"I think I am," she said, wonder and fear mixing in her voice.
The door opened, and Nia stood there, her eyes taking in everything. The light on my skin, the shadow wrapped around Aya's wrist, the marks we now bore.
"I thought I felt a power surge last night." Her voice was carefully neutral. "You've completed a soul-bond."
"Is that bad?" Aya asked.
"It's unprecedented." Nia approached, examining us both. "A true merging of shadow and human essence hasn't happened in centuries. The Council believed it impossible."
I pulled Aya closer, suddenly protective. "Will it harm her?"
Nia shook her head. "No. But it changes everything. You've proven what the Penumbra has always believed, that humans and shadow creatures are compatible on the deepest level."
She touched the light in my chest. "You carry part of her now. It gives you limited resistance to sunlight."
"And I carry part of him," Aya said, making the shadow dance between her fingers.
"This makes you both incredibly valuable," Nia warned. "And in terrible danger. The Council will see you as either a miracle or an abomination."
"They already wanted me dead," I reminded her.
"Now they'll want you both," Nia said grimly. "You need to leave these mountains. Head east, to the Twilight Forests. There's a Penumbra sanctuary there."
As we quickly gathered our things, I caught Aya staring at her reflection, tracing the shadow patterns that now adorned her skin.
"Do you regret it?" I asked softly.
She turned to me, her eyes steady. "Not for a second. This is who we were meant to be." Her fingers found the light in my chest.
I kissed her, feeling the now-familiar surge of connection.
The path ahead was uncertain, but one thing wasn't, whatever came next, we would face it as neither fully shadow nor fully human, but something new. Something powerful.
Something the world wasn't ready for.
CHAPTER 11
Aya
I never thought I'd break into Magnus Terra's central DNA repository, but here I was, dressed in black from head to toe, my heart pounding against my ribs like it wanted to escape. Varkolak's shadow abilities had transformed me, us, into something neither fully human nor fully shadow. The power hummed beneath my skin, unfamiliar but intoxicating.
"Ready?" Varkolak whispered, his breath warm against my ear.
I nodded, trying to ignore how his proximity made my pulse skip. "As I'll ever be."
With a gentle tug, he pulled me into the shadows, and the world shifted. Colors faded to gray scale, sounds muffled, and my body felt weightless. Moving through solid objects was the strangest sensation, like walking through thick fog that offered just enough resistance to remind you it was there.
We slipped through the concrete wall of the repository as if it were nothing. Inside, the massive facility stretched before us, rows upon rows of servers housing the DNA profiles of every human from the colonies and every shadow being from the East.
"We need to find the main database," I whispered, though I wasn't sure why. No one could hear us in this shadowy half-state. "The restricted access terminals should be on the top floor."
Varkolaks hand remained firmly clasped with mine, our fingers intertwined. "Stay close. The longer we stay in shadow form, the more energy it drains."
We drifted upward, floor by floor, passing through security checkpoints without triggering a single alarm. Guards walked their routes, oblivious to our presence, their faces bored and unaware.
When we reached the top floor, Varkolak pulled us back into solid form behind a large server bank. The sudden weight of my body almost made me stumble, but he caught me, strong hands steadying my waist.
"You okay?" His silver eyes searched mine, concern etched across his face.
