Page 135 of Fallen Nocturne

“Then I will come,” he mutters.

The mages surrounding the circle raise their hands. Their magic catches the edges of the passage and holds it steady while Hellios steps fully into our world.

I move to the next cleared space and begin again.

Circle. Sigil. Blood. Call.

“Sawa, who sleeps beneath the drowned stones. I ask you to rise.”

Water floods the second circle despite the dry earth. Something long and silver coils beneath its surface before a serpent lifts its head into the evening air. Its translucent scales reveal blue lights moving inside its body, slow and distant as stars beneath deep water.

The serpent slides from the circle and coils beside Hellios.

I close the third circle and press my bleeding palm against its center.

“Hunter of the Red Moon, the gates are open.”

Smoke pours from the runes.

Hooves strike the earth. A great stag steps from the smoke, flames burning between the bones of its hollow chest. Four feathered wings lie folded along its back, their tips scorched black. Its silver antlers carry the skulls of the creatures it hunted.

“What do you hunt?” it asks me.

I point toward the dark army on the horizon.

“Them.”

He turns without another word.

By the fourth circle, sweat runs down my spine beneath my clothes.

I draw the sigils anyway.

“Eira and Eirwyn, daughters of the first shadow. Come together or do not come at all.”

Two pale hounds emerge from a single pool of darkness. They face opposite directions, joined by the same stretched shadow beneath their paws. One has no eyes. The other has no mouth.

The eyeless one scents the air.

The voiceless one speaks inside my mind.

We remember you.

“Then remember the bargain between us,” I remind them.

Blood for passage. Bone for shelter.

“You will have both,” I vow.

They move to stand at the edge of the field, their shared shadow writhing between them.

The fifth circle resists me. The chalk breaks twice beneath my fingers, and the final sigil refuses to close until I press blood from my palm into the line.

“Mistress of a Thousand Blades. I ask for your hand in battle,” I whisper.

A veil of black silk rises from the earth. Beneath it comes the pale face of a woman, beautiful and expressionless. Her body follows, long and segmented like a centipede, with dozens of silver arms unfolding along her sides. Each hand grips a different blade.

Her veil turns toward the soldiers. “What do you have for me today, little Rhianelle? Mortals again?”