He had loyalty. He had admiration. He had Amara.
And I—I gave him everything. My faith. My friendship. My love.
And still, he chose her.
He would never look at me the way he looked at her.
He would neverseeme.
The shadows felt my rage. They coiled tighter, whispering like silk against my mind.
“Feed us. Let us taste what he made you feel.”
Lazarus told me to free the prisoners.
Instead, I gave the shadows what they asked for.
I walked among the cells and listened—the sound of their weeping, their pleading, their fear. The air was thick with it. It crawled across my skin. I opened their doors one by one and watched the terror bloom in their eyes when they saw me.
I did not kill them quickly.
The shadows drank from their despair, their cries filling the corridors like music.
Every scream, every shudder, every heartbeat spent begging for mercy fed the fire inside me. And as their agony grew, I felt the shadows stir deeper, binding themselves to me. My flesh burned with their delight.
The air smelled of sweat, iron, and death when it was done.
The stones drank their blood. The torches dimmed beneath the brutality of it.
I did not free them. I released myself.
Because mercy was a lie, it hadn’t ever saved anyone—least of all me.
Now I walked through the corridors of the Dreadhold, the walls slick with blood and shadow. The whispers crawled beneath my skin—soft, intimate, possessive. They spoke like lovers, promising power in exchange for devotion.
Ahead lay Severen’s hall.
But before Lazarus and I tore the throne from his hands, before the final burn and the last breath, there was one thing I would force him to answer.
Where was my mother’s book?
Because I knew it existed.
I could feel her here—her voice, unyielding, clawing through the dark. She called to me as she once called to the gods who never came.
Severen bound her just as he bound the others.
But I would unbind her.
And when I did, I would make Lazarus watch.
Watch as I opened her prison.
Watch as I freed her voice.
Or perhaps I’d bind him instead—let the shadows taste his purity, let them sing in his screams.
Because I was done being the broken one.
