The ringing in Lyra's ears had only just begun to fade when she realized the battlefield was no longer theirs. Shapes moved through the haze—armor glinting, spears leveled, boots pounding against scorched earth.
Knights. Dozens of them.
Their formation was perfect, a line of steel tightening around the collapsed figure of Aethan Crowe. His chest heaved with shallow breaths, sweat mixing with ash, his body trembling as though each inhale threatened to tear him apart. The curse still clung to him like a second skin—dark tendrils flickering weakly, searching for something more to devour.
"Stand away from him!" a voice barked.
Lyra turned. The knight at the front was tall, broad-shouldered, his blade etched with glowing runes that hummed like a hymn. Around his gauntlet coiled a chain of light, links rattling though no wind stirred.
"He is bound by the Curse," the knight continued, his tone as cold as the steel he carried. "By decree of the Holy Order, he is to be restrained. Step aside, girl, unless you wish to share his fate."
Lyra's pulse hammered. "He saved us," she snapped, though her voice cracked. "That thing—none of you could've stopped it. He did!"
"By drawing on forbidden power," the knight replied. "The cursed do not save. They destroy."
Aethan stirred, his head rolling weakly to the side. His gaze found hers, glazed and heavy with pain. And yet, in those fractured blue eyes, she saw the warning.
Run, his lips mouthed. Please.
She didn't move.
The knights surged forward. Chains of radiant light lashed out, wrapping around Aethan's arms, his chest, his throat. His body jerked as the sigils burned against his skin, smoke rising from his flesh. He let out a guttural sound—half roar, half gasp.
Lyra shoved through the advancing line. "Stop! You're killing him!"
A mailed hand shoved her back hard enough to send her stumbling to her knees. The knight spat at her feet. "Contaminated. You've already been touched by his corruption. Pray it hasn't rooted in your blood."
Lyra's vision blurred with tears, fury clawing through her chest. She turned just as one knight pressed the head of his glowing spear against Aethan's heart.
"By sacred law," he intoned, "we brand the Mark of Erasure."
The sigil flared.
Aethan arched violently, a scream ripping from his throat. The curse inside him reacted like a wounded beast, thrashing against its cage. The chains cracked, shadows leaking through the glowing fissures.
Lyra's scream tore through the chaos. "Aethan!"
His eyes snapped open—no longer pale blue, but black voids streaked with fire. Shadows erupted from his body in a storm that hurled knights backward, their armor shrieking as it dented and tore. The chains shattered into fragments of dying light.
The curse had broken free.
---
The air grew heavy, charged with something primal, suffocating. The battlefield quaked beneath the pressure as Aethan rose slowly to his feet, shadows clinging to his form like the ragged cloak of a nightmare. His arm—the one branded by the curse—morphed into something inhuman, a jagged limb of living darkness that hummed with barely contained violence.
"Fall back!" one knight screamed.
Too late.
Aethan moved. Not like a man, not like anything human—his body blurred, then reappeared among them, the shadow-arm cleaving through chainmail like parchment. Armor split, blood sprayed, and the air filled with the metallic stench of death.
The knights retaliated, their weapons glowing with sanctified energy, but every strike was smothered by the living darkness. Shadows slithered along their blades, corroding steel, draining the light until it sputtered out.
One knight fell to his knees, clutching at his chest where a tendril of shadow had pierced clean through. Another screamed as his arm was swallowed whole, dissolved into black mist.
Lyra's heart pounded. She wanted to stop him, to reach out—but the sight froze her in place. Aethan was no longer fighting like a man defending himself. He was a storm, a calamity, his movements too fluid, too precise, too merciless.
And yet—beneath the chaos, she heard it.
Aethan's voice, raw, guttural, breaking through the roar of the curse. Stop… stop… I don't… want this.
He was still in there.
"Don't let him consume you!" she cried, stepping forward though the heat and shadows scorched her skin. "Aethan—you're still you!"
His head whipped toward her. For a moment, the shadows faltered, rippling uncertainly as though recognizing her voice.
But another knight lunged.
Aethan reacted before he could think. The shadow-arm lashed out, impaling the man through the chest, lifting him from the ground. The knight's scream gurgled, then silenced as the shadows shredded him into dust.
Silence fell.
The surviving knights staggered backward, their discipline broken, eyes wide with terror. Some dropped their weapons entirely, fleeing into the smoke. Others stood frozen, paralyzed by fear.
In the center of the carnage stood Aethan, trembling, blood and shadow dripping from his twisted arm. His breaths came in ragged, shuddering gasps.
Lyra moved to him, slowly, carefully, as though approaching a wounded animal.
He flinched when she touched him. "Don't," he rasped, his voice cracked. "Don't look at me."
"I already am," she whispered, tears sliding down her face. Her fingers brushed his cheek, ignoring the burn of the curse that tried to lash at her. "If you were truly a monster, you wouldn't fight so hard to stay human."
His chest heaved. The shadows recoiled, curling back toward his body like a tide retreating from shore. The grotesque arm began to dissolve, leaving behind blistered, scarred flesh.
For a moment, it was quiet.
Then the earth itself trembled.
Boots crunched against scorched soil. A figure stepped through the smoke—a commander, clad in black-and-silver armor polished to a mirror sheen. His presence swallowed the battlefield's noise, his cold gaze sweeping across the broken knights, the corpses, the trembling boy who stood at the center.
"Crowe." His voice was sharp, precise, cutting. "So it's true. The cursed heir lives."
A sigil burned into the air above his palm. His eyes narrowed like a blade's edge.
"Mark this moment," the commander declared. "By decree of the Sanctum, you are an SSS-Rank Catastrophe. Kill on sight."
Aethan stiffened, the curse clawing at his veins once more. The shadows stirred violently, answering the call of his rage, his fear, his despair.
The ground split beneath his feet, a web of black cracks spreading outward, and from the depths below… something darker stirred.
---