The aftermath was silence.
Bodies lay scattered across the southern fields — spawn, vampire, wolf, hybrid. The rain washed their blood into the soil, but it couldn't erase the weight in the air. Not grief. Not yet.
Expectation.
Jayden stood at the center of it all, blades lowered, cloak torn, face shadowed by exhaustion. Around him, survivors regrouped — tending wounds, dragging the injured back behind the barricades. The flames were dying now, but the memory of the attack burned bright in every heart.
Elira approached from the edge of the field. "We held," she said, voice low.
Jayden nodded, not looking at her. "Barely."
"That was a vanguard, not an army."
"I know."
He turned to the horizon. "Ashkar is watching."
"And he's measuring you."
Jayden exhaled sharply. "Let him. I've got more left."
But even as he spoke the words, a flicker of doubt twisted through his chest. The Godfragment pulsed against his ribs — not in pain, but in warning.
He looked up at the grey sky.
It was time to move.
They couldn't survive another hit like this.
---
They met that night inside the old chapel's war hall — what was once a place of worship now turned to strategy. Maps littered the table. A blood-etched diagram of Graveton glowed faintly at the center.
Fen stood with arms crossed, his fur-lined armor marked with fresh claw-slashes.
Seraya leaned against a broken pillar, arms folded, eyes sharper than ever.
Elira and Jayden stood at the table. Behind them, the Night Council gathered — vampires, rebels, wolf-kin, marked humans.
Jayden spoke first.
"Ashkar won't stop. And he's not here to conquer Graveton. He's here to pull us out. One at a time. Break us down."
"He wants you isolated," Seraya added. "Wants the city to lose faith in you."
Jayden nodded. "Then we take the fight to him."
Murmurs. Doubt.
Elira glanced at him. "How?"
"Vharnyx Keep," Jayden said. "We strike one of his supply chains — the southern artery. It runs blood to his warforges."
"You want to send a team into Hollow territory?" Fen growled.
Jayden's eyes didn't waver. "Not a team. Me."
Elira slammed her hand on the table. "Absolutely not."
"I can move faster alone. Slip in. Break the seal. Burn the source."
"You'll die," Seraya said. "And you know it."
Jayden looked around the room. Faces stared back at him — some frightened, some brave, some already preparing to say goodbye.
"If we wait," he said, "we give him time to gather his full strength. We have one advantage left — surprise. I won't waste it."
Silence.
Then, from the back, a voice called out: "Then let us come."
It was the young vampire boy Jayden had saved.
"I may not be strong, but I know the tunnels. I used to run blood packs for the Hollow."
Others nodded. More voices rose.
"You won't fight alone."
"We made a choice. We stand."
Jayden blinked. Swallowed hard.
This was never about a one-man path.
It never could be.
He stepped back.
"Then we form a shadow legion."
He pointed to the map.
"We move at nightfall. And we leave no bloodline behind."
---
Far away, in the depths of the dead citadel, Ashkar stood before a black mirror.
His own reflection stared back — but it twisted as Jayden's face appeared in its place.
"You're learning," Ashkar whispered.
"But you are still… bound by their love."
He turned to the shadows behind him.
"Send the harbinger."
And something massive crawled out of the dark — eyes glowing violet, shaped like a man but made of bone, flame, and lost time.
The next battle wouldn't be a siege.
It would be a reckoning.