Step V.
Though reborn souls carry no memory, love is the wound that never heals.
When the lost one meets the soul they once cherished, the shadows will stir; a flicker will return—a dream, a whisper of recognition.
And in that heartbeat, the veil thins, and the pattern begins anew.
I looked down at her, at the body that had once held every answer I’d ever needed.
Love is the wound that never heals.
I brushed my thumb across her knuckles, cold now. The shadows shifted, uneasy. Even they feared what I was thinking.
Note: The nine moons may be folded into seven nights, but only a master Shadow Lord can endure it. Attempt it too soon, and the shadows will turn within, tearing at flesh and soul until their fury fades and the agony wanes.
My voice broke as I read the final line aloud.
I was no master. I barely knew what I had become.
But I could not let her stay in the ground forever.
The torch beside me trembled, its flame bending low as though afraid to watch.
The words carved themselves into me—beautiful and terrible, a promise wrapped in torment.
And though the shadows whisperedyou are not ready,my heart whispered back through clenched teeth—I will be one day.
Amara lay still beside me, her face pale beneath the moon’s cold eye, her lips parted as though waiting for my breath. The air around her was already giving up its warmth.
I could bring her back. The tome had shown me how. Nine months of feeding the shadows—of love, agony, suffering—all given in perfect measure. A mother in her first months, a soul waiting to be rehoused. It was possible. Not while Salvatore lived.
If Salvatore learned what I had done, he would hunt her through every womb, every lifetime, until nothing of her remained.
I cut a lock of her hair with my dagger and pressed it to my heart.
“Forgive me,” I breathed. “I’ll keep this until I am strong enough to bring you home—until I can guard what I once failed to save.”
Then I placed her father’s Tome of Shadows beside her body and pressed it to her chest.
“He’ll watch over you,” I said. “Until I return.”
I covered her with earth, handful by handful. The soil was cool and heavy, clinging to my fingers, filling the silence between each breath. When the last of her was gone, I pressed my palm to the grave and collapsed, my throat raw with a grief too vast to contain. Silver tears streaked my face, burning paths into my skin. I pressed my forehead to the earth, bloodied hands splayed wide as if I could reach her through the soil.
“My love,” I rasped, voice torn from the pit of me. “One day—when strength no longer fails me, when Salvatore’s body is nothing but ruin, when every shadow bends to my command—I will bring you back. You are mine. Only mine. I will touch no other. I will remain alone until the day you return.”
I forced myself upright, every muscle shaking, every breath like fire in my chest. My body felt carved out, stripped of everything but fury. Rage kept me standing—rage and the promise burning hotter than the curses crawling through my veins.
I lifted my face to the endless dark. “One day,” I swore, my voice trembling but as hard as iron, “I will trap Salvatore in his own Tome of Shadows. I will bind him as we bound Severen. I will lock him in the dark until his name is nothing but an echo. Every scream, every drop of pain he gave me—I will return tenfold. He will pay for my mother. For Amara. For all he’s slaughtered. He will drown in his own darkness.”
Silence answered—then laughter.
Low at first, curling from the corners of the grove, then swelling until it filled my chest, my skull, my veins. The shadows slithered through me, their whispers overlapping, mocking?—
No. You will never destroy him. You will never unmake him. Together, you and Salvatore will forge something greater than Severen ever dreamed.
Their voices tightened around my throat like chains.You are bound. You are cursed. You are not free of him—and you never will be.
Severen’s echo followed, laughter bleeding from the pages of his book.
