“Make your decision, Salvatore Lorian. The man before you is what remains of you. Take him… or remain bound to what you were.”
My breath caught. “No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No, gods, please?—”
The figure’s voice mirrored mine, quiet and pleading. “Don’t,” he said, taking a step closer. “You’ll lose everything.”
Behind him, the illusions stirred again.
Amara’s weeping voice.
Helena’s desperate cry.
My father’s rumbling plea.
Lazarus—broken—whispering,“Stay. I love you. Stay.”
Their voices wrapped around me like chains, pulling me toward a life I no longer owned.
The reflection raised a trembling hand. “You can still be human,” he said. His face was mine—the boy who once prayed for kindness, the man who still wanted to be loved.
The pit hissed impatiently. The air burned cold.
I stepped forward. My hands shook as I reached for him. Our gazes locked—two sets of eyes, one mortal, one damned.
“I’m sorry,” I said, my voice a ghost of itself. “You cannot come with me.”
Before he could answer, I seized his throat and pressed my palm against his chest. His flesh yielded under my hand, pulsing once—a heartbeat shared between us, human and shadow both.
The pit exhaled, the sound like a thousand knives unsheathing.
He whispered one word—please—before I tore my heart free.
It beat in my hand—frantic, terrified, alive—my last echo of humanity.
“Take it!” I roared, raising it high. “Take what’s left! If I cannot be loved, then let me be yours. Make me a Shadow Lord!”
I crushed my heart, and ash spilled between my fingers, scattered into the air.
The Pit of Shadows howled, not in rage, but in triumph. The sound split the world. The illusions collapsed, their faces twisting, rotting, disintegrating into shrieking shadow that clawed at the walls before vanishing into dust.
Pain consumed me. My chest hollowed, yet no blood came. The wound was not flesh—it was something deeper. A piece of my soul burning away.
The shadow of myself fell to its knees and dissolved into black smoke. That smoke surged forward, pouring into my mouth, my veins, my lungs, until my entire body quivered with fire.
I felt every stitch as they remade me, the darkness threading itself through muscle, bone, and marrow. Sigils flared beneath my skin, glowing like embers.
My shadow peeled away, kneeling before me like a beast before its master, before merging back into my body.
When I drew breath, it came out black.
I looked down at my hands—trembling, marked, veins burning with ink and light. I no longer felt the pull of love, of mercy, of warmth. It was gone—carved out, turned to nothing.
The pit bent around me. The walls quaked with fire and shadow, the ground splitting beneath my knees. The whispers shifted from laughter to reverence, from mockery to awe, their voices thundering like chains breaking in unison?—
“Most men suffer. Most men bleed. Most men die. But you gave us more. You gave yourself to us. You earned the crown not as a man, but as a monster.”
The chorus sank lower, darker, into the marrow of my bones?—
“Salvatore Lorian. You have earned your place among us. No matter how much you desired, no matter how you hungered for love, you cast it into the fire. You chose the crown. You chose the shadows. You chose us.”
