Alpha Lucas spoke, voice laced with loyalty "I was broken in your father's war, Prince," He said. "But I'd rather die fighting beside you in battle than live under Kael's tyranny."
Eleanor looked at them all and felt it- that strange pull of fate again, stronger, more demanding.
The bond was growing.
Not just between her and Jedrek_ but between her and this war.
The ruins shook.
Jedrek's eyes went sharp "They're here"
From the shadows of the north woods, Kael's army emerged like a wave of plague. Black-fur warhounds. Bone riders lept between trees, moving too fast to see and at the front.
Kael.
He wore no armor.
Only soaked in blood and a crown of claws.
Eleanor's breath hitched. She could feel him. Not just his power… but something else. A pull. Felt very familiar and wrong.
Jedrek stepped in front of her. "Stay close, he'll try to manipulate you."
Kael raised his arm and his army came to a halt.
"I offer mercy!" he called out, his voice echoing unnaturally through the night. "Give me the girl. The vale witch. And the rest of you may be allowed to crawl back to your holes alive!"
Silence.
Then, Zaryn stepped forward and spat on the ground.
Kael smiled.
"So be it!"
The sky screamed!
Fireballs hurled from Kael's lines crashing into the ruins. The first strike sent stones flying, some towers collapsing in a burst of flame and dust. The battle began with chaos. Clashing of steels. Roars. Screams.
Jedrek shifted mid-leap, his body transforming into silver fur and fury as he lunged into the fray.
Eleanor held her ground, the pendant around her neck now glowing white -hot. Her hands trembled- and then lit with silver flames.
Magic. Uncontrolled. Ancient.
A Bone rider leapt at her- she screamed, her hands shooting up instinctively.
The rider stopped mid-air.
And burst into ash.
She gasped, staring at her hand.
"What am I?" she whispered.
Behind her, Iria's voice echoed in the ruins.
"You are the key and the end."
Eleanor turned to see the blind seer standing in the middle of the battle. Untouched by fire or fury.
"Kael lied to you all!" Iria said aloud, her voice echoing through every mind on the battlefield. "He speaks of prophecy- but he twisted it!"
She raised a scroll.
"The bond was never meant to bring death."
Jedrek bloodied and feral, froze mid-slash.
Kael snarled.
"LIES!"
"You wanted her blood to make you a god!" Iria continued. "But she is not a vessel, she is a gate."
Eleanor's eyes flared silver.
Kael charged, fury in his roar.
Jedrek met him in mid-air.
And the battlefield cracked open.
Stones shattered beneath them as the ruins pulsed with magic long buried.
And in that moment, Eleanor knew:
This was no longer about victory.
This was about awakening something the realms had long forgotten.
The realm had turned red.
Not from the moon this time- but from the blood.
The battlefield was chaos incarnate. Steel clashed against claw. Arrows blazed through the air. Spells collided. Halos burning. The ruins, once a symbol of a fallen kingdom, now stood as the beating heart of a war that would be written in the bones of history.
Jedrek didn't hear the cries or roar anymore.
All he heard was Kael.
The tyrant stood across the shattered floor of the old throne room, fire curling behind him. Blood painted his chest- some his, most not. His golden eyes were wild, drunk on violence.
"You never deserved the crown!" Kael growled, circling Jedrek like a predator. "You were too soft. Too bound by honor. You let them burn while you hesitated."
"I still bleed for my people," Jedrek snarled, silver eyes glowing. "You just bathe in their ashes."
And then the two lunged.
The force of their collision shattered the ground beneath them. Fangs met claws. Bone cracked. They moved like beasts set loose from prophecy- kings of two worlds colliding beneath a dying sky.
Kael's strikes were brutal, precise. He was older, stronger, and utterly without restraint.
But Jedrek fought with something else.
He fought with purpose.
And somewhere in the heart of the battlefield, he had her.
Eleanor stood amidst fire and ruin, the pendant around her neck blazing. Her skin tingled with energy, but it was no longer contained. It breathed. It wanted out.
She raised her hand at a bloodfang, it screamed as silver flames wrapped around its body, tearing it apart from the inside.
The Duskblood Riders watched in awe.
"She's not just channeling power," Alpha Lucas whispered. "She is power."
But Eleanor couldn't hear him.
A voice echoed in her head- not Iria's. Not Jedrek's.
Something ancient.
Something inside her.
"Unlock the gate," it whispered. "Let the ancient blood rise."
She dropped to her knees, gasping as the earth beneath her cracked, glowing with the same silver fire that now pulsed from her veins.
In the throne room, Jedrek fell to one knee.
Kael's claws had torn across his ribs, blood seeping into the stone. "You'll die here," Kael said, raising his blade of shadows.
Jedrek coughed, laughing bitterly. "Not before I take you with me!"
Kael brought the blade down.
And it never reached him.
A sharp wave split the sky.
A column of silver light exploded through the roof of the ruins, blinding, searing, divine. The ground trembled as if the world gasped.
Kael turned towards it, eyes wide. "What have you done?"
Jedrek looked up- through the falling ash, through the blood in his eyes- and sighted her.
Eleanor!.
Hovering above the shattered stone like a goddess born of war, the key of the realm.
Her eyes burned flames of silver. Her veins glowed like rivers of starlight. Her voice echoed through the minds of every living being on the battlefield.
The shadows recoiled.
Kael took a step back.
Jedrek smiled through bloodied lips. She's not yours to control anymore."
And then Eleanor raised her hand.
Not to destroy the realm.
But to rewrite.
The ruins ignited.