And then they spoke in my mind, slick and merciless?—
“When a Shadow Lord curses with his whole heart, it cannot be undone. A single curse may be unraveled through sacrifice. But curses given together are chains. They cannot be broken. Not by shadow. Not by light. Not by anything.”
My body locked rigid, every muscle trembling. I wanted to defy him, to scream, to tear the words from the air, but the shadows within me purred, feeding, binding the curse into my bones.
Then Severen’s head turned slowly toward Lazarus. His eyes were pits of ink. His voice came low, strangled, but every word landed like iron.
“Lazarus. My son.” His tone was soft, poisonous. “You will live with family, with children, with the woman you think you love. They will smile, they will call your name, they will fill your arms, and yet you will feel nothing. Emptiness will be your companion. You will bury your children, cradle them as they die, and their screams will never leave you. You will build, you will rule, you will fight, but every victory will taste hollow. Every joy will curdle into grief. I curse you that your line will continue, but it will be a line of misery. Pain will be your legacy. Agony, your inheritance.”
Lazarus staggered, his face tight, his breath breaking. I saw the curse cut into him, tearing at his insides already.
Severen’s laughter turned guttural, raw. “And together,” he roared, his voice booming so loud the circle itself shuddered, “I damn you both. You will rise together, no matter how you despise it. You will fall together, no matter how you resist. You will die together, side by side, choking on each other’s shadows. Even in death, you will not part. That is the chain I leave you.”
The circle flared with black fire. The shadows shrieked, restless, clutching at the air like a storm trying to escape its cage.
Severen’s mouth stretched into a final, monstrous grin. His body convulsed, collapsing inward, but his voice carried still, tearing through the hall as the book began to devour him.
“One day…” His laughter turned to thunder and disdain. “One day I will rise again, and when I do, I will reclaim what is mine.”
The tome slammed shut like a thousand doors sealing at once.
Silence fell—vast, heavy, unholy—swallowing the chamber whole.
The smell of curses hung in the air, foul and clinging. Severen’s words gnawed at me, a serrated tide—Loveless. Childless. Empty. They coiled around my bones and tasted of iron.
For a long breath, neither of us spoke. We stood opposite one another—shadows still writhing beneath our skin, curses braided like chains about our throats—two men forged in agony, brotherhood burned away until there was only something stranger and harder.
Lazarus moved first. His voice cut the hush—thin, jagged, full of heat.
“I hope I never see you again,” he spat. “I hate you. I despise you. All of this—every trial, every scream, every death—came from you. Orin, Rian, my mother. I hope I never see you again in this life, or any other.”
His words were a blow. They sank in. My shadows shuddered as if they felt the wound. For a heartbeat, something in me trembled with the memory of what we had been. Then a smile came—cold, clean, and not merciful.
“Good,” I said, letting the shadows curl around my tongue. The taste of venom was sweet. “Because the next time our paths cross, Lazarus, I will be the thing you cannot outrun… I’ll be your nightmare. I’ll carve out everything you love, one by one, until you finally understand what it means to be empty. I’ll burn your home. I’ll strangle every joy you cling to. I’ll break your children, rip your happiness apart piece by piece, until your curse feels like a mercy.”
The grin that split my face was not human; it was wound and hunger and whatever the pit had forged into me. I turned then, cloak of shadow billowing like smoke, the sigils along my arms crawling with heat. Each step away from him struck the stone like a verdict. The chamber shrank behind me; his breath, once familiar, receded into the dark.
The whispers followed, sweet and vile and insistent—Loveless. Childless. Empty. I let them sink, let them bind. I folded the curse into my being and wore it like armor.
Curses were not chains to me. They were fuel.
And I swore, as black as the sigils that now marked my skin, that one day I would rise beyond them all. One day, I would set this world to flame until Lazarus had no name but ash, and every face that had ever smiled at him choked on my shadow.
Chapter25
Lazarus
The throne room was silent.
For the first time since I’d stepped into this prison, the shadows weren’t screaming—they were listening. Watching. Waiting.
Severen’s book lay heavy in my hands, still warm, its leather pulsing, as if it remembered the soul it had just swallowed. His voice still lingered in my skull, every curse etched deep into me.
I sat upon his throne, chest heaving, sweat chilling against my skin. The curses gnawed at me like maggots in a corpse.Empty. Hollow. Bound forever.My father’s parting gift.
I looked down at my arms. The black coils carved into my flesh writhed, serpents moving beneath my skin, a mark of what I had become. I was no longer Lazarus James. I was something else—a Shadow Lord.
And yet, there was no triumph in me.
