Chapter 8 - The Falling Iron
Clang!
The impact of Lyra’s body against the ancient iron chain echoed through the cathedral like a thunderclap. The rusted links snapped with a sharp, violent report, and the massive, three-ton bronze bell tore away from the beam, plunging straight down through the dark water.
Vespera looked up just in time, her milky eyes widening in sudden, raw panic. She released Aria, trying to scramble backward into the shadows of the altar, but the heavy bell was faster. It crashed down directly onto her lower body, pinning four of her massive tentacles beneath its crushing weight and smashing the altar into a thousand jagged shards.
Vespera let out a disjointed, agonizing shriek as the black ink exploded from her wounds, clouding the water in a thick, sightless blackness.
Aria fell to the stone floor, coughing and catching her breath. She scrambled through the black ink, her hands searching the sand until she found Lyra, who lay unconscious near the base of a fallen column.
The grey rot had now reached Lyra’s neck. Her fingers had turned completely transparent, dissolving into a stream of tiny, glowing bubbles that floated upward toward the surface. Her eyes were closed, her face pale, her heart beating with a faint, dying flutter.
May you like
"Lyra! No, please, Lyra, wake up!" Aria sobbed, pulling her sister into her lap, her hands trying to hold the dissolving bubbles together, but they slipped through her fingers like water.
Through the broken roof, the moon had turned completely red—a perfect, bloody circle in the dark sky. The eclipse was complete. The final hour had arrived, and the magic of the siren was fading into the foam.
