The silence in the Oracle's Chamber was more than the absence of sound; it was the absence of hope.
Lyra knelt over Lucian's body, her hands trembling as they hovered over his chest. Through the newly forged Blood-Tether, she felt... nothing. The bridge between their souls, which had been a roaring river of fire and ice moments ago, was now a hollow, echoing canyon. Lucian lay perfectly still, his skin the color of winter moonlight, the silver veins etched into his throat frozen like ice on a windowpane.
"He gave it all to you," Valerius's voice cut through the stillness, dripping with a sick, celebratory satisfaction.
Lyra didn't look up. She watched a single drop of Lucian's blood—silver and glowing—slide down his collarbone.
"The fool," Valerius continued, his boots clicking rhythmically on the stone floor as he approached. "He was a Prince of the House of Mourning, a warrior who survived centuries of holy wars. And he threw his immortality away for a battery in a leather jacket. A mortal girl who doesn't even know how to hold her own breath."
Behind Valerius, the twelve Elite Guards fanned out, their "Living Armor" shifting and growling, sensing the vulnerability in the room. They raised their halberds, the tips glowing with the anti-magic light of the High Consistory's stolen tech.
"Seize her," Valerius commanded, flicking his wrist. "Carefully. The Queen wants the Node intact. If you have to break her limbs to keep her still, so be it. Just leave the heart beating."
Two guards stepped forward.
Lyra felt a coldness rising from the base of her spine. It wasn't the "vampire cold" she had felt from Lucian. This was something different. This was the cold of the Void the hunger of the nothingness that she had touched during the Merge. It felt like a dark, heavy liquid filling her lungs, drowning the girl she used to be.
He isn't dead, she told herself, her fingers curling into claws against the stone. He can't be dead. I won't let him be dead.
As the guards reached out to grab her hair, Lyra moved.
She didn't run. She didn't scream. She simply looked up.
Her eyes were no longer brown. They were swirling vortexes of violet nebula and silver lightning. The air in the chamber suddenly became ten times heavier. One of the guards let out a choked gasp as his armor the "Living" metal suddenly turned against him, collapsing inward under a massive spike of gravity.
CRUNCH.
The guard was crushed into a ball of black steel and bone in less than a second.
The chamber went deathly silent. Even Valerius froze, his hand tightening on the hilt of his rapier.
"I told you," Lyra said. Her voice didn't sound like her own. It sounded like the tectonic plates of the earth were speaking. "He isn't dead. But you... you are already ghosts."
The Slaughter of the Elites
The remaining guards roared, fueled by a mixture of fear and training. They lunged at her, their halberds whistling through the air.
Lyra didn't dodge. She didn't need to.
She stood up, shielding Lucian's body with her own. As the first halberd reached her, she caught the blade with her bare hand. The silver-violet light of the Node flared, and the metal didn't just break it unmade itself. The iron turned to dust, then to mist, then to nothingness.
The guard stared at his empty hands for a fraction of a second before Lyra touched his chest.
"Go back to the dark," she whispered.
A shockwave of pure Void energy erupted from her palm. It didn't push the guard away; it erased him. One moment he was a three-hundred-pound warrior in enchanted armor; the next, there was only a suit of empty clothes falling to the floor.
"She's a Void-Walker!" one of the guards screamed, backing away. "The Merge... it didn't stabilize the Node! It merged with the Void!"
"Kill her!" Valerius shrieked, his composure breaking. "Kill her now!"
The guards fired their rail-rifles bolts of concentrated solar energy designed to incinerate the strongest vampires. Lyra raised her hand, and the air in front of her distorted. The bolts didn't hit her; they were sucked into a miniature black hole she had manifested in the palm of her hand.
She felt the energy. It was delicious. It was fuel.
She turned the black hole toward the guards and released it.
The explosion was silent. A wave of violet-black fire swept through the room, bypassing the stone pillars but vaporizing anything with a heartbeat. The Elites didn't even have time to scream. They were snuffed out like candles in a hurricane.
The Silent Vow
In ten seconds, the only people left standing in the Oracle's Chamber were Lyra and Valerius.
Valerius was trembling, his rapier shaking in his hand. He looked at the empty suits of armor littering the floor, then at the girl who looked like a goddess of the apocalypse.
"You... you're a monster," he gasped.
"No," Lyra said, walking toward him, her steps light and predatory. "I'm just a girl who has nothing left to lose. And you're the one who took him from me."
She raised her hand, the silver lightning dancing between her fingers. She was going to end him. She was going to erase the House of Mourning and everyone in it until the world was as empty as she felt.
But then, a sound stopped her.
A gasp.
A sharp, ragged intake of air from behind her.
Lyra spun around. Lucian's body was arching off the floor. His silver-violet eyes flew open, glowing with a light so bright it illuminated the entire cathedral. He coughed, a cloud of silver mist escaping his lips.
"Lyra..." he rasped.
The darkness in Lyra's soul didn't vanish, but it recoiled. The violet fire in her eyes dimmed as she threw herself back onto the floor beside him.
"Lucian! Oh god, Lucian!"
He grabbed her hand, his grip so strong it nearly broke her bones. His skin was no longer cold; it was pulsing with a rhythmic, divine heat. The Merge hadn't killed him. It had reset him. He wasn't just a vampire anymore; he was something the world hadn't seen in ten thousand years.
He looked past her at the empty armor and the terrified Valerius. A slow, dark smirk spread across his face.
"I missed... a lot," Lucian murmured.
He sat up, his movements blurring with a speed that even Lyra's new eyes could barely track. He was on his feet in a heartbeat, standing over Valerius. He didn't use a weapon. He just looked at the red-haired vampire, and Valerius dropped to his knees, his nose and eyes beginning to bleed from the sheer pressure of Lucian's new aura.
"Mother wants me judged?" Lucian asked, his voice a low, melodic threat. "Tell her I'm coming. But I won't be standing in the dock. I'll be sitting on the throne."
He turned back to Lyra, his expression softening into that intense, obsessive devotion that made her heart race. He reached out, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.
"You protected me," he said. It wasn't a question. He could feel the carnage she had caused through the Tether. He could feel the darkness she had embraced for him.
"I'll kill them all, Lucian," she whispered, her eyes still flickering with silver. "Anyone who tries to take you. Anyone who tries to separate us. I'll burn the whole world down."
Lucian leaned down, pressing his forehead against hers. The Tether hummed, a song of blood and starlight.
"Then let's start with the palace," he whispered.
The Cliffhanger
As they walked out of the Oracle's Chamber, hand in hand, the bells of the Great Cathedral began to toll a funeral knell for the old world. Above ground, the High Consistory's fleet was finally breaking through the London wards. Below ground, the Vampire Nobility was mobilizing for war.
But as Lyra looked at Lucian, she realized she didn't care about the war. She didn't care about the Node. She only cared about the man whose soul was now braided with hers.
They weren't running anymore. They were the ones being hunted, but for the first time, the hunters had no idea that they were walking into a slaughterhouse.
"Lucian," Lyra said as they reached the Great Hall. "What happens if we can't stop the Void?"
Lucian stopped, looking at the city of bone and neon before them. He pulled her closer, his hand resting possessively on the small of her back.
"Then we'll rule the nothingness together."