Bloodbound Under the Black Banner

CHAPTER ELEVEN What Breaks When I Choose

The first creature reaches me before Astridr can move.

I don’t dodge.

I raise my hand.

The air folds.

Its skull collapses inward like wet clay, bursting without blood, without sound. The thing crumples at my feet, already dissolving into ash that burns cold against my skin.

Everyone stares.

The vampires don’t cheer. They recoil.

I feel it then—the cost. A tearing deep inside my chest, like something essential being pulled thinner every time I act. Power does not flow through me.

It leaves me.

Astridr roars and launches himself into the swarm, ripping bodies apart, painting the clearing with violence. Axes and claws clash. Bone snaps like kindling. I stand in the centre of it, the eye of a storm I never asked to summon.

A creature lunges at my back.

I turn, and it freezes mid‑motion, locked in place by my will. I see through it—see what animates it. Not hunger. Not malice.

Command.

Someone is directing them.

The thought sends a spike of terror through me.

I release the creature. It flees—runs—back into the trees.

Astridr skids to a halt beside me, chest heaving. “You felt it too.”

“Yes,” I whisper.

Far beyond the forest, something vast and patient shifts.

And for the first time since this began, I realise—

Killing these things won’t end the war.

It will only announce me.