The rain didn't come.
The skies held their breath, caught in the stillness that follows after a scream. The battlefield now a graveyard of stone and scorched ash was quiet. Too quiet.
Lucien sat in the middle of the wreckage, holding Raina in his arms. Her body was warm, but barely. Her mark had dimmed from searing white to the dull shimmer of a dying star.
He couldn't stop shaking.
"Don't fade on me," he whispered, his blood-streaked fingers brushing her hair. "You promised."
Raina stirred. A shallow breath. Her lips parted as though pulling air from another realm.
"I'm not leaving," she murmured.
He swallowed a sob and pulled her tighter into his arms. Her voice, though faint, still echoed like music inside him.
From the crumbled archways behind them, Elias emerged, face bloodied, shoulder torn. Maeva limped after, her staff clutched like a crutch.
"She did it," Elias said. "The seal is broken."
"No," Raina rasped, forcing herself upright in Lucien's arms. "It's unraveled. That wasn't the final seal. That was the tether."
Maeva frowned. "The difference?"
Raina's eyes burned silver around the rims, but something darker swirling behind. "A seal holds something back. A tether binds it. The curse is no longer locked. But it's still alive. And now... it's loose."
Lucien helped her to her feet. "Where?"
"I don't know," she whispered. "But I feel it. Moving. Hunting. Looking for something."
Maeva cast a protective ward around them, the runes flickering pale blue. "Then we regroup. Gather the rest of the resistance. We find it before it finds us."
But Raina didn't move.
She stared into the distance, into nothingband yet into everything.
Because something had shifted. The veil may have lifted, the spirits may have passed on, but what was left behind was worse.
It was waiting.
And it was hers.
The next morning came grey and breathless.
What remained of their forces gathered at the ruined mansion. Soldiers wrapped their wounds in silence. Magic-users poured energy into repair sigils. No songs. No speeches. Just work. Survival. Grit.
In the heart of the hall, Raina stood before what used to be the war table. Its surface was cracked, its edges scorched, and yet it still held the map the cursed thing drawn in blood and silver.
Lines had changed.
New paths had appeared.
One led north. Beyond the known lands. Into the Spine of Shadows.
Lucien joined her, setting a steaming mug in front of her.
"You've been up all night."
"Can't sleep," she said.
"Visions?"
"No." She tapped the map. "Memories. From past lives. From the first Huntress."
Lucien frowned. "And what do they say?"
"That something else was buried beneath the original bond. Something we were never meant to awaken."
His eyes narrowed. "Another soul?"
"Not a soul." She paused. "A sentience. Like a god... or a curse made conscious."
Elias entered, setting down a scroll. "I think I know what it is."
They both turned.
"The Bloodlight. An ancient presence once worshipped by the original coven before they fractured. It was sealed away because it fed on the power of the Huntresses. On her. The first one."
Lucien stiffened. "You think Raina"
"She's the last thread. The flame and the flesh. The lock and the key."
Silence.
Then Raina stood straighter. "Then we burn it out. Wherever it's hiding, we bring it into the light."
That night, the dreams returned.
Not hers theirs.
She found herself standing in a moonlit corridor of mirrors, each one reflecting a different version of herself.
In one, she was cloaked in fire, a crown of bone on her head.
In another, she held Lucien's heart in her hand literally.
In the last, she was alone. The world around her dead. The moon blackened. Her body glowing like a dying ember.
The voice returned.
"You are becoming," it whispered. "But what you become... that is your choice."
She turned toward the voice.
It wasn't Aeris. Not a Huntress.
It was a creature female in form, eyes of endless flame, mouth carved into a grin of stars.
"Who are you?" Raina demanded.
"I am what was buried," the being said. "And you are what unearthed me."
Raina stepped forward, fists clenched. "Then face me in the waking world."
The being smiled wider.
"I already have."
Raina jolted awake sweat-drenched, heart thundering.
Lucien sat beside her, blade in hand. "What did you see?"
"Something ancient. Something wrong. It's inside me now."
He didn't flinch.
He only pulled her close.
"Then we'll kill it. Together."
By morning, the storm had finally arrived.
And with it the call.
It came as a wave of pressure across the entire valley. Magic recoiled. Birds fell from the sky. Rivers reversed for minutes at a time.
A howl low and ancient echoed across the land.
From the northern edge of the map, fire bloomed.
Raina gripped the blade at her side.
"It's started."
Lucien nodded. "We end it."
Maeva handed her a sigil-stone. "This one's different. It's not for attack. It's for banishment. If you reach the heart of that thing, this might be your only chance."
Raina accepted it. "Thank you."
Elias stepped forward. "You ready?"
Raina locked eyes with Lucien. "Ask me that again when I come back."
And they rode north.
To the Spine.
To war.
To whatever waited at the edge of the world.
The path was chaos.
Flames rose from the ground like fingers.
The land itself groaned.
By the time they reached the base of the mountain, the sky had turned completely black. The stars vanished. And in their place one single light pulsed in the sky.
Bloodlight.
"It's calling her," Elias whispered.
"No," Lucien growled. "It's baiting her."
But Raina... Raina was already moving.
Not because she was drawn to it.
But because she had no choice.
This was her end.
Or her beginning.
She climbed alone, the others behind her.
The stone cracked beneath her feet. The wind whispered lies.
"You were always going to die alone," it hissed.
She didn't answer.
Because death wasn't what she feared anymore.
She reached the summit.
And there it was.
A throne made of molten bone.
A figure sat on it.
Her face.
But monstrous.
Wreathed in flame.
"You came," it said.
Raina raised her blade.
"No more games."
The flame-figure stood, towering.
"You cannot kill fire."
Raina whispered the sigil.
"I am fire."
The battle began.