Read Chapter 23: The Battlecry

The altar chamber trembled. Dust sifted from the ceiling, and somewhere beyond the stone, Elara heard the beast’s claws screeching against rock—closer now, hungrier.

“She’s through the second passage,” Sera said, her voice flat. The old woman stood by the altar, tracing runes that glowed faintly under her fingers. “We have minutes, not more.”

Elara pressed her palm against the ward-stone. It hummed beneath her skin, warm, familiar. *Why do you know me?* she thought. But the stone gave no answer, only pulsed like a second heartbeat.

Cedric moved to her side, sword drawn. “We fight, then. Here. The passage narrows—she can’t bring the beast through all at once.”

“She doesn’t need to,” Anya said quietly. She was watching the tunnel mouth, her bow half-raised. “She only needs to reach us.”

The wall exploded inward.

Not from the tunnel—from *above*, where the mountain’s crown had been carved thin by centuries of wind. Stone screamed and fell, and through the gap came a shape of black and bone: the corrupted beast, its scales cracked like old leather, its eyes burning with Voss’s pale fire. And riding its neck, calm as a queen at court, sat Voss herself.

“Clever girl,” Voss called down, her voice echoing off the ancient stone. “I did wonder if you’d find this place. I’d hoped you’d bring the trinket, but no matter. The wards are mine to break.” She raised a hand, and the beast snarled, ropey smoke curling from its jaws.

Elara felt the altar heat beneath her palm. “You’re wrong.”

Voss’s smile was patient, terrible. “About which part? The wards, or—” she tilted her head, studying Elara as if seeing her for the first time. “Ah. You still don’t know, do you. The locket. The fire.” She laughed, a sound like breaking glass. “You wear your mother’s face, girl. I’d have known you anywhere.”

The words hit Elara like a blow to the chest. Her mother’s face. The locket she’d never opened, the ashes of a home she couldn’t remember. She forced her voice steady. “You knew my parents.”

“Knew them?” Voss descended, the beast folding its wings as it landed on the chamber floor, cracking flagstones. “I killed them.”

Silence. The kind that swallowed sound whole.

Elara’s vision went red at the edges. Her hand left the altar, fingers curling into fists. “You’re lying.”

“Why would I lie to a dead girl?” Voss walked the beast forward, one step at a time, each footfall a drumbeat. “They had something I wanted. A secret about the old bonds—how to make them permanent, unbreakable. They refused to share it. So I burned their house with them inside. Simple, really. Clean.” She smiled. “You were meant to burn too, but you crawled out a window. Lucky little thing. Unlucky, now.”

Cedric stepped between them, sword raised. “Enough. You’ll not touch her.”

“Oh, Cedric.” Voss’s voice dripped pity. “You betrayed me for a girl who can’t even hold a proper blade. And now you’ll watch her die. How poetic.” She raised her hand, and the beast lunged.

Elara moved on instinct. She dove sideways, scooping up a fallen shard of stone, and threw it—not at Voss, but at the altar behind her. The ward-stone flared white, a shockwave of energy slamming into the beast’s chest. It staggered, roaring, smoke hissing from its corrupted scales.

“The altar!” Sera shouted. “She’s drawing on it! Keep her away from it!”

But Voss only laughed. She twisted in her saddle, and the beast’s tail whipped out, catching Cedric across the ribs and sending him crashing into the wall. He crumpled, gasping, blood spilling from a gash on his forehead.

“Cedric!” Elara started toward him, but Voss’s voice stopped her cold.

“Where do you think you’re going, little ember?” Voss dismounted, striding toward the altar, her heels clicking on the ancient stone. “I’ve waited fifty years for this. The summit’s power, yours to give me—” She reached for the altar, and the runes flared violet, rejecting her. She hissed, snatching her hand back. “A bloodline ward. Of course. Their blood was always so *stubborn*.”

She turned to Elara, eyes sharp. “Your mother’s line. That’s why the runes answer you. That’s why you were always meant to be here.” She smiled, slow and cruel. “And that’s why I’ll take your blood, and break this ward, and end your pathetic line forever.”

Elara’s hand went to her belt. The knife was small, useless against a dragon. But she had something else—somewhere beneath the rage, beneath the grief, a voice that wasn’t quite hers.

*The summit remembers its own.*

She looked up at the gap in the ceiling. Through it, sky, bruised purple with the coming storm. And a shape, circling. Ignis. Exhausted, small, but there.

*No*, she thought. *You can’t. You’re too weak.*

But Ignis dove anyway.

The beast roared as the small red dragon struck its flank, claws raking corrupted scales. It lashed out, jaws snapping, but Ignis was already gone, veering up and away. Voss snarled, turning to track the movement.

The altar flared brighter.

Elara ran.

She charged the altar, not away from it, and Voss spun, contempt on her face. “Brave. Foolish.” She raised her hand, and the air thickened with pale fire, a lance of corruption arcing toward Elara’s chest.

Elara didn’t dodge. She met it, palm open, and the ward-stone screamed white behind her.

The lance hit her hand and *turned*. Power flowed through her like water finding a channel—familiar, ancient, hers by right. The light wrapped around her fist, cool and burning both, and she drove it forward into Voss’s chest.

Voss’s eyes went wide. She flew backward, slamming into the far wall with a crack that shook the chamber. The beast howled, its binding faltering for a heartbeat.

Elara stood where she was thrown, breathing hard. White light coiled around her arms like living thread. The altar hummed, and she felt it—a pull, a promise, a door opening in her mind.

*Break them all*, a voice whispered. *Free them or lose them forever.*

But she didn’t have time to wonder what it meant. Over Voss’s crumpled form, in the gap where the ceiling had shattered, Ashfall’s massive silhouette appeared—and beside him, small and fierce, Ignis circling in with a cry that shattered the silence.

Voss laughed, blood on her lips. “You think this is a victory?” She pushed herself up, unsteady, but grinning. “The beast is just the beginning. I’ve other chains to pull. Your dragons are dying, girl—can’t you feel it? Every breath they take feeds my spell. You want to save them? Then kill the thing you love most.”

The words hit Elara like a blade between her ribs. She looked up at Ignis, at the weariness in his wings, the flicker of fading fire in his chest.

The truth wasn’t finished. It was only beginning.