air stank of ash and blood, heavy with whispers that coiled through the Council's ranks like serpents.
Streets stretched before us as rivers of molten shadow, slick and writhing, as if veins pumped straight from the abyss. The stones groaned beneath our steps, breathing in rhythm with the thunderous pulse of Veyrathuun's awakening.
At the gate, crucified zealots lined the archway—dozens of Hollow Order fanatics pinned to jagged steel, bodies burned to husks yet lips still moving. Their jaws cracked and split as they chanted in unison, words spilling like knives into the air:
"Coroneth drael… shael unchain… Velmorr aethern… god reborn…"
Each syllable rattled my bones. I swore I felt their voices crawl beneath my skin, pressing against the vesselhood within me, urging it to open wider, to tear me apart.
The gate itself was not stone but bone fused with flame. Each crucified zealot bled shadowfire down its sides, and the blood hissed as it struck the rivers below. Damon's Scar flared beside me, his grip crushing around my hand, anchoring me as my vesselhood trembled.
Because I could feel it. This city was not a ruin. It was not stone or ash or flame. It was alive. A wound torn open in the world, and I was its mirror. Every breath I took, every step we made, felt as though we were walking deeper inside Veyrathuun's body itself.
My pulse stuttered, overlapping with his—the endless shadow that stretched across the horizon and through me.
Damon snarled, Scar-voice layering with his own. "No further than I allow. Not through her." His words struck the whispers like a blow, silencing their echo for a heartbeat.
But the truth coiled sharp and bitter: to walk inside this city was to step inside the god himself. And I was the chain that bound the door open.
~ The city swallowed us whole, and I could no longer tell where I ended and Veyrathuun began.
---
The moment we crossed the threshold, the city shifted against us. Streets bent like ribs snapping inward, walls slithered across our path, and spires crumbled only to rise again in new shapes, clawing at the sky as if mocking our trespass.
The Ironsworn braced hard, shields locking into jagged ranks, their iron vows sparking light against the dark. Wolves flanked us, hackles high, teeth bared against shadows that slithered like serpents through the molten stone. Above, the dragons circled tight, wings stirring the smoke into burning cyclones. Yet every breath of defiance seemed swallowed by the city itself, as though we fought not an enemy but the lungs of a god inhaling us.
The vessel within me quaked, dragged open by unseen hands. The labyrinth writhed in answer to my pulse—streets folding and collapsing, shrieking in the god's tongue. My knees buckled, the mark under my skin blazing, every nerve scalded.
I pressed both palms against the air, summoning every shred of vessel-binding I could bear. Symbols clawed out of my flesh, burning sigils in the air. My voice broke into a scream, though the words came unbidden, pouring through me:
"Saelthuun varroth… Khaeldris draem… Ven'arath ul-shaen… bind, bind, bind…"
The shifting slowed. The path steadied. But fire licked my veins, my heart threatening to tear itself apart as the vessel-binding consumed me.
Damon seized me, one arm crushing around my waist, his scarred hand pressed over the brand beneath my skin. His lips found the hollow of my throat, whispering the old tongue against my fevered flesh. His voice was low, steady, a counterweight to the storm raging inside me:
"Aeshvar… throen vas… el'draal unchain not… hold, beloved, hold…"
The words burned like ice and flame together, sealing the fissures that split through me. My vessel's scream dimmed, though the labyrinth around us shivered, alive and waiting.
The Council stood frozen, every warrior's gaze turned to me, but I felt only Damon's heartbeat hammering against mine as the truth sank sharp and cold into us both.
Veyrathuun wasn't inside this city.
The city was Veyrathuun.
~ And every step we took meant we were walking deeper into his body, deeper into his mind—into a god that wanted me hollow.
---
The cathedral cracked open like a ribcage, stone screaming as its spires split. From its hollow heart spilled a storm of shadow—wraiths by the hundreds, shrieking on winds that tasted of rust and rot. They poured into the streets, a tide of hunger shaped like men and beasts, their chains clattering in unison as if bound to some unseen will.
The wolves broke first. Packs hurled themselves into the flood, teeth finding only ash that bit back harder. Yelps became silence, bodies torn apart and dragged screaming into blackness. The Ironsworn shields cracked, iron splintered, men swallowed whole. Above, dragons reeled, wings hammered by clawing masses, stormfire smothered beneath gnashing void.
Damon's Scar blazed, carving the night in ribbons of flame. He lifted me against him, my vessel burning to answer his fury, and together we called the power that should have ended us both.
The chant ripped out of us like a shared heartbeat:
"Veyrathuun kael! Draemosh ul-korr! Scar bind, vessel rend, shadow sunder—AN'DRAEL VORRAH!"
The surge struck like a star falling. Whole swathes of wraiths shattered to dust, their chains snapping in shrieks that turned the air to glass. For a moment the storm faltered, cut open by fire and vessel-sigil light.
But the power was hunger made flesh. Each strike hollowed us faster than the enemy. Damon staggered, scar bleeding flame, while I felt my lungs rupture. Black fire poured from my mouth, my body tearing itself apart from the inside.
Still the wraiths came, still the city screamed, still the storm gathered thicker.
I felt Damon's grip on me tighten, his lips brushing against the ragged blood at my cheek as he forced words into me, anchoring through the abyss.
"Coroneth drael… vessel hold… Scar unbreak, beloved endure…"
The storm did not end.
