Severen roared, his voice shattering through the chamber. “You dare scourge me? I am your master!”
I answered with a whip of shadow across his chest. The strike cracked through the air, splitting flesh. Blood hissed as it struck the salt-and-marrow circle, searing where it fell. Severen screamed, a sound so deep, so raw, it made even my shadows dance with delight.
Lazarus’ voice rose over the din, his tone a weapon, his words cutting through the roar.
“By the marrow that fed you, by the blood that named you,
“By the coil of the shadows and the agony they claim,
“I bind you. By blood and book, you are bound.”
His voice echoed against the stone like a priest calling to a god that no longer listened.
Step V:
When the book hisses, press it to their chest. Let it drink. Let it devour.
The tome shuddered in Lazarus’ hands, its pages hissing, bleeding shadow that writhed like smoke made solid. Severen convulsed, his body twisting against the chains, muscles splitting beneath his skin. The torches burned low, their light turning black, spitting blood-colored sparks into the air.
I pressed him harder into the altar, my shadows winding around his throat, burning through my veins. “Now, Lazarus!” I shouted. “End him!”
Lazarus drove the tome against Severen’s chest.
The sound that followed wasn’t human, a deep, hollow wail as though the stone itself had begun to scream. The shadows beneath my hands spasmed, fighting to escape, writhing like serpents in the fire. Severen’s body convulsed violently, his ribs rising like claws beneath his skin. The Noctyss still burned through him, a poison devouring his strength from within.
His roar cracked like stone splitting, but I leaned close, my voice slicing through the chaos.
“Where is she?” I hissed. My breath hit his face, the stench of blood and sweat between us. “Where is my mother? Where did you bind her? Where is her Tome of Shadows, so I can free her?”
Severen’s laughter came low and wet, bubbling through blood. His eyes rolled toward me, dark and glistening with madness. “Your mother?” he rasped, his voice slick with mockery. “That is something you will never know.”
I wrenched the chains tighter, fury splitting me open. “Tell me!”
His grin widened, grotesque, teeth red with blood. “You think she was good, don’t you? Gentle. Pure.” He coughed, a clot of black blood spilling from his lips, and his tone turned venomous. “But you have no idea who she truly was. She might sound like salvation in your dreams, my son, but she was the devil. A creature of cruelty. Far worse than I ever became.”
He spat another streak of black. “It is best to leave her where she is. Best to never see her again.”
My stomach twisted, rage boiling through me. My voice broke on the words, “Where. Is. She.”
Severen’s body convulsed against the altar, blood streaking his skin, his eyes burning with madness. He bared his teeth, voice breaking into a hiss that scraped against the air like a blade drawn across stone.
“I threw her into the Pit of Shadows,” he rasped. “That is her prison now. If you want her, go back inside. Fight the shadows again. Tear through them until your flesh peels and your soul fractures. Only then will you see her again—if she is even worth saving.”
His laughter slithered through the chamber, thick and cruel.
And then, even as his body writhed, even as the Noctyss burned through him and the chains held him fast, Severen raised his head. His eyes glowed like coals sinking into ash.
“I curse you both,” he hissed, his voice deepening, splitting, dragging up from the black pit of his heart. “For what you’ve done to me. For daring to bind me. For stealing my throne.”
His voice warped, carrying the sound of a storm gathering in the bowels of the earth. “I will not fade. I will not be forgotten. I will live in you. I will stay in your shadows, and you will never be free of me.”
He turned his gaze upon me, his teeth gleaming red through the blood.
“Salvatore,” he spat, my name venom on his tongue. “I curse you with emptiness of the heart. You will chase love your whole life, but every time you think you’ve found it, it will disintegrate in your hands. They will betray you. They will die beside you. You may claim them, break them, make them lie in your bed, but no one will ever love you. Your lips will taste only ash. Your touch will burn like poison. You will be hated even as you beg to be cherished.”
His grin widened, blood spilling from his mouth. “And worse still… You will never father children. Your bloodline ends with you. The shadows will remember you as nothing, a hollow name lost to dust.”
The air rippled. The shadows along the walls recoiled as if scorched, hissing as they fled into the cracks of the stone.
