Chapter 4: Chains of Light
Lethrendale was once a garden province—rolling hills, sun-fed vineyards, villages that sang in the morning light.
Now it was ash and shadow.
Jean stood on a cliff's edge as the sun rose behind her, casting blood-orange fire across the ruins below. Villages were burnt out husks. Roads cracked and swallowed by creeping roots. Smoke drifted lazily from a distant outpost tower—still burning.
Beside her, Whitney stood silent, his silver fur unmoved by the wind.
"This isn't war," Jean said quietly. "It's rot."
Whitney's eyes narrowed. "The land remembers what the living forget."
Jean adjusted her cloak. "We're not here to remember. We're here to clean up."
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They descended through twisted woodland, branches curling like fingers, bark scarred by claw and blade. The deeper they went, the colder it became. The sun barely touched the ground here. Jean moved with the poise of a ghost, her saber unsheathed but not raised.
Signs of the rebellion appeared in scattered fragments:
A tattered banner of the Broken Fang insurgents, nailed to a tree.
Fresh footprints in the mud—small, fast, barefoot.
A charm hung from a noose, inscribed with the phrase: "The Light Lies."
Jean frowned at that.
"The Light Lies" was a forbidden phrase.
One used only in heretical cults—those who believed the gods had betrayed mankind in some ancient pact.
Whitney growled. "They worship something down here. Something that hates Celeste."
Jean traced her fingers across the charm. The metal burned slightly.
"It's divine," she murmured. "But inverted."
They weren't just rebels.
They were apostates.
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By nightfall, Jean and Whitney found an abandoned temple deep within the forest. Its walls were cracked and sunken, half-swallowed by moss and earth. Inside, broken statues of Celeste lay in pieces. The central altar had been defaced—replaced by a crude stone idol with no face and a chain around its throat.
Jean approached it cautiously.
"Chains," she said. "Not just a symbol. A name."
Whitney padded forward, fur bristling. "This is where it began."
Jean reached out. Her fingers brushed the altar.
A sudden blast of vision struck her—a blinding flash of light, screams, a burning sky. A woman stood alone in golden armor, sword raised, eyes wide as something monstrous emerged from the cracks in reality.
Jean gasped and staggered back.
Whitney steadied her.
"What did you see?"
"A battle," she said, panting. "Old. Celestial. And something else... not of light, not of darkness—a god in chains."
The air grew heavier.
Then they heard it.
A voice.
Faint. Broken. Coming from the darkness beyond the temple.
"…you shouldn't be here…"
Jean turned, blade ready.
From the shadows, a boy stumbled forward—ragged, bleeding, and branded. Around his neck hung the same charm from the tree.
"Help… me," he whispered. "She's waking… she's coming for the light…"
Then he collapsed.
And from the woods came the sound of chains dragging through leaves.
Jean stepped in front of the boy.
Whitney growled deep in his throat.
The forest trembled.
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