Lyra knelt in the ruins of what once was a sacred grove, her hands still warm from the last flicker of the witch's dying magic. The woman who had sacrificed everything to sever her from the Forgotten King's grasp was gone—a soft, crumbling ember swallowed by the wind. Ash clung to Lyra's lashes, but she did not blink. Her grief was a silent storm, unyielding and unwept.
Around her, the others stood in quiet disarray. No words passed between them. Raven lingered close, not daring to touch her. The loss had hollowed the air.
But grief, it seemed, was a luxury they could not afford.
The earth trembled beneath their feet. First a pulse. Then a rhythm. Then the roar of something ancient waking.
"Positions!" barked a voice from the frontlines—a commander, or perhaps a survivor trying to sound brave.
The sky split open, not with thunder, but with the wails of thousands. Creatures poured from the jagged wound overhead, their forms twisted, bone-laced, and dripping with something blacker than night. Not like the last battle. These were... darker. As if born of vengeance. As if summoned by a realm that had been defied.
Raven drew his blade. The witches lit their palms with trembling fire. Lyra rose, her eyes glazed with loss, and without speaking, stepped into the fray.
What followed was chaos stitched into poetry.
Blood stained the soil faster than spells could cleanse it. The witches, outnumbered, faltered under the shriek of winged horrors that blotted the sun. Lyra spun through them like a falling star—powerful, erratic, nearly cruel. Her magic flared too hot, too red. Her grief had turned to fire.
Raven fought close, too close, parrying claws that sliced through metal, his arms marked with cuts he didn't feel until much later. He watched Lyra from the corner of his vision, torn between protecting her and fearing what she was becoming.
A creature lunged at her from behind, and Raven dove in time to shield her, his shoulder ripping beneath its weight. Lyra screamed, not in fear, but rage—and the blast that followed scorched a hundred meters into the battlefield. When the smoke cleared, nothing remained of the creatures in that radius.
But it wasn't enough.
For every one they destroyed, three more emerged.
The realm was answering back.
Lyra fell to her knees, blood seeping from her nose, her magic flickering.
"They won't stop," she gasped. "Something—something's opened. We've provoked it."
And above, high in the sky split wide like a wound, something watched.
Unseen. Unnamed.
But not unfelt.
The storm they woke was just beginning.
..Steel clashed, spells ignited the air, and cries echoed like a funeral hymn across the battlefield. The ground was soaked in magic and blood, smeared with ash from burnt lives and broken wills. No time for grief. No time to breathe. They had awakened something older than death and more furious than fate.
The storm had begun, but they hadn't known it yet.
Raven fought like a phantom—fluid, precise, but his eyes kept scanning the battlefield for Lyra. She was a blur of power, tearing through enemy lines with raw force. But something about her was wrong.
Her movements lacked hesitation. Her eyes shimmered with something too ancient to be her own.
Then, in a crack of silence that sliced through the chaos, the veil split.
The Forgotten King appeared—not fully, but enough. A shimmer behind the smoke. A shadow wearing a crown of bone and flame. He didn't walk the battlefield—he breathed through it. He was the pulse in the dark. His eyes locked onto Lyra, and she stilled, as if hearing a voice no one else could hear.
"Break them," he whispered. "Break him."
And she did.
Without warning, Lyra turned—not to the enemy, but to her own.
She struck down a witch. Her blade—enchanted to protect—tore instead. A healer cried her name. Lyra didn't blink. Magic erupted from her, wild and corrupted. The battlefield shifted, soldiers stumbling as the storm raged not just around them but from her.
"Lyra!" Raven shouted, running toward her.
She looked at him.
And then she attacked.
The strike would've cut through bone had he not blocked it. The force threw him backwards. Disbelief and pain twisted in his features as she advanced again, lips trembling—but her eyes weren't hers anymore.
"Stop," he gasped. "It's me."
But she didn't hear him.
No one could reach her.
She was a storm the King had claimed, and in that moment, she was his perfect weapon.
The screams rose.
Then another witch ran toward her. Lyra's hand caught the woman mid-incantation, and twisted—bones snapping like branches, magic dispersing into ash. The witches faltered. Some backed away. Others began to chant—desperate, coordinated spells trying to suppress the corruption.
It didn't work.
Lyra unleashed a scream that shattered barriers mid-formation. One by one, the protective wards turned to shards, exploding in arcs of violet fire. The magic of the Forgotten King pulsed through her like she was born for destruction.
"They will call you monster either way."
Blood bloomed at her feet. She was crying, but she didn't know it. Her lips trembled, murmuring Raven's name—but her hands obeyed another.
A cloaked elder witch dropped to her knees, chanting with trembling lips—trying to seal the King's presence. Her voice rose with desperate strength, raw with sacrifice.
But Lyra turned on her too.
A spell sparked—too late.
Lyra lifted her arm, and flame licked from her palm to the witch's chest. Screams filled the air. The witch burst into fire and light, her death echoing through the ground like thunder.
"Good. Burn what they love. That is how they'll remember you."
Raven saw it all.
His face was pale, cut across the cheek, bleeding. But his wounds were nothing. He ran—faster than thought, sword drawn, calling her name like it could save her.
But Lyra didn't stop.
She spun, casting a spiral of dark magic that sent a dozen fighters into the dirt, convulsing. Their blood turned black in their veins.