They walked for nine days through the carcass of the world.
The land had forgotten how to be land. Rivers hung in the air like frozen screams. Mountains wept molten glass. The wind carried the sound of children who had died centuries ago. Every night the violet scar in the sky grew a little wider, and every morning a little more of the sun was missing. The Eclipse Pack—now twenty-nine wolves led by three monsters who had once been people—followed the pull of the four-rune mark on Xavier's chest. It burned hotter with every league, guiding them north-west toward the place the god feared most: the Bleeding Spire.
The Spire had once been the tallest structure ever forged by wolf hands, a needle of black iron and obsidian bone driven straight into the heart of the old empire's capital. Legend said the First Enigma had stood at its peak and shattered the unbound god with a single blow, scattering the pieces across creation. The city around it was gone, swallowed by time and war, but the Spire remained, cracked down the middle, leaking a slow, endless river of crimson light that painted the horizon the colour of fresh slaughter.
They reached it at dusk on the ninth day.
The Spire rose out of a lake of coagulated blood, five hundred storeys of jagged iron wrapped in chains thick as redwood trunks. Every chain was forged from the melted armour of the wolves who had died defending the First Enigma. Their names were still visible, etched in the metal by the heat of their own burning bodies. The air stank of rust and old oaths. The twenty-nine survivors spread out in a loose perimeter without being told. They had learned silence the way other packs learned songs.
Xavier walked to the edge of the blood-lake and stopped.
The four-rune mark on his chest was no longer glowing.
It was bleeding.
Gold light seeped between his ribs and dripped onto the ground, where it hissed and steamed. Each drop carved a tiny rune into the iron-hard blood crust. Lyra stood at his left, claws flexing, silver fire guttering low. Lucian stood at his right, Wrath's End resting across his shoulder, violet eye narrowed to a slit. Zamiel's voice came from Lucian's throat, soft and tired. "The last three are inside. They've already started the joining. If they finish, there will be only one left. One strong enough to open you like a tin can, love."
Xavier nodded once.
He stepped onto the lake.
The blood did not swallow him. It parted, thick and reluctant, revealing a causeway of black iron that led straight to the Spire's base. The chains hanging from the tower began to move, links grinding like millstones. Faces appeared in the metal—ancient wolves, mouths open in eternal screams. They reached for Xavier as he passed, fingers of molten iron scraping across his skin, trying to drag him down into the lake and keep him there forever. He walked through them without slowing. Lyra and Lucian followed. The rest of the pack stayed on the shore. This part was not for them.
They entered the Spire through a wound in its side wide enough to ride six horses abreast. Inside was a single shaft that went up and up and up, lit by the crimson river that poured down the centre. The walls were lined with thousands of iron sarcophagi, each containing the mummified body of a wolf who had sworn to guard the Spire until the god was dead. Their eyes snapped open as the pack passed. Empty sockets bled gold dust.
The ascent took hours.
They climbed broken staircases that spiralled around the crimson waterfall, fought through corridors where the floor was made of teeth and the ceiling dripped acid that smelled of betrayal. Twice they were attacked by things that had once been wolves but were now only hunger wearing fur. Xavier killed them with his bare hands because Roshan was still lodged in the sky and had not returned. Lyra's silver fire was almost spent; she fought with claws and teeth and rage. Lucian carved a path with Wrath's End, Zamiel's violet eye guiding every swing so that no strike was wasted.
They reached the summit as the last sliver of true sunlight died forever.
The peak of the Bleeding Spire was a circular platform five hundred feet across, open to the bleeding sky. In the centre stood the last three Harbingers, already half-fused into a single towering abomination of violet fire and living void. It had six arms, three faces, and a chest cracked open to reveal a heart made of the six fragments they had devoured. The Heart-Crystal that had once been the final relic floated above it, pulsing in time with Xavier's own heartbeat.
The creature spoke with three voices braided together.
"Welcome home, brother."
Xavier stepped onto the platform.
The four-rune mark on his chest split wide. Gold fire poured out, meeting the violet fire of the Harbinger in a storm that shook the Spire to its roots. Lyra and Lucian spread out to either side, weapons raised, ready to die holding the line.
Xavier looked at the thing wearing his god's face.
Then he smiled, slow and terrible.
"I'm not your brother," he said. "I'm your prison."
He opened his arms.
The god inside him woke up hungry.
And for the first time since the Final Shroud, Xavier let it out—not to rule, not to destroy, but to fight on a leash made of four hearts that refused to break.
The Spire screamed.
The sky screamed.
The war entered its final, ugliest, most beautiful scene.