“You dare!” he shrieked, his voice a roar of thunder and bile. “IMADEyou!”
I hurled my shadows like chains, black coils snapping through the smoke. They wrapped around his arms, his throat, his chest, dragging tight until I could hear the creak of bone beneath the strain.
“You made me,” I spat, my voice breaking through the din as I pulled tighter, forcing him down. “Now you’ll bebrokenby me.”
Lazarus’ book burned with black fire, his voice rising over the chaos, words of the binding spilling from his throat in a rhythm that split the air like blades. Each syllable echoed through the throne room, carrying into every corner of the vast stone chamber.
The walls shook. The floor cracked.
The shadows screamed, torn from their master, dragged unwillingly toward the tome that awaited them.
And Severen’s howl rose higher, filled with fury, filled with terror, as his own darkness turned against him, scratching to escape the body it once obeyed.
Severen writhed like a beast caught in its own snare, the Noctyss brew boiling through his veins. His shadows shrieked, tearing from his flesh, clawing at the air like serpents denied their master. His roars filled the chamber, each word spat with venom and defiance.
I slammed him down. Chains of shadow lashed from my arms, coiling around his wrists and ankles, driving him hard against the altar stone. They fused black into the salt-and-marrow circle Lazarus had carved into the floor, the lines hissing as they sealed. The circle pulsed once, alive, hungry, imprisoning him within.
“Hold him!” Lazarus barked, his markings burning brighter, his book already open in his hands.
The pages bled ink as though torn open by claws unseen. Words appeared one after another, written in a hand older than time itself, each one quivering with a hunger that made my jaw ache.
Step I:
The Shadow Lord must be poisoned, stripped of his grasp. The Noctyss petals must wound him first, only then are his shadows vulnerable.
Already done. He was screaming, his body twisting, the black coils fighting my restraints.
I yanked tighter. “You’re not escaping this, old man.”
Lazarus drew a knife across his palm, blood spilling onto the page. The parchment hissed, drinking it greedily.
Step II:
Marrow. Salt. Kin-blood. A prison carved from death.
The circle glowed at our feet, the salt burning red where his blood touched it. Severen convulsed, the sound of his screams splitting the air.
Step III:
Write his name. The name at birth. In your own blood.
Lazarus’ voice thundered through the chamber as he scrawled the letters across the page, his hand trembling.
“Morgrath Severen.”
The shadows shrieked, recoiling as though the name itself had struck them. The truth, the buried name, had been spoken aloud.
Beneath it, Lazarus carved the words the tome demanded.
“By shadow, by scream, by coil, I bind you.”
The throne room groaned, the air tightening until it felt like stone in my lungs. The walls pulsed, the torches guttered, and the scent of carnage and fire filled the hall.
Severen thrashed, roaring, his darkness collapsing inward, clawing at the edges of the circle, desperate to escape its own prison.
Step IV:
The shadows demand torment. Pain. Scourge the captive. Offer agony as their feast.
