Chapter 55: The Siege of Birthright

The ground wouldn't stop breaking. Stones rolled down into the void and were consumed totally. Keal was tired at this point but he couldn't give up. He dragged Lila and they pushed forward.

Soon, they reached another part of the village where the disaster was less and the ground firmer. The city behind them was no longer a city at all, just a hollow of dust and ruins. What was once their home, now ash and shadows.

Lila clutched her stomach, breath hitching. The Mark at her neck blazed so hot she thought her skin would blister. But beneath that pain was another, sharper, deeper, curling through her lower belly in spasms that made her legs weaken. She staggered and nearly fell.

“Keal…” Her voice was thin, nearly swallowed by the wind. “Something’s wrong.”

He caught her shoulders, his eyes burning gold in the dim light. “Stay with me.” His voice was low, weak and almost broken. He looked into her eyes but his gave him away. The beast inside of him was beginning to stir, restless clawing for freedom. His breath was now hard and rough, each edged with a growl that was not human and soon his claws extended.

Behind them, came a sound, —a long, dark hiss that made the air sting. Keal snapped his head looking left and right, clenching his hands into a fist. He knew were the sound came from, he could recognize it.

“We have to move,” he said, but even as he tried to lift her again, she stumbled forward, knees buckling.

Then came the voice.

“Running?”

They both froze.

Darius, again.

Keal’s claws extended fully as he stepped in front of Lila. The growl in his throat wasn’t human anymore.

Darius’s lips twisted into a smile. “I wondered where you’d scurry. Like rats, clinging to the cracks.” His gaze shifted, sliding past Keal until it found Lila. His smile widened. “And there she is. The womb of ruin.”

Lila flinched. The Mark seared hotter, as if responding to his words.

Keal’s voice was rough, guttural. “Get out of our way.”

“Or what? You’ll tear me apart with those claws of yours?” Darius circled slowly, blade trailing sparks against the broken stone. “Do you think I don’t see it? The truth of her? That storm out there—it’s not breaking because of me. It’s breaking because of her.” His eyes glittered. “Because of what she carries.”

Lila’s breath caught. The contractions were becoming worse, another episode of pain tore through her abdomen, sharper than the previous ones. She cried out loud and the sky answered.

A jagged line of violet lightning cracked across the clouds, splitting the night. The ground shuddered as though it, too, had felt her pain.

Darius’s laughter rang sharp. “There it is. The cradle stirs. You thought to hide it? Thought to run?” He raised his blade, pointing it at her. “She is the key. And I will cut the key free.”

He lunged.

Lila barely had time to scream.

Keal intercepted, claws raking sparks against steel. The force of the strike knocked them both back, but Darius pressed again, relentlessly driving Keal toward the edge.

Lila scrambled weakly on her knees, the world spinning. Pain clawed at her body in waves, and with each one the air grew stranger, heavier. The stones beneath her seemed to ripple, their edges blurring. Her power was leaking out of her, wild and uncontrolled.

Keal roared, claws clashing with the blade again and again. Blood leaked down his sleeves from where he had been cut. His movement was sluggish. The beast within fought to break through but he pushed to remain in control.

Darius struck low, fast. The blade slashed toward Lila, toward her belly.

Keal threw himself in the way. The steel sank deep into his side.

His let out a roar of pain as his blood sprayed across the snow, leaving it black red under the violet sky. Lila’s cry tore out of her throat, raw and broken.

Darius twisted the blade, sneering. “You would bleed for her? For the monster she carries?”

Keal’s hand shot out, claws gripping the blade itself. His eyes blazed silver-gold, his voice no longer wholly his own. “Not for her.” His chest heaved, fire glowing faint beneath his ribs. “For our son.”

The wolf inside him stirred fully. Its voice thundered through his mind, not with sound, but with truth.

Your son will carry the curse. Prepare him, or he will end us all.

Keal felt his soul burning away, piece by piece. He could resist no longer as slowly his gave way for his beast to take charge.

His body twisted. Bone cracked, fur bristled, his shape swelling larger, monstrous. Silver fire flowed through his veins, his claws glittering like molten steel.

Darius staggered back, he has never seen Keal like this and never thought he could transform into this.

Keal was totally different now, half-man, half- wolf. He looked down at Lila trembling behind him, she was in excruciating pain from labour of their child. He roared out loud and Darius flinched.

“Come then,” he growled, his voice layered with the wolf’s resonance. “Try to take her.”

The air split again with lightning.

Soon, Lila collapsed to the ground. She could no longer take the pain that shoot through her body. But this time, it wasn't just pain —it was mixed with energy that surged from within, bursting out in flares. The Mark burned like fire, and light pulsed from her belly, spilling across the ground in waves that warped the air.

The storm above reacted, shrieking. Snow began to fall—not white, but streaked red and black, as if ash and blood had mingled with the sky. The flakes melted on her skin like sparks.

Darius’s eyes widened. “She—she is opening it.”

Keal snarled and lunged. Claws clashed with steel, the ground shattering beneath their fight. Sparks and blood flew with every strike, every howl.

But Lila barely saw them. The world around her was blurring, fading between places—stone, then void, then a plain of black grass under a red sky. She clutched her stomach, screaming as another contraction ripped through her.

The void wanted her child. She could feel it, pulling, tearing at her body like invisible hands.

“Keal!” she cried, tears blinding her.

He glanced back just once, his eyes fierce, silver fire burning in his chest. “Hold on to me.”

But Darius moved then, faster than before, his blade catching the faint light. He lunged, not at Keal this time, but straight at Lila, the point aimed for her heart.

“No!” Keal roared.

He threw himself between them again, but his body was already failing, his soul burning away in the wolf’s fire.

The blade came down—

—and the storm exploded.

A wave of light burst outward, silver and violet, blinding in its intensity. The ridge shook as if the world itself had split. Keal and Darius were both thrown back, swallowed by the radiance.

And in the center of it, from deep within Lila’s body, came a voice. Not hers, not Keal’s, not even the wolf’s.

“I am here.”