And Severen?—
He was drunk on it.
His head thrown back, lips parted in guttural moans, eyes glazed as though he hovered between life and death, lost in rapture. The shadows coiled around him, thick and sensuous, lapping at every cry, every tremor of flesh. They drank it—the agony, the lust, the surrender—feeding until they glowed, pulsing in rhythm with the bodies that still twitched beneath him.
The air reeked of incense and iron, of sweat and rot.
And inside me, something stirred.
My own shadows.
They hummed—low, eager, hungry—vibrating in my veins like a second heartbeat. Their whispers slithered through my skull.
“This is power.This is eternity.Rule not through mercy, but indulgence. Through pain. Through desire. Through control.This is what you could become.”
The taste of it burned on my tongue—not wine, but something sweeter. More corrupt. I looked at Severen and saw what he was—a man devoured by the very thing that made him immortal. And I understood him.
I thought of Lazarus, of his hands on Amara, of her breath against his mouth, of the way she trembled for him and not for me. He took her lips. Her devotion. Her light.
But I—I hadthis.
The shadows coiled tighter inside me, their voices a fevered chant.
“You have all the time in the world now, Salvatore. To be anything. A king. A god. A monster.”
And gods forgive me—I wanted it.
Then Lazarus’ voice shattered the moment.
“Severen.”
The name cracked through the chamber like a whip.
Severen froze mid-thrust, his breath catching in a ragged hiss. Slowly, he turned. His head rose from the shadows, his eyes catching the firelight.
For a heartbeat, disbelief marred his face, a flicker of something almost human. Then his gaze fell to our arms. To the black coils writhing beneath our skin, glowing in the torchlight.
Two survivors.
Two Shadow Lords.
“No…” he breathed, the sound catching, breaking into laughter. “No… impossible.” His gaze swept down to our arms, to the black coils on our skin, light pulsing with each breath. “The shadows accepted you? Both of you?” He laughed again, deeper this time, the sound rolling into madness. “They do not take everyone. They devour the unworthy, they spit out the weak. And yet you two…” He rose slowly, the shadows around him unfurling like smoke from a pyre. His grin split across his face, as jagged as broken glass. “You survived. You ascended. My sons of shadow.”
“Don’t you dare call us that,” Lazarus snarled, his tattoos blazing with every word, the markings alive beneath his skin.
Severen tilted his head, eyes burning like coals, the darkness around him curling and tightening as though it listened only to him. “Then tell me what you think you are,” he said, his voice smooth, poisonous. “You passed the final trial. You let them hollow you, strip you bare, consume what made you human. Now you are what I am. You belong to me.”
“No,” Lazarus growled, stepping forward, his voice rough with fury. “We know the truth now. This place—this pit—was never meant to hold prisoners. You built it to feed yourself. Every trial. Every drop of blood. Every scream. Every soul that rotted down here—each one was for you.”
For a fleeting moment, Severen’s smile faltered, the confidence cracking like old stone.
Lazarus pressed on, his tone like fire against iron. “You fed on their pain, on their terror. That’s why no one leaves alive. This fortress isn’t a prison. It’s a feast hall, a temple to your hunger. And the women you keep aren’t for pleasure—they’re for feeding the shadows through lust and suffering. We know you now. You were never a warden, Severen. You’re a parasite.”
Severen’s eyes narrowed, his grin reforming, cruel and measured, the shadows around him thickening as though ready to strike.
I stepped forward then, my own shadows stirring in my veins, answering his darkness with mine. “And I know what you did to me.”
His gaze flicked toward me, and I saw his grin falter for the briefest instant before twisting again, smaller, sharper.
