The night refused to end.
Lyra didn't sleep. Not truly. Her body rested, but her mind stayed caught in a liminal place—halfway between dream and waking. Between memory and something much older.
Her fingers still tingled from touching Raven's hand. The sensation hadn't faded. It pulsed beneath her skin like a second heartbeat, ancient and wrong and real.
By morning, the sky remained bruised. Grey, violet, slashes of rust red stretching like veins. The elders offered no explanations—only incense, tight smiles, and louder prayers.
She didn't believe them anymore.
At the sanctum, she opened the tome she'd once feared most: The Prophecies of the Split Moon. It was banned to novices, forbidden even to apprentices like her. But the veil had cracked, and rules no longer meant safety. Only silence.
The script shimmered—alive with old magic. One passage pulsed under her fingertips.
"When the blood moon bleeds from its crown, and the cursed lovers breathe the same breath—
The Relic shall awaken.
The Realms shall bend.
And the gods shall weep or burn."
She read it again.
"Cursed lovers," she whispered. "We're in the book."
She hadn't told anyone. Not Elira. Not even Mira, her oldest friend. Some truths weren't meant to be shared with the living.
And what would she even say? That a vampire prince she's never met is dreaming her dreams? That the stars are whispering their names together?
Her eyes burned. She hadn't cried in months. But now—
Her vision blurred. A whisper crept in: He remembers too.
The page beneath her hand began to smolder. She gasped, yanking her fingers away. The text glowed—briefly—then faded back into ink.
Across the realms, Raven stood at the base of a blackened tree—the same one from their vision. It hadn't burned completely. Its trunk was split, the relic crown nestled in the hollow.
He didn't remember bringing it here. And yet, it had always been waiting.
He bent down, not touching it, only observing. The metal was scorched, etched with runes that matched those on his arms.
didn't.
A growl rippled through the trees. Not beast. Not vampire. Something else.
Raven turned slowly.
A creature with no skin—only bone and smoke—crawled from the shadows. Its eyes glowed red, but not like his. These were ancient. Starved.
The creature whispered in a voice that wasn't made for ears: "The veil breaks because of you. You and the witch."
Raven's fangs lengthened. "She's not just a witch."
"No," it rasped, melting into mist. "She's the beginning and the end."
The relic pulsed once. Raven grabbed it instinctively.
And the moment he did—
Lyra screamed.
Back in the sanctum, her body arched with pain. A searing flash surged through her—a memory buried so deep it didn't feel like hers.
She saw Raven kneeling in blood. She saw herself—wearing a crown of thorns and flame.
And between them stood the creature.
Holding their hearts in its hands.