The cavern shook with the fury of battle.
Steel clashed against twisted bone.
Claws tore through cursed flesh.
Howls of agony and defiance echoed beneath the bleeding stones of the Vale.
Lyra fought at the forefront.
Every motion was survival.
Every breath was pain.
Every heartbeat was a drum of war.
The shard of the Binding Stone burned like a star against her skin, searing through armor and flesh alike.
It called to the tomb.
Called to the Mourning King.
Called to the nightmare slumbering within.
But the enemy was endless.
Every creature that had ever fallen to despair, every soul the Mourning King had touched, rose now to defend him.
Callan was a whirlwind beside her — his axe a blur of death, his face grim and silent.
Drenna fought like a berserker, her armor cracked and blood-soaked, her snarls echoing like a beast unchained.
Jast fell, crushed beneath a creature three times his size, his death cry swallowed by the roar of the battle.
Others followed.
Too many.
Too fast.
They could not win like this.
Lyra knew it.
Felt it deep in her bones.
The Pack was bleeding out.
If they fought the horde to the last, there would be none left to bind the Mourning King.
None left to finish what they had started.
She made her choice.
"Cover me!" she roared.
She broke from the melee, sprinting toward the tomb.
The shard's fire grew brighter with every step, blinding.
The runes along the stone flared to life, ancient and furious.
The Mourning King stirred.
A low groan vibrated through the earth — a sound of old sorrow, of endless hunger.
The tomb cracked further, black mist pouring out in thick waves.
The guardians fought harder, more frantic now.
They knew.
They felt their master's awakening.
Lyra reached the tomb.
She fell to her knees before it, pressing the shard against the stone.
The ritual words burned themselves into her mind — old language, older than wolves, older than the Savage Moon itself.
She spoke them aloud.
Voice raw.
Trembling.
Power rippling from her tongue like blood from a fresh wound.
And the Mourning King woke.
His voice was not a roar.
It was a whisper.
A soft, seductive sound that wrapped around Lyra's heart, prying at old scars.
"Child of sorrow," he breathed.
"You are broken. Let me make you whole."
The world around her twisted.
She was no longer in the cavern.
No longer kneeling before the tomb.
She stood in a field under a bright sun.
Her mother alive, laughing.
Her Pack whole, running free across golden grass.
No death.
No betrayal.
No burden.
Only joy.
Only peace.
The Mourning King stood beside her — not a monster, but a man.
Tall. Strong. Kind.
"Stay," he said.
"Stay, and all your pain will end."
Lyra's knees buckled.
Tears filled her eyes.
For a moment — just a moment — she believed it.
Wanted it.
But then she heard it.
Far away.
Faint.
The sound of wolves.
Howling.
Calling her home.
Her Pack.
Her family.
Those who had bled for her, fought for her, died for her.
Reality crashed back in.
The tomb.
The battlefield.
The Savage Moon.
The blood and the sorrow.
Her sword was in her hand.
The shard blazed like a second sun.
Lyra roared — a raw, wild sound that shattered the illusion into a thousand screaming shards.
She drove the shard deep into the heart of the tomb.
The Mourning King screamed.
Not a whisper now.
A storm.
A tidal wave of hatred and despair.
The ground split open.
The guardians exploded into dust and screams.
The cavern collapsed inward — a black hole of grief trying to swallow the world.
Callan reached her side, grabbing her arm.
Drenna fought toward them, blood pouring from a dozen wounds.
The surviving Pack — what few remained — rallied around her.
The ritual was not done.
The Mourning King fought against the Binding.
And Lyra felt herself slipping.
The shard drained her strength.
Every memory.
Every dream.
Every ounce of will.
The Mourning King fed on it, drinking deep.
She would not survive this.
But maybe — just maybe — the world would.
Lyra gritted her teeth, forcing the last words of the ancient ritual through bleeding lips.
The cavern shook.
The Savage Moon wept blood.
The Mourning King shrieked in rage and terror.
Chains of light erupted from the tomb, lashing through the cavern, binding the Mourning King once more.
The last thing Lyra saw was Callan's face — torn between pride and horror.
Then the light consumed her.
And she knew nothing more.
When she woke, she was lying under the cold gaze of the Savage Moon.
The Vale was gone.
Collapsed into a silent crater.
The shard was ash in her hand.
Callan knelt beside her, his face bruised and bloodied, but alive.
Drenna leaned on her sword nearby, watching the dark horizon.
Only a handful of the Pack remained.
But they had done it.
The Mourning King was bound.
The world — for now — was safe.
Lyra closed her eyes and wept.
Not from sorrow.
Not from weakness.
But from the terrible, aching weight of survival.
And above it all, the Savage Moon wept with her.