The blood oath beneath the stars

The fire crackled low in the ancient stone circle. Moss crept along the etched runes, and the sky above spun slowly with stars too old to name. Lian sat with his back against a monolith, cloak wrapped loosely around him. Aure rested beside him, head tilted back, eyes lost in the constellations.

Kael and Sylis had moved off into the woods earlier, chasing whispers only bonded souls could hear.

Now, it was quiet.

"I never imagined we'd find peace," Aure murmured.

"It's not peace," Lian replied. "It's the pause between storms."

Aure smiled faintly. "Then let me rest in the eye of it."

Silence settled again until the runes beneath their feet pulsed with soft crimson light.

Lian stiffened. "That's… not the usual glow."

Aure rose slowly. The ground trembled beneath him, and from the center of the circle rose a figure cloaked in black fire. Not beast, not human. It had no face, only shadows shifting behind a silver mask.

"The Blood Oath was broken once," the figure intoned, voice like wind through bones. "It will not be broken again."

Aure stepped forward instinctively, as if remembering a dance from another lifetime. "What oath?"

The figure raised a hand, and a spectral image appeared Lian and Aure, bound by crimson light, kneeling before a silver altar. Their hands bled into a single bowl. A bond forged not just of love… but war.

"You promised," the figure hissed. "And promises made under the old moon do not die."

Lian stood beside Aure now, shoulders squared.

"Then we reclaim it," he said. "Together."

The figure paused.

And for the first time, it bowed.

The light vanished. The air stilled.

Aure turned to Lian. "What did we promise?"

Lian's jaw tensed. "To destroy the one who tore our souls apart."

A long breath.

"And if they still live?"

Lian met Aure's gaze. "Then the next storm begins."

From the shadows, Kael and Sylis stepped back into the circle. Their eyes shimmered with firelight and knowing.

"We stand with you," Sylis said. "As we once did."

The bond sparked again four souls, connected by war, love, memory, and something more ancient than time itself.

Beneath the stars, they made ready.

Because the past wasn't done with them yet.