The first scream split the night like glass shattering.
It wasn't human. Not anymore.
I jolted awake where I had collapsed against the cathedral wall, lungs burning, crowbar slipping from my fingers. The air was heavy with smoke and cold ash, and the sound left my skin prickling.
Lysander was already on his feet. His silver blade gleamed faintly in the fractured moonlight spilling through the broken roof, his silver eyes sharp and unblinking. The bond between us throbbed with a pulse that wasn't mine, warning me with the taste of something wrong.
The scream came again, closer this time. It began as a guttural rumble and climbed into a pitch so sharp my teeth ached.
Around us, survivors stirred uneasily in the pews, their faces pale and drawn, eyes wide with fear. Some clamped their hands over their ears as if that could shut out the sound.
Then silence.
The kind that makes your skin crawl, the kind that feels alive.
[ Rival Evolution Stabilizing… ]
[ Aberrant Host: Kade ]
[ Status: Unstable ]
The System's voice cut through the air, cold as steel, clinical and merciless.
The bond constricted around my chest, each heartbeat hammering louder.
Kade was here.
Not somewhere distant in the ruined city—not an echo carried on the wind. No. He was close. Hunting.
A shadow darted across the broken doorway. Too fast, too jagged. Wood splintered. Stone cracked. The cathedral groaned like it was bracing for collapse.
And then he stepped inside.
Kade had once been tall, broad-shouldered, sharp-featured, arrogant in that smug way of someone convinced they could never lose. I used to think his smirk was the most unbearable thing about him. I was wrong.
Because this wasn't Kade anymore.
He was taller now, his shoulders stretching what remained of his clothes. His bones seemed too long, joints bending wrong. His skin gleamed with a black sheen, slick like oil, shimmering faintly as though it rejected light itself. His silver eyes glowed brighter than Lysander's, but fractured—splintered shards of light cutting through endless darkness.
And when he grinned, his mouth stretched too wide for a human face. Teeth where there shouldn't be teeth.
The whispers surged in my skull, stabbing sharp as knives.
Claim. Claim. Claim or be devoured.
I staggered to my feet, every nerve screaming. The crowbar's weight steadied me, though my arms felt like stone. Lysander's grip tightened on his blade, the bond flaring so violently it sent pain lancing through my ribs.
Kade's grin widened when his fractured eyes locked on us.
"You should have taken them," he said. His voice was layered now, distorted, human words buried beneath something guttural. "You hesitated. I didn't."
He took a single step forward. The ground cracked under his heel.
The survivors screamed.
Lysander moved before I could, stepping in front of me with his blade raised, his posture steady as a wall against a storm. The bond roared between us, fear and fury tangling until I couldn't tell which was mine and which was his.
"Get them out," Lysander said, his tone sharp with command. He didn't look at me.
My throat was raw, but my answer came out steady. "No." I tightened my grip on the crowbar, pulse pounding sickeningly fast. "We face him together."
The bond surged in fierce agreement, heat flooding my veins like fire. For the briefest moment, I thought Lysander would argue. His jaw twitched, his eyes flicked toward me, but instead of words he only exhaled sharply, like he knew there wasn't time.
Kade laughed. A ragged, tearing sound. "Together? Cute. But bonds break. Power doesn't."
And then he moved.
Faster than thought.
The clash shook the cathedral. Lysander's blade met Kade's claws, sparks flaring as steel ground against flesh too strong to be flesh. The impact rang like a bell tolling doom.
I lunged in with the crowbar, throwing every ounce of weight into the swing. It connected with Kade's ribs. The crack of bone rang out—but he didn't even flinch.
Kade backhanded me like I was nothing.
Pain exploded in my chest as I slammed into a broken pew, wood shattering beneath me. The air ripped from my lungs, vision dimming. For a moment, all I could hear was the bond screaming—panic, fury, desperation. Lysander's emotions bleeding into mine until I couldn't separate them from my own.
The great hall stretched endlessly before her, a cathedral of decay. Once it had been the heart of the kingdom, where voices rang out in laughter and command. Now, silence ruled, broken only by the echo of her boots on the fractured marble. The chandeliers sagged like the skeletons of forgotten stars, their crystal teardrops dimmed to gray. Dust motes drifted lazily in the shafts of moonlight that slipped through broken panes, each one carrying the weight of years gone.
Seliora slowed her pace, her eyes roving over the ruin. Tattered banners clung stubbornly to the stone walls, their once-vivid crests now faint ghosts of color. Portraits loomed high above, their faces slashed by cracks that split noble features into something grotesque. She felt them watching her—judging, remembering.
At the center, she paused. A banquet table lay toppled on its side, its surface marred with burns and scars of long-forgotten clashes. Shards of crystal littered the floor, scattered like bones after a feast. Seliora crouched, her gaze catching on a jagged fragment. For a moment, she saw herself reflected in its fractured surface—dark eyes glimmering, black-violet hair spilling loose, the curve of her lips hard with resolve. Yet in the distortion, her own reflection seemed like a stranger, a woman carved from shadow and fire, not the girl she once was.
The artifact at her side pulsed softly, its rhythm steady, alive. Its warmth crept into her palm where she brushed against it, syncing with her heartbeat. She could feel its pull, not demanding but reminding—of the bond, of the power that would never let her go.
Then, the silence broke.
A sound rose from the far end of the hall—soft, deliberate. The scrape of stone against stone, faint but unmistakable. Seliora's head lifted sharply, every muscle tensing. Her hand hovered close to the relic, as though it might awaken if danger pressed too near.
The air grew heavier, charged. She could hear her own breath, feel the echo of her pulse thudding in her chest. The shadows near the broken stair thickened, stretching unnaturally. Something was there—watching. Waiting.
Slowly, the dark stirred. A shift of fabric, a footfall too measured to be chance. A silhouette began to take form within the gloom, edges blurred, features hidden. It lingered just beyond the light's reach, as if the ruin itself resisted giving it shape.
Seliora did not move. Her spine straightened, her gaze hard and unyielding, every sense sharpened to a knife's edge. She could not yet tell if it was foe or phantom, but she knew one truth with certainty.
She was no longer alone in the ruin.