Then the power hit.
It struck like a storm, sudden and merciless, throwing me backward into the stone. My body arched, every vein aflame, every muscle stretched to its breaking point. The force poured through me—wild, intoxicating, unspeakable—like swallowing lightning while drowning in tar.
And through it, the voices roared?—
“You are ours now. Your humanity is gone. You are Shadow Lords.”
My vision dimmed, eaten by black fire. The marks burned hotter, fusing into my flesh, the scent of charred skin thick in the air. The pain was unbearable?—
My shadow peeled itself from the floor, rising tall and feral, its edges bleeding smoke, its jaws lined with teeth of night. It stared back at me with empty eyes that glowed like dying stars.
Beside me, Lazarus’ shadow writhed—bound in chains that hissed as they moved, its gaze burning as red as coals. Both creatures bowed, kneeling in reverence before us. Then, with a sound like wind through bone, they slipped back into our bodies, binding themselves to flesh and soul.
The pit bowed low. The ground trembled. The walls bled light as the whispers spoke—not in mockery, but in worship.
“You have chosen the path of power. The path of darkness. The path of corruption.”
The words drilled into my skull, a thousand voices woven into one.
“Now that you are Shadow Lords, you will never be alone again. You will forever hear whispers in your mind. You will never escape us. We will live inside you—in your head, in your flesh, in your blood.”
The marks beneath my skin throbbed in answer, burning, whispering like a heartbeat that was not my own.
“The tattoos carved into your skin are not decoration. They areus.They will remain hidden until you call for us, until you cast. When you reach through your tome, when you demand power, we will awaken. We will blaze across your flesh, coils of black fire marking you as one who feeds.
“When you stop, we fade. But when you summon, when you craft, when you cast—we will live.”
The words sank deep into the bone. And I understood, finally—this was no gift. It was a covenant.
The power price was eternity in chains.
I stared at my arms, watching black lines twist beneath my skin like living ink. They moved slowly, sinuously, as though trying to crawl free. They would never leave me. They would never let me forget.
The shadows hissed, their voices vibrating through bone and marrow.
“You both will be given your own Tome of Shadows.Within it, you will find anything you seek—how to twist life and death, how to raise the dead, how to bend the living. Each spell, each secret, lies waiting. But nothing comes freely. Every request must be fed. Feed us, and we obey. Some power requires little. Some demand everything.
“Fear. Agony. Desire. Ecstasy. You choose how to pay. When the price is given, the shadows will act.”
The air thickened, pressing hard against my chest until my breath came ragged. The floor rippled beneath our feet, stone turning fluid, bleeding darkness. Two shapes pushed through the black, jagged, and formless at first, dragging the fabric of reality down with them as they took shape.
Tomes.
Bound in black leather so deep it devoured light, they pulsed, heartbeats trapped in skin. Symbols crawled across their covers, shifting like smoke, never resting long enough to be read. And embossed into each one, burned so deep it might have been written by flame itself, were names.
Mine—Salvatore Lorian.
His—Lazarus James.
My hand shook as I reached for mine. The leather was slick, cold, almost alive beneath my palm, a living thing pretending to be a book. The moment I touched it, whispers erupted inside my skull, fluttering like a thousand pages turned by invisible hands.
It knew me.
It had always known me.
It had just been waiting.
The tome pulsed in my grip, eager, starving—begging to be opened and begging to be fed.
