The drums started at dawn.
Not from inside the castle—but beyond the trees. Deep. Measured. Like the heartbeat of something massive waiting in the dark.
Vireya stood at the northern watchtower, wind lifting her hair as she stared down the ridgeline.
The shadows were thicker now. Wrong.
They moved even when the wind didn't.
Kael stepped up beside her, fully armored, his black leathers etched with the sigils of his bloodline. His sword hung at his side, and Drekken surged just under the surface—furious, alert, ready.
"You feel it too," he said quietly.
Vireya nodded.
"I don't think it's them," she whispered. "I think it's the land."
Kael glanced at her.
She didn't elaborate.
She didn't need to.
Because something had shifted—not just in the air, but under it. In the bones of the kingdom itself.
Like the veil between what was and what should have stayed buried had begun to tear.
The first explosion came from the western wall—sharp, blinding.
Magic detonated like a sun collapsing inward. Soldiers screamed. Wolves shifted mid-run, their forms flickering like light couldn't keep up with them.
"Shields up!" Kael barked, voice booming across the ramparts.
Runes activated along the tower walls—bright red lines of protection carved into stone, flaring to life like veins igniting.
Theoron appeared at his side, blood already smeared across one temple. "We've got breaches at the west and the south. Fast-moving, coordinated. It's not just rogues. There's something else leading them."
Iska materialized a heartbeat later, hair wind-whipped, both hands glowing blue and gold. "They brought spellbinders. The wards are unraveling faster than I can reinforce."
Vireya's pulse kicked up.
She didn't need to look at Kael to know what he was about to say.
"I'm going with you," she said first.
He turned to her, jaw set. "Flame—"
"No." Her eyes flared, a spark of emerald burning in their depths. "If I stay locked inside while people bleed for me, I won't forgive either of us."
Kael didn't argue.
He just reached for her hand.
Held it tight.
Then kissed her knuckles once, slow and grounding.
"Stay near me. No matter what."
The battlefield looked like something torn from a vision.
Smoke curled in sheets across the grass. Wolves of every size and rank snarled through the trees, their eyes flashing with fury and fire. Magic ripped across the sky—bolts of red and violet tearing through clouds, cracking the air with deafening force.
Vireya moved like a storm—barefoot, wrapped in leather and instinct. She couldn't shift. Couldn't summon her wolf.
But her body remembered how to survive.
She ducked under a blade, twisted into a spin, and buried a stolen dagger into the thigh of a man twice her size. His scream barely echoed before Theoron took his head clean off with a swing of his axe.
They were surrounded—but holding.
For now.
Ashira stirred inside her, pacing like a caged goddess.
More. You must push. You are not prey.
"Then fucking help me," Vireya snarled aloud, slashing through another attacker.
Ashira didn't answer.
Not yet.
Across the field, Kael was tearing through enemies like a walking apocalypse.
He moved like death given form—his blade an extension of his will, Drekken howling in his blood, his presence devastating. No one stood a chance once they crossed into his radius.
Until the sky split.
Literally.
A scream ripped from the clouds above—not human, not wolf, not anything she'd ever heard. A sound of rage so ancient it rattled the very ground.
And then?
The veil broke.
Not with a flash.
But with a ripple.
Like reality itself blinked.
The air changed.
The grass bent inward. The stone underfoot cracked in patterns that glowed.
And from the ridge?
Figures stepped forward.
Tall.
Hollow-eyed.
Wearing flesh like borrowed robes.
They weren't wolves.
They weren't alive.
But they moved like they remembered both.
Iska skidded to a stop near Vireya, panting hard. "We've got bigger problems."
"I noticed."
"That wasn't a war party."
Vireya frowned. "What do you mean?"
Iska turned to her, dead serious.
"That was a fucking summoning."
The ancient ones whatever they were descended in silence.
Their mouths never opened.
But their presence screamed.
One raised a hand, and an entire battalion of Kael's wolves dropped to their knees mid-shift—howling, convulsing, unable to breathe.
Another touched the air and turned a man's blade to salt.
Ashira growled in Vireya's bones.
They were locked away for a reason. This isn't a battle. It's a warning.
Kael reached her then, grabbing her arm. "Back. Now. We regroup."
Vireya wanted to argue.
But she couldn't.
Because behind Kael over his shoulder, Something was moving in the shadows.
Something massive.
And it smiled.
Back inside the castle walls, the ward circles glowed hot and unstable. The entire kingdom knew.
Everyone could feel it.
Magic flared uncontrolled.
Wolves convulsed during shift.
One child had burst into flame just by walking through a prayer circle.
Everything was unraveling.
The veil wasn't lifted completely yet.
But it was bleeding.
That night, Vireya sat in the war chamber, blood dried along her collarbone, Kael pacing like a chained animal.
"We can't outlast them," Theoron said quietly. "If they breach again—"
"They will," Iska cut in. "They didn't come to win. Not yet. They came to test her."
She glanced at Vireya, eyes dark. "And they saw what we all already know."
"She's not ready," Kael growled.
Vireya's jaw clenched.
"But she will be," he added.
Vireya stood, hands shaking.
Not from fear.
From pressure.
From knowing that whatever tomorrow brought—it wouldn't wait.
And the next time the veil cracked?
It wouldn't stop.