The moon was bleeding.
Raen stood atop the black ridge, the shattered remnants of the corrupted beast strewn across the grass behind him, still twitching. His new companion, Caelum—the boy with auric scars and power stitched into his very marrow—was silent beside him, eyes fixed on the horizon.
Neither of them spoke of what they saw.
The sky had cracked.
A silent ripple of lightning webbed through the clouds, turning night into a stuttering film reel of white and black. And in that lightning's glow, Raen saw a silhouette—hulking, malformed, and familiar. It wasn't a god. It wasn't mortal.
It was worse.
"Did you see it too?" Caelum finally asked, his voice too calm for someone who had just killed his first godspawn.
Raen didn't answer immediately. His fingers flexed around the hilt of his blade, the nameless relic that pulsed with something ancient.
"Yes."
Caelum exhaled, as if that made it real.
The ground beneath them began to groan.
"It's following us," Raen said.
