And yet, I did not. I couldn’t. Even then, with fury a roaring thing under my chest. I could not kill my brother.
The shadows hissed—“Was that weakness? Or mercy?”
The scene twisted again. The world shrank to a room of stone and silence, the air thick with the stench of blood and fear. Salvatore was there—a boy, small and trembling, his father’s hand raised high, the whip glinting like a serpent in the torchlight.
The lash came down once, twice, until—flesh split. Blood ran and Salvatore’s breath broke into sobs that didn’t sound human. He was too young to fight, too weak to escape.
And before I could think—before I even understood why—I stepped forward.
The next strike landed across my back. The pain burst through me like fire. I remembered the shock in his eyes—the boy’s—and the sound his father made when he realized what I’d done.
He didn’t stop.
He turned the whip on me instead.
Each strike tore skin, each blow heavier, crueler. I took them all.
I remembered the weight of the leather—the smell of iron and smoke. The way my vision blurred, but I didn’t move.
When it was over, Salvatore crawled toward me. His face was streaked with tears and blood, his voice barely a whisper.
“Why would you save me?” he asked.
I couldn’t answer. Maybe because I’d seen enough pain to know he didn’t deserve more. Maybe because someone should have stopped it. Maybe because I couldn’t watch another child break.
That was the day we met.
The day I took his beating.
The day I decided that some pain was better carried by me than by him.
And the whispers came again, sliding through the memory like smoke through bone?—
“Every choice you made was for someone else. You gave when you had nothing. You bled for others.”
My chest ached as if something inside were splitting. Memory after memory tore itself open.
Amara—as thin as a reed, eyes hollow with hunger—huddled in an alley while my belly twisted with its own ache. I split the last stale scrap of bread with her and pressed it into her hands. That was how the two of us began—not in light, but in shared hunger. I swore then to build her a life I never had. I swore I would give her everything.
Tears tracked hot down my face. “That’s who I am,” I whispered. “That’s all I’ve ever been. I gave. I was always good. I cared.”
The shadows tightened like iron around my ribs.“And that is what must die,”they said.
The labyrinth split, and the boy stood before me again. He carried every mercy I’d ever offered—the scrap of bread to Amara, the choice to spare Salvatore, the handful of compassion given when there was nothing left to give.
He looked at me, voice as thin as a thread. “If you kill me,” he whispered, “you’ll lose it all. The good. The mercy. The love. You’ll never be the same. You’ll be like him—like your father.”
I felt my breath tear in my chest. My body trembled between fury and grief.
“I don’t want to be him,” I rasped. “I don’t want to be Severen.”
The shadows laughed—dry, metallic.“Then prove it,”they hissed. “Rise so you can destroy him. Or stay here and let him take her. Amara will be his if you falter. Salvatore will wear the crown in your stead. You will watch, helpless, as you watched your mother. Is that what your ‘goodness’ leaves you with, Lazarus James? Regret?”
The boy clung to my hands, tears shining on his cheeks. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t kill me. If you do this, you’ll never be you again. You’ll never be good again.”
My heart split. My ribs groaned as if something inside me was breaking. Salt and heat ran down my face.
The shadows hissed, their voices honed into blades.