It only deepened, and with every breath we took inside this god-city, we were breaking faster than we were killing.
~ Every battle here wasn't measured in victory or loss—it was a race against the hollowing, and the city was winning.
---
The storm spat us out into ruin. Walls collapsed around us, stone bleeding shadowlight, stained glass shattered into razors underfoot. We staggered, choking black fire, until Damon dragged me into the ribs of a broken chapel where the god's whispers clawed at every breath.
We should have rested. We should have prayed. But there was no breath left for restraint.
I fell against him, vessel burning, body breaking, and his arms closed like iron. My nails carved his scar, his hands seized me, and in that hollow ruin we tore each other open with fire not meant for tenderness. Flesh against stone, sweat against blood, moans echoing against the ribs of a dead god. Every thrust, every gasp, every shudder was rebellion—against despair, against Veyrathuun, against the storm that would have hollowed me whole.
Ancient whispers slid into me like chains as the vessel thrashed:
"Vorraeth drae… vessel mine… hollow bind, hollow break…"
But his voice answered louder, pressed hot against my skin, carved straight into my soul.
"Coroneth drael… Scar unbreak… vessel burn with me…"
And I did.
Heat seared the storm quiet. His body against mine silenced the hunger clawing at my veins. For the space of a stolen hour, I was not vessel, not hollow, not doom. I was only Dahlia—his, alive, burning.
Release came like fire through shadow, a quake that shattered even the god's whispers. My scream tore the chapel raw, his roar burying it, and in that reckless collapse the storm bent beneath us, retreating as if even Veyrathuun could not own this fire.
After, he pressed his scarred lips to my temple, voice ragged but iron still.
"If the god takes you," Damon whispered, binding me tighter with the vow, "he takes me too."
I trembled, knowing it was not promise but doom. Yet it was all I had—all we had.
~ Our love was anchor, rebellion, fire. But each vow bound us closer to him. Closer to the god. Closer to the end.
---
The stolen fire barely cooled in my veins when the others found us amid the ruin. Their faces told everything—fear, fury, exhaustion breaking through armor of stone. The chapel trembled with whispers not our own, the cathedral's pulse booming like a heart across the city.
Myrrath's voice cut first, sharp as steel.
"We cannot bleed like this again. Every clash drains us into him. Every moment she carries the vessel, we are closer to being devoured."
Serathion's eyes burned with murder as his hand went to the hilt of his blade.
"Then end her. End it now, before she opens wide enough for him to walk fully. 'Draelthuun coroneth… vessel fall, god rise.' It is already written!"
Kaelthys thundered back, wings raking sparks across the shattered beams above.
"Coward! You would cut her throat and call it salvation? The Drakhen do not cower at shadows—we burn through them! Press forward and bleed him in his own house!"
Veyra's voice rang cold, brittle with resolve.
"Unity is the only weapon left. Split here and we hand the god our throats."
Marlow slammed his staff into the stone, shadowlight splintering at the impact.
"She's right. Break now, and all our oaths are ash. 'Vorren drael, oaths unchain, doom consume.' That's what he wants."
But before their voices could twist into violence, my body convulsed. Vesselhood surged like a tide tearing through me—my spine arching, veins blackening as the cathedral's pulse found me, chained me, echoed inside my ribs.
"Vessel open. Chain undone. Draelthuun rise…"
I screamed, the sound tearing stone loose from the chapel's walls. Damon seized me, his Scar blazing as he bared his teeth at them all.
"Silence!" His roar shook the ruin, wolf and Scar echoing in unison. "You think to kill her? Then strike me first. But if you waste another breath on division, you feed him yourselves. There's only one road left—through that cathedral. We march, or we die where we stand!"
The silence that followed was heavier than war. Only the cathedral's pulse remained, booming like thunder across the city.
And I knew then—this was no longer survival. It was pilgrimage into a god's corpse, or his womb.
~ The march begins anew, and every step draws us into the cathedral's hunger. The city's heart calls us—and it will not be denied.
---
The council did not speak again. Their words had already bled into the cathedral's pulse, and no oath or vow could be trusted under its shadow. Only footsteps filled the silence as we advanced, battered but unbroken, through streets that warped and twisted like veins in a living heart.
The spires bent inward as we neared the city's core, stone arching like ribs bowing toward their master. Flames of black fire licked the air, carrying whispers that coiled around our ears.
"Draelthuun coroneth… chain unbreak… vessel fall, god rise…"
Every breath drew the chant deeper into my chest. I whispered without meaning to, my voice trembling, "He's waiting."
Damon's hand closed around mine, Scar blazing like a star dragged through ash. His voice cut the chant in half.
"Then let him wait for his chains."
The cathedral loomed ahead—doors of living shadow, walls pulsing as though with breath, windows spilling rivers of fire that hissed into the broken streets. It wasn't a building. It was a mouth. A wound. A throne.
And within it waited the god we had run from, bled for, burned for. The end we had sworn to fight.
~ The march ended at the cathedral's gates, but the true battle had only just begun. Inside waited Veyrathuun himself—the one war no mortal, no wolf, no vessel could ever hope to win.
---
My legends, if your heart raced and your breath caught in this march toward the cathedral—now is the moment I need you. Drop your POWER STONES and let's show the gods themselves that this story belongs on the throne! Every stone feeds the fire and pushes Sold to the Ruthless Alpha: The Last Moonblood higher so more readers can march with us into apocalypse.
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