The Shattering of the Oath

The night bled red.

The Savage Moon hung low over the valley, fat and throbbing like a wounded heart.

The mist was thicker than ever, swallowing the world in a damp, suffocating embrace.

And somewhere deep within the fortress, the first blade was drawn.

Lyra sat alone in the great hall, the throne of bone looming behind her like a jagged maw.

Before her, a fire burned in a pit of blackened stone, its flames casting long, distorted shadows across the chamber.

She had summoned her captains.

She knew the time had come.

The whispers had grown too loud to ignore.

The rot had seeped too deep.

They came, one by one.

Korrin, heavy and grim, his massive hands twitching at his sides.

Vaela, eyes hooded, her fingers trailing along the bone charms at her belt.

Rhea, her armor freshly polished, her face unreadable.

Callan was last, his footsteps slow, reluctant.

They formed a half-circle before her, their eyes catching and reflecting the firelight like predators in the dark.

Lyra rose slowly from her throne.

Her presence filled the hall — a tidal wave of cold fury and sharpened will.

She said nothing.

She didn't need to.

Rhea was the first to speak.

She stepped forward, her hand resting casually on the hilt of her sword.

"My Queen," she said, voice low. "There are… concerns among the Pack."

"Concerns," Lyra repeated, her voice soft as velvet, deadly as a blade.

Rhea nodded.

"You have led us to greatness," she said. "But now you walk a path none can follow.

The valley… the spirits… they twist you."

Her hand tightened around her sword.

"You are no longer the Lyra we chose to follow."

A silence, thick and suffocating, filled the hall.

Lyra's eyes gleamed with something between sorrow and contempt.

"You speak of choice," she said.

She stepped down from the dais, each footfall ringing through the hall like a drumbeat of doom.

"You chose me.

You knelt.

You swore."

Her gaze raked across them, burning.

"And now you would break your oaths because you are afraid?"

Vaela laughed — a brittle, humorless sound.

"It is not fear that drives us, Lyra," she hissed. "It is survival."

At her signal, the traitors moved.

Steel flashed in the firelight.

Korrin charged forward with a roar, swinging a brutal axe meant to cleave Lyra in two.

Vaela muttered an incantation under her breath, weaving threads of dark magic meant to bind and shatter.

Rhea drew her blade with a sharp, sorrowful whisper.

But Lyra was faster.

The Savage Moon sang through her blood, filling her with a terrible, feral grace.

She dodged Korrin's first blow, her body moving like smoke and fire.

Her hand shot out, gripping his massive wrist.

With a sickening crack, she twisted, snapping bone like dry wood.

Korrin screamed — a sound that ended in a wet gurgle as Lyra drove her dagger up under his chin.

Blood sprayed across the stone floor, steaming where it touched the fire.

Korrin crumpled to the ground, twitching once, twice, then lay still.

Vaela shrieked, releasing her spell.

Black tendrils of mist shot toward Lyra, coiling and tightening like snakes.

For a heartbeat, they bound her — locking her arms, her legs, her breath.

But the spirit within Lyra roared in fury.

The sigils carved into her flesh flared to life, searing with unholy light.

The bindings shattered like glass.

Lyra lunged.

Her fingers found Vaela's throat.

With a twist and a heave, she lifted the witch off the ground.

Vaela clawed and kicked, her mouth working in silent screams.

But Lyra's grip was relentless.

Unforgiving.

With a final wrench, she tore the life from Vaela and cast her broken body into the fire.

The flames roared higher, swallowing the witch whole.

Only Rhea remained.

She stood with her sword raised, trembling.

Tears streamed down her face.

"I didn't want this," she whispered.

"I loved you."

Lyra looked at her — truly looked — and for the first time in a long while, something cracked inside her.

Not weakness.

Not doubt.

But sorrow.

A deep, endless sorrow.

"You should have stayed," Lyra said.

Rhea charged.

A scream tore from her lips — a scream of rage, of grief, of all the broken dreams between them.

Their blades met with a sound like thunder.

Steel shrieked against steel.

They fought across the hall, overturning tables, shattering pillars, staining the stone floor with blood.

Rhea was fierce.

Deadly.

She had learned from Lyra herself.

But she was not Lyra.

Not anymore.

With a final, brutal strike, Lyra disarmed her.

Rhea fell to her knees, her sword clattering across the floor.

She looked up, her eyes wide and glistening.

Lyra raised her blade.

For a heartbeat, she hesitated.

For a heartbeat, she remembered laughter, loyalty, friendship.

Then she drove the blade through Rhea's heart.

Rhea gasped.

Her lips formed a word — Lyra could not hear it — and then she collapsed, lifeless, to the cold stone.

The fire guttered low.

The hall was silent again.

Only Callan remained, standing at the edge of the chamber, watching.

He met Lyra's gaze without flinching.

Without fear.

But also without love.

Lyra dropped her sword.

The weight of it crashed through her fingers.

Her shoulders sagged under an invisible burden.

She had won.

She had survived.

But at what cost?

Blood pooled around her feet.

The stench of it filled her lungs.

The dead lay scattered like broken dolls around her throne.

And above it all, the Savage Moon laughed.

The oath had been shattered.

The bond broken.

There was no going back now.

Only forward.

Only deeper.

Only darker.