Pour the Noctyss over him. Strip him. Take his tome. Cast him inside. Close it. Burn it.
I leaned toward Lazarus, the heat burning in my throat. “We have to use it. Now. Pour the brew. Grab his book. Seal him.”
He gave the faintest nod, his eyes never leaving Severen.
Severen’s gaze flicked toward me, his grin widening as if he had heard. His voice dropped into something cruel, almost amused. “You think you can cage me?”
He raised one hand, and the shadows burst from him like a tidal wave.
I dove, the world collapsing. Stone cracked, dust rained down, the sound of the chamber breaking beneath his fury.
Pain ripped through me—and then everything changed.
My body blurred, stretched, lengthened. My flesh burned away. My skin dissolved into smoke, until I was no longer bone or blood but a living storm of shadow. The marks beneath my skin flared into fire before vanishing completely. I was no longer Salvatore—I was something else. Something infinite.
Lazarus transformed beside me, his body unraveling into pure darkness, his form, no longer flesh, but force. He wasn’t a beast—he was what I was—a shadow given life, a weapon of will and vengeance.
The chamber screamed around us.
Our shadows merged, rising, circling, spiraling higher until the very air seemed to bow beneath their weight. The torches went out, swallowed by the storm we had become.
We were no longer men.
We were shadow made flesh, darkness unbound, vengeance incarnate.
The walls shook, the stones crying out beneath our power. Together, Lazarus and I moved as one, our shadows crashing through the flames, wrapping around Severen like serpents, suffocating his light, tearing at his strength.
He roared, striking back with a surge of his own darkness, the force slamming through the hall like a collapsing mountain.
Severen’s bellow shook the chamber. “You think you can overpower me?” he shrieked. “I made you!”
His hands rose, veins bulging black beneath his skin, his eyes glowing with shadowfire. He screamed, and without so much as a touch, hurled us across the chamber. My body crashed into the wall, the impact shattering the shadows around me like glass. Pain tore through every nerve.
“You dare—” Severen’s voice thundered, shaking the pillars. “You dare to challenge me? You arenothing!”
The throne room became fire and ruin, a storm of shadows and screams. His laughter echoed through the blaze, low, guttural, cruel—until Lazarus moved.
His tattoos ignited, glowing like black lightning as he seized the vessel. With a single motion, he ripped away the covering and hurled the brew straight at Severen.
The Noctyss struck him across the chest and face.
Severen screamed.
Not like a man. Like iron grinding against stone. Like glass splitting beneath a hammer.
The brew did not melt him.Itturned inward.His own shadows rebelled, clawing through his flesh, tearing through his veins in streaks of black fire. His body convulsed, every muscle seizing as the coils beneath his skin rose against him, wrapping around his throat as if to choke the life from him.
Still, he staggered forward, toward the altar. Toward his book.
It waited there upon its obsidian stand, the cover pulsing, shadows coiling from it like living breath. His hand reached for it, and I struck first.
My shadows lashed out, cutting through the air like whips of smoke and fire. They slammed against the book, ripping it from his reach and into my arms. I clutched it tight, the leather hot beneath my palms, as Severen’s roar shattered through the hall.
“SHOW ME HOW TO BIND HIM!” I screamed, and the tome in my other hand burst open, pages fluttering as if caught in a storm. The ink bled, dripping down the parchment like heated tar, shaping itself into sigils that writhed and burned with power.
Lazarus’ voice cut through the chaos. “I’ll begin the incantation!” he shouted, his tattoos blazing like brands. “Hold him! Chain him down!”
Severen writhed, his shadows flailing like storm-whips, cracking against the floor, tearing gashes into the stone. His agony poured through the room in waves—heat, pain, fury, hatred—until even the air trembled with it.
