The Turning

The fog never lifted.

It clung to the bones of the ruined village, a damp shroud that muffled every breath and turned the smallest sound into a warning. My boots crunched over blackened earth, ash rising with each step as though the ground itself still smoldered.

Kallesie padded at my side, molten light bleeding from her eyes and nostrils. She was too big for the lane between the broken cottages, but she made herself fit, a shadow stitched with fire.

Helios walked a few paces ahead, shoulders rigid beneath his torn leathers. Vulcan stalked beside him, every muscle taut with silent fury. The bond between them pulsed sharp and disciplined, where mine with Kallesie was wild, unpredictable, untamable.

It had been two days since the battle on the moors. Two days since the Wraths had fled into the fog. I’d hoped silence meant peace, even a sliver of it. But the Keeper’s words still haunted me, whispering truths about my blood, about the price it would demand.

And now, with every step into the ruin, I knew the cost had only begun.

The Survivors

A sound broke the silence: wet, ragged coughing.

Helios’s hand went instantly to his blade. Vulcan’s teeth bared. Kallesie lowered her head, molten eyes narrowing to slits.

The coughing turned to choking. Then gagging. Then screaming.

We rounded a shattered wall and found them survivors.

Twenty or so villagers huddled around a dying fire. Faces gaunt, eyes red from smoke. For a heartbeat, relief stirred in me. Survivors meant hope. Survivors meant we hadn’t been too late.

Then the smell hit.

Not smoke. Not blood.

Rot.

My stomach lurched. The same reek that clung to Wraths like a second skin, the stench of decay that had no place in the living.

Some of the villagers raised their heads, whispers rippling through them. One woman clutched her boy a lanky child no older than twelve, his face pale, sweat slick on his brow. His wide eyes caught mine, desperate.

“Please,” his mother begged, her voice raw. “Help him. He… he won’t stop shaking.”

Kallesie’s warning snapped sharp in my mind. Elara. Don’t go closer.

But my heart pulled anyway.

The First Turning

An old man lurched forward, falling to his knees. His body seized, every vein bulging black beneath his skin. A howl ripped out of his throat, guttural and wrong.

Back away, Kallesie growled.

His jaw split with a sickening crack. Teeth blackened. Eyes dissolved into molten voids. Claws tore through his fingernails.

“Gods,” Helios breathed, his sword flashing free.

But it wasn’t just him.

Two, three five more villagers convulsed. Their families clutched them, sobbing, begging. Black veins bloomed under skin, bones twisted, voices warped into something that didn’t belong in this world.

“They’re Turning,” I whispered.

Helios’s gaze cut to me. “Into Wraths?”

I nodded, throat tight. Wraths weren’t supposed to be born here. They came through the Veil. But now the infection was spreading like a disease.

The first one staggered upright, limbs jerking like a broken puppet. Its head snapped toward me. Hunger burned in its eyeless face.

And my blood answered.

Heat tore through my veins, molten and demanding. My hand pressed to my chest as if I could hold it in, but the Wraths smelled it. Wanted it.

The creature lunged.

Kallesie crashed into it midair, her massive jaws snapping around its torso. She slammed it down, ichor spraying. Fire burned where her fangs touched, the Wrath shrieking and clawing at her molten hide.

“Elara!” Helios’s roar cut through my haze. My bow was in my hands before I knew it, arrow nocked. The Wrath ripped free of Kallesie’s jaws, charging me again.

I shot my bow and arrow.

The arrow struck shallow, black veins writhing out like roots. My blood had slicked the arrowhead. I’d cut myself stringing it and the reaction was instant.

The Wrath convulsed, shrieked, then collapsed into ash that scattered across the cobblestones.

The Square Erupts

The other survivors screamed.

Not in grief. In terror.

They had seen it. My blood, not the arrow, had killed it.

“Elara!” Helios barked. More villagers collapsed, bodies twisting, screams breaking into unholy howls. Vulcan barreled into one, claws raking, ember eyes burning. Kallesie tore another apart, fire spilling from her throat.

I fired again and again, every arrow smeared with my own blood. Wraths turned to ash under my shots. But the more I killed, the faster the others Turned, as if my blood wasn’t just ending them it was accelerating their corruption.

“They’re feeding on you,” Kallesie snarled. You don’t command them, Elara. You drive them mad. You cannot control. Only end.

“I don’t want control!” I shouted, shot another arrow through a Wrath’s skull.

Then be ready to burn everything.

Chaos devoured the square.

Families screamed as loved ones writhed mid-transformation. Vulcan ripped one half-formed Wrath from the fire, its face still crying out for its wife before Helios’s blade cut it down.

And then I saw him.

The Child

The twelve year old boy clutched his mother’s arm, eyes wild. “Mama,” he gasped, “it hurts. What’s happening to me?”

Her arms crushed him to her chest, tears streaking her smoke-stained cheeks. “Stay with me. Please, stay with me.”

But I saw it the black veins crawling beneath his skin, the tremor in his limbs.

“No…” The word broke from my throat.

“Elara!” Helios shouted, cutting down another Wrath, but I couldn’t move.

The boy screamed. His spine arched, teeth cracking into jagged points. His hands stretched, fingers splitting into claws. His wide eyes rolled back, then opened void and endless.

“Please…” he choked then the plea broke into a snarl.

Now, Kallesie’s voice was sharp as a blade. Or he’ll take her with him.

My hands shook violently as I raised my bow. The boy lunged, jaws open, claws swiping for his mother’s throat.

I shot.

The arrow struck deep in his chest. Fire seared through him. He convulsed once in his mother’s arms, then crumbled into ash that scattered across her lap.

She screamed a raw, shattering sound and clutched the dust as if she could hold him together.

And the survivors turned their terror on me.

Helios’s POV

Elara was shaking, bow half-lowered, blood dripping from her fingers. The light beneath her skin pulsed dangerously, veins glowing like molten fire. Her face was white with shock.

She had just killed a child. And the Wraths knew it.

Vulcan slammed one into a wall, ember eyes flashing. She burns too brightly, he rumbled in my mind. They will never stop coming for her.

I saw it too. The Wraths weren’t just attacking they were drawn. Every pulse of Elara’s blood was a beacon, calling them, driving them to frenzy.

“Elara!” I shouted again, cutting down another Wrath before it could reach her. She barely seemed to hear me.

If I didn’t get her out soon, the fire inside her would consume her from the inside out.

The Last Wrath Falls

The square was a slaughter.

Wraths lunged and burned. Families wailed as their loved ones Turned and were cut down. Ash drifted thick as snow, coating the ruined square.

At last, the final Wrath fell beneath Vulcan’s jaws. Silence dropped, broken only by the mother’s sobs as she clutched the ashes of her son.

The survivors that remained recoiled from Elara. Whispers spread like poison: cursed, blood witch, not human.

Elara swayed, gripping her bow like it was the only thing holding her up. Her eyes met mine, and in them I saw the truthshe believed them.

I crossed the space, caught her arm, grounding her. Her skin was hot, her pulse a hammer of fire beneath my fingers.

“You are not alone,” I said, low and fierce.

Her jaw trembled. She whispered so soft only I heard: “The Keeper was right. This is the price.