Even the torches dimmed as he passed, their flames bending inward.
The soft strike of his sandals echoed like judgment through the amphitheater. None of us moved. None of us dared.
When he reached the pit’s center, the air changed. A current stirred where no wind should live—cold, sour, tasting of iron. His cloak trailed behind him like spilled ink, the fabric shifting against its own shadow.
Chains coiled around his forearms, dull bronze etched with runes I couldn’t read. They didn’t clink when he moved—they whispered, a low, mournful sound, like the memory of every throat they’d crushed.
Around his neck hung the same grotesque collection I remembered—bones, shriveled fingers, fragments of jaw, teeth threaded through cords of sinew. But there were more now. A new tally of deaths. Each one a name stolen from a body by his hand.
When he lifted his head, the firelight caught his eyes—flat, colorless, endless.
The entire hall seemed to lean toward him, as if gravity itself had chosen a side.
He turned, surveying the crowd. Murmurs rippled through the prisoners like wind over sand.
Then his gaze met mine.
A blade of fear slid through my chest—not because I saw death in those eyes, but because I saw nothing at all. He didn’tseeyou. He saw through you like you were already dust.
I looked to Lazarus. His eyes were wide, mirroring my own question?—
What does Severen want with us now?
“Prisoners of the Dreadhold,” Severen began.
His voice was low, dry—each word dragging like a stick through sand. “You are here because you broke faith. Because you betrayed trust. Because you took what was never yours to take and thought the gods would not see.”
He paused, letting the words fester in the silence.
“You are the worst of the worst.”
He took a slow breath, and when he spoke again, his tone turned almost gentle—mocking in its calm.
“And you are mine.”
The words rippled outward, sinking into the room like a curse spoken over a grave.
His gaze swept across the tiers—murderers, thieves, deserters, and monsters crafted by misery—and then it stopped.
On us.
On me.
My throat constricted, as if unseen hands tightened around it.
“But even in the depths of hell,” Severen continued, “there remains opportunity. The chance to rise above the filth of what you are—to become something greater than the vermin the world made you.”
A murmur stirred through the prisoners.
Hope.
Could this be it? Could there truly be a way out?
“The Shadow Lord Trials,” Severen said, his voice carrying through the amphitheater, reverberating against the stone. “They are not a myth. They are real. And they are your only path to freedom.”
Somewhere among the prisoners, a voice broke the silence.
“What… what is a Shadow Lord?”
