Chapter 3 The Bone Caller

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Blood seeped slowly from Lazrin's side, dark and thick, staining the hem of his shirt.

Aeris hadn't moved.

Neither had he.

For one breathless moment, they stood as if frozen in the spell of what they'd just done. Her dagger still trembled in her hand-more from the pressure between them than the strike itself.

"You don't bleed like a man," she whispered.

"I'm not sure I am one anymore."

His voice was calm, but his eyes shimmered gold-unnatural, ancient, aching. Something in her chest pulled toward him like a tide responding to the moon. It wasn't love. Not yet. But it wasn't lust, either.

It was recognition.

A soul remembering what the mind had forgotten.

The relic pulsed again in her hand-stronger now, faster. It wanted to bind. To merge. To finish what was started a thousand years ago.

Lazrin saw it too. "It's waking."

She nodded. "We shouldn't let it."

"We don't have a choice."

Suddenly, the wind died.

The cathedral fell silent-eerily so.

No wind. No whispers. No distant lightning.

Just a cold breath of something older than either of them.

Aeris gripped her dagger tighter. "You feel that?"

Lazrin's golden eyes sharpened. "Yes."

Then, from the archway behind them, a sound echoed-bone scraping against stone.

Out of the shadows stepped a creature shaped like a man, but hollowed. His robes were black and rotting, his skin stretched tight over a skull-like face. Where his eyes should have been, silver flame burned.

Lazrin cursed under his breath. "Bone Caller."

The Bone Caller tilted its head, voice like cracking ice. "The Veilbond stirs. The prophecy roots itself in fresh flesh."

Aeris stepped forward. "Who sent you?"

The Bone Caller's grin was all bone and smoke. "No one. The Veil calls us. To watch. To cleanse."

The relic in her hand flared-bright and angry. Lazrin stepped beside her, the air around him crackling with Veil energy.

"She's under my protection," he said darkly.

"You were meant to kill her," the Bone Caller hissed. "You failed."

"I changed my mind."

Aeris looked at him sideways. "That was fast."

Lazrin smirked. "I adapt."

The Bone Caller raised one hand-and with it, the cathedral floor cracked. From the ground rose skeletal creatures clad in the armor of fallen kings, their hands clutched around rusted blades.

"Go," Lazrin said to Aeris. "I'll hold them off."

She didn't move. "I don't run."

"You're not strong enough-"

She threw the relic into the air. It hovered between them, spinning once.

Then it split-light pouring from it, wrapping around both their chests like silk turned to flame. It fused into their skin-marking them, binding them.

Aeris gasped. Lazrin staggered.

The relic fell, now dull. But something had changed.

A sigil-glowing and intricate-now burned across both their collarbones.

The Bone Caller screamed. "You've sealed it!"

Aeris wiped blood from her lip, eyes glowing gold like Lazrin's. "Too late to stop us now."

Then she charged.

They fought together-not like strangers, but like warriors long-accustomed to one another's rhythm. Her daggers found the gaps in bone. His blade danced with cruel elegance, shadow and lightning twining around his strikes.

Veil energy exploded with every clash.

The cathedral trembled.

And still, the Bone Caller laughed.

"You can fight it," he snarled, deflecting Aeris's blade. "But the prophecy ends in fire. One of you will burn."

Lazrin shoved his sword through the Bone Caller's chest. "We'll take that chance."

The creature disintegrated into ash and smoke.

Silence returned. For now.

Aeris, bloodied and breathless, leaned on a broken column. Lazrin stood across from her, one hand pressed to his side.

Between them, the air still shimmered faintly from the bond.

"What did we just do?" she asked.

Lazrin didn't smile. "We gave the Veil what it wanted."

Aeris looked down at the glowing sigil on her collarbone.

Veilbonded. Body, magic, fate.

She met his gaze. "And what if it wants more?"

Lazrin's voice was quiet. "Then we either fall together... or destroy the gods trying to tear us apart."

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