The Shadow Bringer despised me. Wanted megone. He had made that clear enough when he nearly beheaded me—his blade had vanished into shadow right before it met my throat—and he made it clearer still when he dragged me down a candlelit hall, conjured a dungeon out of thin air just for me, and stalked away to some other Maker-forsaken part of his castle.
Two days had passed, but I felt no hunger or thirst. Over time, mychilled skin had dried, and my wet, tattered dress had restitched itself. My ankle had also healed at some point—though when, exactly, I didn’t remember—and it no longer hurt. Strangely, as a part of this nightmare, the inside of my cell reset itself each night, arranging its innards in some unholy, endless cycle. My room’s singular candle never fully melted; if I broke something, it was fixed the next morning; and if I tried to remember what I’d done the day before, the memories felt foggier and foggier. There was nothing to do. Nothing to see. But the worst part was this: When I slept, I no longer woke up in Norhavellis. I just kept waking up in this Maker-forsakendungeon.
I slumped against the wall, a cold slant of stone, and cursed every inch of the leaking, miserable room and the bastard who ruled over it. I cursed until my mind was raw and fraying.
“Let us out,” a demon moaned at the door.
“I won’t!” I yelled back.
I tried everything to escape. I called the shadowed power back to my palms, but it ignored me. I bargained with the demons in the hall, but they had no understanding of what I was asking. I tried sleeping, willing myself back into reality with every shred of my soul, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’tthink.
“Let us out,” repeated the demon.
This castle was hell. Not a living nightmare, but hell itself.
No wonder the Shadow Bringer is a raving lunatic.
I stifled a scream into my elbow, crying out until my throat was raw.
On the third day, the demons grew silent. And in their absence came the shadows.
The Shadow Bringer didn’t say a word, but I could feel him. He stood out of sight from the crack under the door, but his shadows crawled in regardless, slinking along the floor and touching my ankles as though they were the muzzle of a lonely dog.
I lurched to my feet.
“How long do you plan to leave me rotting? Until I am so old and resentful that my hair turns white like yours?”
The questions leapt out, angry and bitter, before I could stop them.
My cell door disappeared; in its place stood the Shadow Bringer, emanating a halo of darkness. It slid along the lines of his body, spilling chaotically into the hall and my cell as if he couldn’t control the shadows very well. Either that, or he didn’t care to control them.
“Until you free me,” he answered. His voice was rich and melodic, a smooth mask over his cold rage. “Break my curse, and you will never encounter this place again.”
“It sounds like you’re still asking me to release you from your castle. A castle that conveniently keeps you isolated from the rest of the Dream Realm.”
“I am not asking,” he began, stepping into the cell as his shadows hissed around me. “I am commanding.”
“Well, then…” I paused.
“Then?” he parroted, his lip curling.
“I shall execute your command… never.”
His silver eyes narrowed. A whisper of that cold fury was back. My stomach dropped, clenching in fear. I had been too bold. Too careless.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I choked out. This was the Shadow Bringer, for Maker’s sake. He’d rip my soul from my bones and use them to pick his teeth. “Please spare my soul, I’ll—”
“Just your soul? Not your family’s, your friends’, your lover’s? How selfish to beg for yours alone.”
I swallowed. A lover’s?
I further considered his provocation. Itwasselfish of me to think only of myself. Elliot’s soul, and the broken souls of my Corrupt parents, were far more deserving. And then there was Eden. My beautiful, perfect sister who had loved me with all her heart. Who had trusted me until the very end, indulging in my obsession with dreams even though it meant she’d lie in a coffin before her sixteenth birthday. The Light Bringer had purified her, reuniting her soul with the Makerin heaven, but perhaps the Shadow Bringer still had his claws around it. Around her.
“Not just mine,” I began carefully, wary of placing targets on my family members. “There are four others.”
“And what would you give for their safety?” he asked, coiling his shadows around the floor. They slowly began to rise, mimicking the snakes that previously bound me. “Would you let your kingdom’s villain roam free?”
This gave me pause. I didn’t know what it would mean for the Dream Realm if he was released. Another idea flashed through my mind. Frantic and half-formed, but an idea nonetheless.
