“You killed my father,” I said, my voice breaking against the stone walls, echoing back at me like a curse. “You killed him because you wanted to destroy me. You whispered poison into him long before you ever raised a blade, made him despise me, beat me, and curse my existence—because of her. Because of my mother.”
Severen’s expression stilled, a shadow flickering behind his eyes.
“She never chose you,” I spat. “She chose him. And for that, you made me suffer. Every lash, every wound, every nightmare—you crafted all of it. You wanted me to break, to bleed, to become the thing you wanted me to be. You wanted to feed on my misery until nothing was left.”
I felt my tattoos flare beneath my skin, alive and writhing, feeding on my rage. “But you failed. You created this monster, and now he’s coming for you.”
Severen’s lips curled in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Marianna was the love of my life.”
“And yet you trapped her,” I said, my voice pulsating with heat and hatred.
He laughed then—a dry, broken sound that shouldn’t have belonged to anything living. “She chose your father, Lord Lorian. I couldn’t bear it. She could have ruled beside me, could have been my queen—the Mistress of Shadows beside her king. But she chose weakness. She chose him. So yes,” he said, teeth flashing in the torchlight, “I ended her.”
The shadows inside me hissed and recoiled, then surged, feeding on the fury burning through me. My fists clenched, my veins burned black. “Where is she?” I roared. “Where did you hide her book?”
Severen tilted his head, a cruel shrug rolling through his shoulders. “You’ll never know,” he said softly, his grin widening.
Lazarus moved closer, his voice low but resonant. “They said you destroyed every Shadow Lord and Mistress who came before us. You bound them within their books, their souls screaming between pages of endless dark. You wanted no rivals, no equals. You devoured them so that only your name would remain.”
The words hung heavy, burning the air between us.
“You planned our destruction since the moment we were born,” Lazarus went on, his voice steady, almost reverent. “You feared our power—the bloodlines that should have never existed. That’s why you brought us here. You wove your voice into our dreams before we could even speak. You seeded doubt. You broke us. You made us believe we were weak, that we were nothing. That pain was all we deserved.”
He stepped closer to Severen now, his eyes burning. “You made us endure your trials not to prove our worth, but to feed you. Our pain. Our rage. Our fear. Every lash, every scream—all of it was your feast. When you threw us into the pit, you thought you had erased us. You thought your reign was eternal forever.”
Severen’s smile began to falter, his composure breaking beneath the revelations.
Lazarus’ voice dropped to a growl. “But you were wrong.”
The shadows stirred at our feet, coiling upward, whispering, pulsing in time with our breath. The torches flickered, the light bending around us.
“The shadows waited for us,” Lazarus said, his tone hardening. “Across centuries, they whispered our names in the dark. Two boys from different backgrounds, born of ruin. One of fire, one of sorrow. Never before have two risen together. Never before have two shared the same mark, the same hunger. You made us. You forged us. And now—” his eyes flashed, his voice sharpening into a snarl, “—you will fall by what you created.”
The room shook.
Severen’s eyes narrowed, the darkness wreathing his body shifting, reshaping into armor that breathed with him. “I don’t like to share my power with anyone,” he hissed, his voice serpentine, as smooth as oil and as sharp as glass. “I never will.”
“All you needed was our deaths,” I spat, my voice rising above the roar of the flames. “That was always your plan.”
“Oh no,” Severen said, his grin widening, madness flickering in his eyes. He began to clap—slow, deliberate—each strike echoing through the chamber like a hammer against stone. “You’ve figured me out. Now, you know the truth of my plans, and with that truth, I will destroy you both. I will bind you as I bound all the others. I will trap you inside your books, page by page, scream by scream. And I will remain—the only Shadow King. Forever.”
“No, father dearest,” Lazarus growled, his voice low and edged with fury. “It will be us who destroy you. Salvatore and I—together. Our power combined will rival yours.”
He stepped back until he stood beside me, shoulder to shoulder. His tattoos burned bright, snaking up his arms in coils of black fire that pulsed with every beat of his heart.
Flames erupted at Severen’s feet, spilling across the stone like liquid gold. The walls shuddered, groaning beneath the weight of his power. The air trembled—heavy, searing, thick with ash and blood.
“You’re children,” Severen sneered, his voice breaking into a roar. “Children playing with weapons you don’t understand!”
He shoved the women aside as if they were nothing but rags, their bruised bodies collapsing as they scrambled through the firelight toward escape.
I stood frozen for only a breath, the flames licking closer. Heat climbed my arms, beads of sweat running down my neck, dripping into my mouth, leaving a taste of salt and blood. Once, I would have run. Once, I would have curled into myself and begged for it to end.
But not today.
Today, I was a Shadow Lord.
The shadows pressed against my mind, whispering what had to be done—dark voices layered, urgent, commanding.
