The shadows in the room stilled mid-flicker. The torches guttered. The floor beneath my feet hummed. A warning. A herald.
And then he stepped into view.
Ashterion.
Not the consort with a knife-edged smile and a noose of silk around his throat. Not the male who wore arrogance and wielded cruelty as a shield.
This was no shield.
This was a god.
Midnight-blue eyes burned, galaxies condensed to fury and fire. Shadows didn’t trail him—theybledfrom him, bled like liquid night, swallowing light, devouring sound. They weren’t tendrils anymore. They wereforce. They wererule.
And the magic?—
Gods.
It came off him in waves that shattered the world. Stone cracked, walls groaned, magic screamed through the air as if it was trying to getawayfrom him and couldn’t.
The leash was gone.
Whatever collar Xyliria had held him with had broken. And in its place stood a High Lord reborn in shadow and ruin. Unbound. Unforgiving.
Power didn’t just radiate from him. Iterupted. It claimed everything it touched.
Behind me, someone cursed under their breath.
No one moved.
Because how could we?
He was devastation incarnate.
A deity in a court of mortals.
His gaze swept the chamber, marking every detail with terrifying calm. The fallen guards. The blood-soaked floors. Xyliria’s body, sprawled unnaturally, chest torn open.
When his eyes found mine, everything stilled.
And the fury beheld there… it wasn’t rage. It was closer to grief.
No one dared breathe as he crossed the space between us, each step deliberate, the marble fissuring beneath him, shadows spilling in his wake. The air grew heavier, denser, the fabric of reality bending around him as he moved.
He stopped before me, close enough that I could feel the chill emanating from his skin, the raw power beneath it. His mouth was no longer set in that mocking smirk but drawn into a solemn line. The shadows clung to him differently now—not as servants but as extensions of himself, moving with his breath, his thoughts, his very essence.
He towered over me, a living eclipse, the world dimming around his form.
The darkness moved faster than I could breathe. It surged forward, swallowing the others whole.
Panic surged up my throat as all of them, even Varyth, disappeared into the abyss. Their expressions barely had time to shift, to register their fate, before they vanished.
I whirled back to Ashterion, ready to fight him to the death if I had to.
But he only tilted his head, watching me with an almost lazy curiosity. “You’ll find your friends returned to your court.”
I stilled, my breath shallow.
“Are you going to kill me?”
