But then the shadows pulsed. Once. Twice.
In time with my heartbeat.
And Ifeltit.
Doubt.
Clawing up my spine like something alive.
Because he was right.
When Lazarus found out what I did… that would be the end of us.
Severen leaned close again, his teeth flashing like bone in the dark.
“But if you act first,” he whispered. “If you strike first…”
The chamber fell silent. Even the shadows stilled, listening.
“I will make you more than a Shadow Lord,” he offered. “I will make youeternal.”
The mirrors dimmed to black glass. Severen watched me like he was weighing the last scrap of a man.
“Tell me what you are,” he said.
The answer ripped from my throat. “I am a monster.”
He leaned in, as patient as a trap. “Say you regret nothing.”
My voice didn’t shake. “I would do it all again. I would kill Helena again. I would kill her lovers. If I had the chance, I would kill my father. I would betray Lazarus. I would do it again.”
Severen smiled like a man who found treasure. “Then you have passed this trial,” he said. “You pass because you can face your sins and know you would choose them again. Regret is a chain—broken, it falls away from you. You do not beg for pity. You choose power.”
He stepped back. The bronze door at the end of the hall sighed open, and torchlight spilled across the floor.
“Do not forget what I told you, Salvatore,” Severen said, low and sure. “To rise, you must be stronger than Lazarus. Break what binds you. Destroy him in the trials. Leave him nothing to stand on. Kill him before the truth breaks your bond—and you will take your place as a Shadow Lord.”
My chest tightened, but my voice did not. “I promise,” I said. “I will destroy him. I will rise. Make me like you—make me a god of shadow.”
Severen’s grin was all victory. “Go then. Walk out and learn how to feed your hunger.”
The guards opened the door for me. I stepped into the corridor; the world narrowed to a strip of torchlight and rough stone. Men leaned against the wall—prisoners with hollowed eyes. Lazarus stood among them, shoulders slumped, a small shadow in the light. He looked at me like a brother. The sight tore at something inside me.
If Lazarus ever learned what I had done, I would not survive it. The truth sat in my gut like cold iron. I had told Severen what he wanted to hear. I had sworn to be his monster. But the truth was simpler—I would rise with Lazarus if I could.
And if I couldn’t, then the secret between us would be the blade that cut us both apart.
Chapter14
Lazarus
The first two trials shattered me—left pieces of myself scattered somewhere between the screams and the silence. Men didn’t just die in the Trial of Reflection. They unraveled. Some clawed their own throats open before the guards dragged them away. I stopped counting. Survival was all that mattered.
Now, sitting in my cell, the echoes of Severen’s whispers still crawled through my head.
They were his voice. Always his voice.
He showed me visions in the mirrors—memories that were mine and lies twisted between them until I couldn’t tell the difference. I saw myself as a boy, barefoot and starving, the ribs showing through my skin. The other children had mocked me, spat on me. They had fathers who came home, mothers who didn’t sell their dignity for bread. I had none of that.
