Dawn in Windhollow came in shades of grey. No birds sang. No wind stirred. Just the slow breath of a village that had lived too long beside death.
Valen was already on the ridge.
He moved in silence, his coat brushing the frost-slicked grass, his sword unsheathed—its edge catching the weak light like liquid steel. He wasn't practicing for display. Every strike, every movement was a language of purpose, born in the blood of ancient wars. A conversation between blade and ghost.
Lyra watched him from the treeline, dagger in hand.
When he stopped, he didn't turn.
"You're late."
"I didn't sleep."
"Good," he said. "Neither should a hunter."
She stepped forward. "Where do we begin?"
Valen faced her fully, his expression unreadable.
"Lesson one. A weapon is not your ally. It's a liar."
Lyra blinked. "What?"
He stepped closer, tapping her dagger. "This blade will promise to protect you. To kill for you. But if you hesitate—if you believe in it more than yourself—it will betray you."
Lyra frowned, gripping the handle tighter.
Valen reached into his coat and drew something small—a splintered bone, carved with runes.
He flung it at her.
She barely dodged. The bone struck the ground and exploded into crackling red fire, sending her sprawling.
She rolled and came up with the dagger raised.
Valen nodded. "Better."
She panted, heart hammering. "You could've killed me."
"No. But you could've died." He pointed to the rising smoke. "That's the difference."
Training lasted until her arms gave out. Then Valen made her lift again.
He didn't praise her when she disarmed him once. He didn't scold her when she slipped and cut her hand.
Pain, effort, breath—these were her only companions.
And when she collapsed for the final time that morning, he simply said, "Again. Tomorrow."
In the days that followed, Windhollow braced itself.
Merchants stopped arriving. Riders sent to nearby towns never returned. Even the old howlers that hunted the eastern woods had vanished—like something higher on the food chain had entered their domain.
Lyra trained. Her body ached constantly, but the pain sharpened her. She learned the weight of silence. How to breathe without giving herself away. Where to strike on a creature whose organs weren't where they should be.
And she started dreaming differently.
The visions came in fragments now—disjointed but vivid. Names she had never heard, burned into stone. Cities upside down, with sky-forged towers. A woman with antlers and skin made of ash whispering in a forgotten tongue.
One morning, she woke to find a rune scorched into her palm.
It pulsed faintly, fading before her eyes.
She didn't tell Valen.
Far across the Deadmarsh, beneath the shattered ruins of Drowmere Hold, a different kind of awakening occurred.
A body stirred in a tomb long sealed by blood-iron and runes etched in seven forgotten alphabets.
The Enforcer was gone. Malrath was dead. But something older remained buried beneath them all.
Its name had no sound.
Its shape had no face.
But it remembered the bloodline that had once summoned it—and the mark that had once tethered its will to flesh.
Now that the tether had moved to Lyra, it remembered her.
And it smiled.
Windhollow burned three days later.
It started with a howl—not human, not animal. Something primal and furious.
The sky split. A claw of dark light sliced through the clouds. And in its wake came beasts with eyes like coins, skinned wolves that wore people's voices, and a woman in bone-white robes who walked on the wind.
They came for the marked one.
They came for Lyra.
Valen was already moving when the fire reached the square.
His sword cleaved through one of the skinned wolves in a single blow. The blade sang as it struck, the runes along its edge igniting with cold flame.
Taren fought with a longbow from the apothecary roof, screaming warnings.
Lyra found herself surrounded. Her dagger pulsed with heat, drawing itself toward the creatures like a compass to blood.
She stabbed one through the eye. The flesh melted. Another grabbed her shoulder. She spun and sliced across its throat—only to find that it had no throat. Just shadow.
Then the wind changed.
The woman in bone stepped forward.
Her face was porcelain-smooth. Her hair flowed behind her like underwater ink. In one hand, she held a staff of teeth.
"You are the vessel," she said, voice like silk over broken glass. "The gate must open."
Lyra raised the dagger.
Valen landed beside her a heartbeat later, his coat aflame from some unseen strike.
"She's not opening anything," he said.
The bone-woman tilted her head. "Ah. The halfborn knight."
Valen's eyes narrowed. "You're not Sanctum."
"No," she said. "I'm older."
The ground cracked beneath her. Hands of bone erupted from the earth, dragging themselves upward.
Valen moved first—fast as shadow. His sword clashed with her staff, and the air shrieked as magic exploded around them.
Lyra turned, back to back with him.
"Fall back?" she asked.
"Too late," he said.
The battle was chaos. Fire danced through the air. Villagers screamed, fled, or died.
Taren fell from the roof, his leg broken.
Mother Quenna was devoured by a beast made of mirrors.
Lyra's dagger broke in half after cutting through the bone woman's guard.
Valen was forced to drop his blade when the woman uttered a binding curse—one that made the sword scream and melt into glass.
They were losing.
Then Lyra saw it—the rune in her palm glowing again. Bright. Furious.
Instinct took over.
She slammed her hand into the ground.
The earth answered.
A pillar of light burst upward. Not warm light, but something ancient. Cold. Hungry.
The creatures screamed.
The bone woman recoiled.
Valen shielded his eyes.
When the light faded, the attackers were gone.
Only Lyra remained, standing amidst scorched ash and cracked stone, her body glowing with pale sigils.
Valen stared at her, breathing heavily.
"What… did you do?"
She looked down at her hand. The mark was gone.
"I didn't call it," she whispered.
"But it came."
Later, when the fire was out and the wounded were gathered, Valen stood alone at the edge of the village.
Lyra approached him quietly.
"Was that the Sanctum?" she asked.
"No," he said. "Something worse."
She didn't flinch.
"So what now?"
He turned, his eyes sharper than ever.
"We leave."
"Where?"
"South. To the ruins of Caer Sorrow. There's an old relic there. One that belonged to my father."
"Why there?"
"Because if we don't find it before they do, the mark on you will return—and this time, it won't just be a key."
Lyra nodded. "Then let's go."
In the deep wilds, far from the smoke of Windhollow, the woman in bone limped into a circle of black pillars, clutching her burnt arm.
She knelt before a mirror of blood, whispering in tongues older than the earth.
The surface rippled.
A voice emerged—neither male nor female.
"Report."
"She resisted."
"Unexpected."
"And the dhampir?"
"Interfered. He remembers."
A pause.
Then: "The sword must be reforged. The girl must be opened. Send the Hollow Choir."
The bone woman nodded, and the mirror went still.
Far away, in the ruins of Caer Sorrow, something ancient began to stir.