My grip on Salvatore loosened. I turned, chest heaving. “Because I need to know,” I said. “My mother… she sold herself to live. I never knew which man she lay with. I needed to believe he was different—not one of them. Not another stranger who used her and left. I needed to believe that he meant something.”
Severen’s grin stretched, obscene and knowing. “Different?” he murmured. “Then let me give you your truth. You want to know the man who fucked your mother every day?”
He straightened, and the torches flared as if they feared him.
“It was me,” he said.
The words struck like a blade sliding between ribs.
“I took her when I pleased,” Severen said, his voice slick and cold. “She served me until she carried you. When she did, I abandoned her. I chose power over her—and over you. I left her to bleed because I will always choose power. I chose it then, and I choose it now.”
He stepped closer, shadow spreading at his feet like spilled oil.
“That’s why she refused to tell you,” he went on, a grin twisting across his face. “She was ashamed—ashamed that it was me. The whole city knew my name. They feared me. She feared me. She feared what you’d become if you knew. She thought if she kept my name buried, she could keep you human.”
My throat locked. The air thickened. I could taste salt, smoke, and iron.
“Have you never seen it, Lazarus?” His laugh was low and cruel. “Do you not feel it every time your blood burns hotter than his? Every time you rise, where does he stumble? You are stronger than Salvatore because you carrymyblood.”
The shadows coiled, crawling along the stone, feeding the fire rising in my chest.
“You are my son,” Severen said, his words rolling through the chamber like a curse. “My heir. Salvatore will always be weak—fragile like his mother, Marianna, destined to fail. But you, Lazarus… you were born for this. You were made to become a Shadow Lord one day.”
My grip on Salvatore faltered. My strength drained like water through broken hands.
“What?” I breathed. My stomach heaved; bile burned up my throat. “No… no, you’re lying.”
Severen’s grin spread wider, the torchlight cutting across his teeth. His shadows licked the floor, long and hungry.
“Your mother tried to deny it,” he said. “Tried to raise you as something less than what you are. But she couldn’t erase the truth. My shadow lives in you, Lazarus. Whether you want it or not.”
He leaned forward, voice dropping low, every word a taunt sharpened to a knife’s edge.
“When I met her, she was mine. She fed my power with every breath, every cry. And when she grew heavy with you, she thought she could defy me. That was her mistake. That’s why she hid the truth from you. She knew what I was. She knew you’d hate her for it. She was terrified that if you ever learned the truth, you’d see her for what she was—a woman who had lain with a monster.”
My breath hitched. The world tilted. My stomach turned until I thought I’d vomit. I dug my nails into my palms until blood welled beneath them.
“You knew your mother’s life,” Severen said, his tone suddenly calm, almost conversational, and somehow that was worse. “Why didn’t you tell your precious friend, Salvatore? Why hide what she was?”
The words tore through me. Shame and fury tangled in my throat.
Because I couldn’t fucking let him know. I was ashamed.
He had been alabaster and gold; I had been filth and blood. He gave me food when I had none, warmth when the world spat on boys like me. And I waited by the door every night, starving, praying she’d come back—praying he’d never see the truth of what I was.
Severen smiled as if he could hear my thoughts tearing themselves apart. He stepped closer, the stench of smoke and rot curling from his skin like a second shadow.
“You want to know why you never told your best friend what your mother was?” he murmured. “Because you couldn’t bear the thought of him looking at you differently. You wanted his loyalty. His respect. You wanted him blind.”
My jaw locked until it hurt. My throat burned with words that wouldn’t come. Because he was right. Damn him—he was right. I never wanted Salvatore to see me as the son of a whore.
Severen’s shadow slid across the floor, brushing my feet, climbing my legs like a nest of black serpents. His voice dropped to a purr.
“Once she carried you, she was useless to me. I could no longer draw power from her flesh. But make no mistake, Lazarus—your father was never some pitiful war veteran she pretended he was. Your father was me.”
The shadows rose higher, winding around my chest, pressing cold fingers against my throat.
“You are my spawn,” Severen whispered, his eyes glittering like oil in the torchlight. “My legacy. My shadow. And no matter how much you scream, no matter how much you deny it—you belong to me.”
