And I had just learned how to win.
The air changed before I heard him.
The torches flickered, bending low as if the room itself bowed. The haze parted. Shadows bled outward from the walls, thick and heavy, swallowing the blood on the floor until everything around us was dusk and ash.
Then he was there.
Severen.
He didn’t emerge so much asunfold—a shape pulled out of darkness, tall and skeletal, as though the Dreadhold itself had drawn breath and given it form. His robes dragged through the congealed blood, leaving streaks behind like brushstrokes of night. The bone charms across his chest rattled in the silence, the sound rhythmic, like the chattering teeth of the dead.
His eyes were hollow pits, sunken deep, but inside them burned a pale and colorless fire—no warmth, no life, only hunger. The air seemed to bend around him, the shadows tightening at his feet like worshippers.
“Only two remain,” he said, his voice smooth and methodical, every word a wound. His grin glimmered like polished bone. “Two who swore themselves brothers. Let us see what becomes of such promises when only one may live. You and Lazarus will fight to the death,” Severen said, voice soft and certain. “Only one walks out. The other feeds the pit.”
“No.” The word tore from me. “I won’t kill him. He’s my brother. My only friend. I’m done with your fucking games.”
Severen laughed—metal on stone, long and cruel. “Refuse me now? Strange. That isn’t what you promised in the Trial of Reflection.”
Cold slid through me.
He drifted closer, bone charms clicking. “You swore you would kill him to rise. Those were your words.”
“I lied,” I said. My voice came out low, steady, burning. “I lied to pass your trial. I would never kill him.”
The admission lit something in me—hot, rising. Not shame. Fury.
Severen’s smile thinned. “You lied to me,” he whispered, each word curdled with venom. “You lied… tome.”
The air bent. Torches shuddered. Shadow gathered like breath before a blow.
“Then let us test that vow,” he murmured.
He cut his hand through the air. The iron gate screamed open.
Then the guards shoved her inside.
Amara.
She stumbled into the light—hair matted, face bruised, blood crusted at her mouth. Lazarus lunged, catching her, holding her as if the world might steal her again. She clung to him. For a heartbeat, there was nothing but the two of them.
Her eyes burned. His hands shook as he brushed her hair back, whispering words I could not hear.
And that was the break.
Because she looked at him the way no one had ever looked at me.
I wanted to tear her from his arms, to wrench her mouth open and make it shape my name. Instead, I watched—again—as love slipped through my fingers.
The guards dragged Lazarus to the far side of the pit and set him opposite me. My chest heaved—not with fear, but with hunger.
“Only one of you may remain,” Severen said, eyes bright with delight. “One dies, or Amara dies screaming.”
A guard hurled a sword between us. It struck stone and sang—a dull, final note.
My gaze moved from the weapon to Lazarus, then to Amara. Her face was pale. Her eyes belonged to him.
The choice ceased to feel like torment. It settled in me like fate.
