Not as a son.
Not as a brother.
Not as a lover.
As theirs.
A Shadow Lord
Chapter22
Salvatore
The pit trembled as the smoke began to thin, the storm of voices fading into a low, endless hum that still pressed against my skull. My chest ached—hollow, seared—every breath escaping me as black steam. I staggered forward, my knees slick with blood and soot, then I saw him.
Lazarus.
He emerged from the shadows opposite me, his veins burning black, sigils etched deep into his skin. They glowed down his spine and arms like chains carved into living flesh. His eyes—eclipses rimmed in fire—met mine, and for a heartbeat the world stopped. He looked nothing like the man I had known… and everything like the monster the pit had demanded.
And yet, I knew him.
He had risen too.
We stood together at the heart of the pit—no longer prisoners, no longer sons, no longer men.
Brothers reborn. Lords of Shadow.
The walls split open, bleeding black fire. The air shook with the weight of the shadows’ voices—a thousand upon a thousand, rising in unison. Not mockery now, but reverence.
“You have earned your crowns. You have given us everything—your hearts, your innocence, your humanity. Now take us into your flesh. Wear us. Carry us in every vein, every scar. Be marked as ours for eternity.”
The pit convulsed—the ground split. Smoke and fire spiraled upward, devouring the dark.
A thousand black serpents of smoke slammed into me—through my mouth, my nose, my eyes. They forced themselves inside, clawing through my lungs, burning through my veins. My body arched, every muscle locking as fire tore me apart from within.
It was not pain.
It waserasure.
I felt my humanity peel away, shredded, piece by piece, until nothing familiar remained. I screamed until my throat split open, the sound ripping through the pit like the cry of something being unmade. My nails carved bloody furrows into the stone as if I could hold onto something—anything—but there was nothing left to cling to.
Beside me, Lazarus writhed. His jaw clenched, his spine bowing, his body convulsing like the shadows were clawing through his soul. His scream was silent—but it lived inside me.
And then, the marks began.
Black shapes crawled beneath my skin like living ink, rising through my veins. They coiled around my arms, my chest, my throat. Ring after ring—tightening, burning—until it felt as though serpents of smoke had found a home beneath my flesh.
The symbols weren’t human. They pulsed with every heartbeat, shifting, alive—patterns of something unholy. The shadows themselves were fighting the flesh that dared to contain them.
The air crackled. The pit shuddered again, its walls pulsing like the veins of something ancient and alive. And in that storm of darkness, I knew?—
We were no longer men trying to survive.
We were becoming the gods of our own ruin.
Through blurred vision, I looked down at my hands.
Spirals coiled around my fingers, black rings circling like chains of living night. Serpents of shadow crawled up my arms, branding me in their likeness. Their bodies seared into mine until I could no longer tell where my flesh ended and they began.
