Snow fell over the battleground like a shroud, quiet and deceptive. The field stretched wide beyond the monastery's crumbled borders—an expanse of brittle grass, frost-kissed stone, and the quiet groan of reality beginning to bend.
They came at dawn. Not beasts. Not mortals. Something in between.
The followers of the Rift.
Cloaked in bone and darkness, their bodies shimmered like mirages—warped by the magic bleeding from the veil. Eyes hollow. Voices silent. Magic pulsing off them like a war drum. There were no war cries, no declarations. Only movement.
And death.
Lyra stood at the front lines beside Raven, her fingers wrapped around the hilt of the relic-staff she barely knew how to use. The witches flanked her left, runes glowing along their arms. To her right, the vampires stood still as stone, fangs bared, waiting.
"You trained with flame," Raven said. "But today you'll need the storm."
She turned to him, surprised. "I haven't—"
"You will," he interrupted gently. "Because the bond wants to protect itself. And right now, we're the only thing keeping the prophecy breathing."
Lyra swallowed hard. "You sound like you've accepted it."
"I haven't. But I accept you."
The words hit her harder than the cold.
Before she could respond, the Rift creatures charged.
They didn't run like soldiers. They slid through space, moving in jerks and pulses like shadows skipping forward too fast for the eye to follow. The first wave hit hard—claws meeting steel, magic clashing with chaos.
Lyra let go.
She let the storm take her.
Wind howled from her palms, laced with streaks of fire and lightning. Her magic wasn't clean or elegant—it was raw. Untamed. But it worked. The creatures screamed, if that was even what the sound was, and dissolved into ash when struck.
Beside her, Raven moved like a ghost. Shadows curled at his back like wings. He tore through them, fangs flashing, magic lashing out like black tendrils of smoke made solid.
But there were too many.
For every creature that fell, two more crawled out of the cracks in the earth.
"They're not trying to win," Raven shouted. "They're trying to distract!"
Lyra's heart sank. "The veil—"
A thunderous crack split the sky.
At the heart of the battlefield, the rift began to glow. Not softly—violently. Like a wound forced open.
Something massive stirred beneath it.
"Hold the line!" a witch screamed.
"Fall back to the relic!" another bellowed.
The battlefield became chaos. Screams, smoke, the scent of magic burning too fast. Lyra turned just in time to see one of the Rift creatures break through a vampire's guard and drive a blackened blade through his chest. He didn't fall. He disintegrated.
Raven grabbed her wrist, dragging her back. "We need to seal the breach. Now."
"How?!"
"The relic. It was made to answer. We just have to ask the right question."
They reached the monastery again, the relic now blazing in color—no longer that impossible hue, but shifting between red, violet, and black. It was angry.
Lyra dropped to her knees in front of it. "What do we say?"
Raven knelt beside her. "Say why we fight."
She didn't understand—but something inside her did.
She placed her hand on the relic. "I fight to protect what shouldn't exist. I fight for him."
The relic pulsed.
Raven added his hand. "And I fight for her."
Light exploded.
It wasn't gentle. It was a scream. A roar. A command that tore through the battlefield, sending Rift creatures hurtling backward into the air. The veil's tremor stilled—for a second. Just a second.
Then it collapsed inward, the rift closing—but not sealing.
"It's temporary," Raven said, panting. "They'll come back."
"But we held them," Lyra replied.
"For now."
They stood, surrounded by silence and ash. Vampires and witches gathered again, wounded, but breathing.
Lyra looked at the relic, its glow now steady but dim. "It heard us."
"No," Raven said quietly. "It chose us again."
The others approached slowly, awe on their faces.
The silver-braided witch bowed her head. "We've seen enough. The bond is real. The prophecy lives through you."
One of the vampires added, "And we follow."
Lyra turned to Raven, exhaustion settling in. "We can't keep doing this. They'll keep sending more."
Raven nodded. "Then we stop waiting for them to come. We go to the source."
She raised her eyes, fierce and determined. "The heart of the veil."
He held out his hand. "Together."
She took it.
And the snow kept falling—soft, relentless, uncaring of gods or monsters.