Snow drifted gently across the ruins, masking the blood that still stained the stones.
Lyra stood alone at the site where Kael had been taken, her hand trembling as it hovered over the ground—over the last place she had touched him. The air was silent now, but her heart rang with screams. Memories flooded back in fragments—the way Kael's hand slipped from hers, the blinding flash of the portal, the cursed symbols tearing the world open.
She knelt down, picking up a shard of Kael's broken vambrace, slick with dried blood. Her breath caught in her throat.
"I was right there…"
Tears welled in her eyes, silent and bitter. She clutched the shard to her chest and let them fall freely. Wind whispered through the trees, cold and uncaring.
Behind her, footsteps approached. Valdran stood quietly, saying nothing. Eclipse hovered behind him, her ears flattened with guilt, her face lowered in shame. No one spoke. There were no words that could ease this failure.
Lyra stood slowly, her back still to them.
"We lost him…" she said. "But the war isn't over. Not yet."
She closed her fist around the shard and turned away from the ruins. A portal opened with a shimmer of violet light. She stepped through, leaving the broken place behind.
Back in Dreadhold
The citadel's halls were hushed. Word of Kael's disappearance had already spread through the city like wildfire. Whispers and uncertainty clung to every corridor, and the throne room felt colder than ever.
Lyra stepped through the portal and strode past the guards, her expression hardened. As she reached the steps of the throne, the doors behind her burst open.
A scout stumbled in—cloaked in snow and blood. He fell to one knee before Lyra and gasped out his words.
"The nations… they march. The allied forces are mobilizing. Five kingdoms have signed the war pact. Their banners fly east—they mean to strike Dreadhold while the King is gone."
Gasps rippled through the chamber. Several Thorns stood from their seats. Nyx's eyes flashed with shadow, Solmere gripped his blade, and Selvar's horns pulsed with crimson flame.
Valdran took a step forward. "Then we meet them in fire."
But Lyra raised her hand.
"No. Not yet."
They turned to her.
"We are not broken," she said. "But we need more than fire. We need allies."
Her voice steadied. "I will go to Sylvanthar. The Elven Queen once spoke of peace—now she must prove it."
Valdran narrowed his eyes. "You trust her?"
"I trust she loves her forest more than war," Lyra said.
Without waiting for a reply, she turned and vanished into a new portal—gold and emerald.
The room pulsed with energy as the Thorn crests illuminated across the obsidian table.
Twelve runes burned in the dark. The Thorns stood in a wide circle, cloaks flowing, eyes sharpened.
Valdran leaned forward. "We act now. While the allied nations prepare their assault, we call our legions."
Solmere nodded. "Let them march. They will find Dreadhold ready."
One by one, each Thorn summoned their domain sigil into the air. Luna and Eclipse—still haunted but resolute—merged their hands and opened a rift to the Shadow Fang Valley. The howls of wolf-demons echoed through the portal as their kin stepped forth.
Selvar summoned his fireborn knights from the volcanic city of Emberdeep, their armor glowing like molten rock.
Nyx summoned phantoms from the Obsidian Graves.
Even the silent Thorn, Reven the Hollow, called forth the Wraith Legion, cloaked in voidlight.
The skies above Dreadhold cracked as glowing gates opened. Armies began to pour in—row upon row of elite warriors, monstrous beasts, magical constructs—each sworn to the Dread King's rule.
The ground trembled beneath the weight of their arrival.
Valdran's voice cut through the silence.
"They thought our strength died with our King. Let them come. Let them see what remains when a god falls but his wrath lives on."