Chapter 9 Blood On The Wind

Chapter 9 Blood On The Wind
At dusk, we began our ride to the lunar cliff as the wind carried the scent of storm and sorrow. I could taste metal in the air. The kind that comes before blood.

Theron led us silently as always. Rae rode beside me with his bow slung over his back, eyes sharp and alert. Mira muttered incantations under her breath behind us, her fingers tracing runes in the air.

Every heartbeat and steps we took sounded like a countdown to me.

The mark on my chest pulsed faintly beneath my armor; its glow was hidden but constant, like a heart that no longer beat for just me. Since the Ember Queen’s whisper, I hadn’t been able to shake the feeling that something ancient was watching through my eyes, waiting for me to make a move that wasn’t mine.

By the time we reached the a part of the trail, the mist had thinned, and the silence was completely wrong.

Rae was the first to sense that the atmosphere was wrong. He raised a hand, signaling for us to hold on, then asked, “Do you smell that?”.

I could smell the iron, smoke and even death.

We got down from our ride and followed the trail of the smell. When we reached the peak, I saw it, and for a moment, the world moved beneath my feet.

It was the Crescent soldiers and there was about a dozen of them. Their bodies were scattered in a half-circle with their throats slit and eyes glassy. Blood filled the whole ground even in dark streaks, and at the center of it all, a sigil burned into the ground. It was a twisted flame with a hollow in the middle.

“The Hollow Flame,” Mira whispered with a pale face. “They’ve resurfaced.”

My pulse roared in my ears. I’d heard the name before, but it was from the Ember Queen’s fragments in my dreams. A cult that once served her fire… until they turned it against her.

Theron knelt beside one of the corpses. “They were ambushed. No tracks leading in or out, but whoever did this wanted to leave a message.”

I crouched beside the rune, tracing its outer curve with gloves in my hands. The blood shone faintly, as if alive. “Or a warning,” I murmured.

Before Mira could respond, one of the soldiers, or what was left of him, moved. His fingers curled, and his head snapped toward me with a sound that didn’t belong to anything living.

He rose in a blur, eyes blazing with unnatural fire, mouth muttering words that tore through the air like knives. I didn’t understand the language, but it wasn’t meant to be understood; it was meant to curse.

Rae shouted, drawing his blade while Mira chanted a barrier spell. But the possessed soldier moved straight to me, faster than a normal wolf should move. But I caught his arm mid-swing. His flesh burned beneath my grip, but he didn’t scream. Instead, he smiled a horrifying, broken smile and whispered something against my ear.

“She waits in the hollow flame.”

Then the mark on my chest ignited.

My fire erupted in instinct, wrapping around us both. His scream broke through the silence, and in that moment, I saw something; it was a flash of memory but it wasn’t mine.

The Ember Queen stood in a sea of ash, her crown fractured, her eyes filled with regret. Then a man’s hand reached for her before being consumed by the same fire.

Then everything went white.

When I came to reality, I was on my knees, and smoke was curling around me. The possessed soldier’s body was gone. It wasn’t burned, not broken, but gone, like he never existed.

Mira knelt beside me, filled with worry, and said, “He wasn’t alive; he was bound. The Hollow Flame are binding souls and forcing the dead to serve them.”

Theron’s jaw tightened. “To what end?”

Mira’s gaze shifted to me. “To drain her. The Ember Queen’s remnant energy runs through Aria’s veins, and they need it to finish what she started.”

The world swayed slightly, but I forced myself to stand. “Then we’ll stop them.”

“Aria…” Rae began, but I cut him off with my voice steady, even as the fire inside me trembled.

“If they’re binding souls, then I’ll break the bond. Even if it kills me, i don't mind.”

The wind howled at that, carrying with it the scent of something rotten and mixed with the faintest trace of lilies.

Mira’s hand clutched my wrist. “You don’t understand. The Hollow Flame doesn’t just kill but consumes. It’s the Ember Queen’s shadow – the part of her that refused to die.”

I looked back at the sigil on the ground and for a second, the blood shimmered again, and a voice, faint and familiar, whispered inside my mind:

“You cannot destroy what you are.”

I stumbled back as my breath became shallow. “She’s speaking again,” I said

Theron’s expression hardened. “The Queen?”

I nodded. “She’s warning me… or mocking me. I can’t tell which.”

Rae drew his bow, scanning the treeline. “We need to move now before something else finds us.”

We began our descent from the ridge, but there was unease in every step. The mist thickened again, curling through the trees like fingers. My fire flickered in my palms, reacting to something unseen.

Halfway down, Mira stopped suddenly. “Wait.” She knelt and brushed her fingers against the ground. “Fresh blood.”

Theron drew his sword. “We’re being followed.”

A snarl answered him.

From the fog, more figures emerged. It was Crescent warriors, their eyes glowing faintly red and their mouths murmuring the same ancient curse. The Hollow Flame had already possessed them.

There was no time to think, so my body moved before my mind did. Fire leapt from my hands, burning through the mist like dawn through storm clouds. Rae’s arrows whistled beside me while Mira’s runes flared in the air, sealing the gaps between us and the enemy.

But for every possessed wolf we cut down, another took its place.

They fought without pain, without hesitation, but with endless hunger.

And beneath the chaos, I could feel something stirring deeper beneath the cliffs. A pulse that matched my heartbeat, dragging me toward it.

When the last of them fell, the ground trembled. The Hollow Flame’s rune lit up again, brighter than before, spreading cracks through the earth like molten veins.

Theron pulled me back, shouting my name, but it was too late.

The mark on my chest blazed in response, and from within the crack, a voice rose, layered and cold.

“You carry her fire, child. But do you carry her guilt?”

The ground cracked open as a column of black flame came out of it, and at the middle, I saw a figure cloaked in shadows and crowned with embers that refused to die.

This time, it wasn't the Ember Queen exactly, but something that was born from her remains.

It looked at me, and for the first time since my banishment, I felt true fear.

“Come home, little heir,” it whispered. “The Hollow Flame remembers its Queen.”

The wind carried the words across the valley, and every torch around us fluctuated, dividing the world into darkness.