The wind howled through the Wyrmwood forest like a living thing, tugging at Lyra's cloak as if it wished to peel her from the earth and toss her into the sky. Her boots crunched over frost-laced leaves, each step heavier than the last. The spells laced into her veins pulsed unsteadily, like a broken heartbeat—there, and then… not.
She hadn't told them. Not Seraphine, not the Coven's Seer, not even Ebon, who always watched her with eyes too knowing. No one could know she'd seen a face—his face—behind the veil.
Not a dream. Not a trick of candlelight. Real.
And it was growing harder to pretend otherwise.
Lyra knelt by the edge of a narrow stream, dipping her fingers into its surface. The water shimmered with silver threads, a sign of a realm thinning
It had never shimmered before. She clenched her fist and stood.
Behind her, the trees creaked and whispered in a tongue only witches could half-understand. The woods had begun speaking again. The same way they did in the stories told to scare initiates—the ones about witches who wandered too close to the veil and never came back.
She wasn't scared. She was… drawn.
---
In the vampire realm, Raven stood at the edge of a ruined temple, watching the horizon burn red—not with fire, but with sky. Crimson veins cut across the heavens like open wounds, humming low and steady beneath the fabric of existence.
He could feel her again.
He didn't know her name. He didn't know her face—not truly. But her voice had seeped into his dreams like incense, soft and breathless, whispering words he couldn't recall when waking. Yet the ache lingered.
Raven touched his temple as a sudden pressure bloomed behind his eyes. Another flash—sharp, piercing.
A field of ash. A scream in a language he didn't know but somehow understood. And then her eyes, wide and frightened, looking straight at him before everything shattered into darkness.
He staggered back, clawing for balance.
"I saw her," he muttered, breathless.
Behind him, Talon stepped from the shadows, his expression unreadable. "The witch?"
Raven's silence was answer enough.
Talon's gaze narrowed. "If the blood bond is real, and the veil thins as quickly as I fear, then neither side is ready. Least of all you."
Raven turned to him, his voice low and certain. "I don't want to be ready. I want to know."
---
That night, Lyra dreamed again.
Only this time, the dream bled into something else—something real. She stood in the ruins of a place she didn't recognize but felt deep in her marrow. Stone pillars covered in ivy. A black sun overhead. And him.
He stood at a distance, watching her like he had every time before. But this time, he moved closer.
Her pulse thundered in her throat. She reached out.
"Who are you?" she asked.
He blinked, stunned—as though the question shattered something between them.
"I don't know," he said. "But I know you."
Their hands almost touched, a breath apart—and the world convulsed.
A sound, like a scream made of thunder and bone, split the skies. Raven's eyes snapped wide with panic. Lyra screamed as a rip in the air bloomed between them, seething with shadows and something far more ancient than either of them.
And then—just like that—it ended.
She awoke in bed, drenched in sweat. But her palm burned. She looked down and saw the faint imprint of a sigil glowing against her skin
The same one from the ruins. The same one from the dream.
---
Back in the vampire realm, Raven stood before a mirror, staring at his own hand.
The same sigil glowed there too.
He whispered, "What have we done?"