The creature stared straight at me.
It didn’t blink. It didn’t breathe. But I felt the weight of its presence crush every thought, every instinct, until my body stopped responding to anything but the sheer, unholy power radiating from it.
This wasn’t a beast. It wasn’t just another cursed remnant or corrupted soul.
It was something else.
A god buried under centuries of silence.
And it had just been set free.
I staggered back from the cracked altar, heat pulsing through my chest where my mark had begun to glow again, brighter than before. Brighter than it ever had. I pressed my hand to it, trying to soothe the ache, but it was useless.
It wasn’t pain.
It was summoning.
“Lyra,” a voice whispered in my head, slithering like smoke along my bones. “Child of fire. Blood of the broken li
