Night settledheavy over the palace like a held breath.Trik stood before the Book of the Elves, hands braced on the carved table, as its pages breathed slow pulses of gold-shot in the darkness.The room tasted metallic—like old magic waking after too long asleep.The air vibrated against his skin.
The book wasn’t humming anymore.It was growling.
He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling sharply.Every hour Syndra and Tamsin remained silent, it gnawed deeper into his nerves.He could feel Cassie somewhere in the palace—hurt, angry, distant in a way that made his chest ache.Their brief clash through the bond earlier had been sharp enough to rattle him.Her rage had punched through all his defenses, startling him so badly the Book responded with a surge of shadow.
And now ...the darkness inside it was feeding on that fracture.
He hadn’t gone to her.Coward, a part of him whispered.
Before he could answer the thought, the chamber’s sconces flickered.A chill swept the room, stirring the pages of the ancient book.The magic stilled, then twisted, as if recognizing someone approaching.Then, a figure materialized in the doorway.
Tall.White hair bound loosely at the nape.Robes the color of deep forest moss.Eyes like ancient starlight.
Trik straightened.“Myrin.”
The elder gave a small, knowing smile.“You look as though you expected a ghost.”
“You appear like one,” Trik muttered, but the tightness in his chest eased a fraction.“I thought you’d retreated to the northern forests.”
“I did,” Myrin said, stepping fully inside.“But when the land trembles, the old roots whisper.And they’ve been whispering your name.”
He approached the table, gaze settling on the Book with something between reverence and caution.“You’ve awakened what should have slept.”
“Whatever it is, it awakened itself,” Trik snapped before he could soften the words.“Or something else woke it.”
Myrin hummed.“Darkness rarely wakes without invitation.”
Trik stiffened, jaw tightening.“I am not inviting anything.”
“Not intentionally,” Myrin allowed.“Whatever first woke it seems to have latched onto you.That could be for several reasons.Your fear of the darkness, your worry over the possibility of peace being broken, and even your distance from your mate, which the forest feels, in case you were wondering.These things can invite darkness in.”
Trik’s voice dropped to a near-growl.The only thing he could focus on was the words about Cassie.They felt like a knife in his chest.“I am keeping her safe.”
Myrin lifted a brow.“By shutting her out?Your mating with her, and the restoration of your power, transformed the entire realm, Trik.You have to know that any negative energy from the bond between you two will affect the realm.”
Trik turned away.He’d felt the way things had changed when they’d defeated Lorsan, and the dark and light elves had agreed to no longer battle each other but exist under his rule as one race.But he hadn’t considered that his and Cassie’s bonding would have further influence.The silence pressed thick around them, the Book’s pages shifting as if listening.
Myrin continued, gentler now.“The last time we spoke you were asking whether Cassie’s soul matched yours.You knew the answer, though you feared what it meant.But then you embraced it.Became completely committed to it.What has changed?”
Trik closed his eyes.“The Book.The magic.It’s pulling at the parts of me I hoped to never deal with again.”He dragged a hand over his face.“I can feel the dark elf magic in me clawing for space.I won’t risk her.Not while this—” he gestured to the book, “—is leaking that blackness.”
Myrin studied him, expression softening.“Darkness is not a curse, Triktapic.Light cannot shine without it.It’s how you handle it that matters and defines you.”
“It defined me once,” Trik said quietly.“Hell, it was my entire purpose.What greater darkness is there than taking the lives of others?At the order of a tyrant, no less.”
Myrin’s eyes warmed with memory.“I had hoped you would come to this realization on your own.That your memory would be restored when you relinquished your former choice and because of your proximity to the book.But it seems that the disruption in the link between you and Cassie is not just allowing the darkness to have too much influence over you, it is also keeping your memories from fully opening.So I will enlighten you.”He slipped his hands into the pockets of his robes as he looked at Trik.“Before you petitioned the Forest Lords to let you abdicate the throne, when the light and dark elves were basically at war with constant skirmishes, growing into larger battles, something emerged because of those battles.And that something was dangerous, or at least we believed it was.
“So we agreed they needed to be contained.We sealed them in a Chamber because you refused to let that darkness consume your people.It was the final act you made as king, and I think the thing that tipped the scales for you from light to dark.”He stepped closer.“I think whatever darkness you sealed away, some of it clung to you.That is why you slipped away into the dark elf identity that you bore for so long.Trik, the famed assassin.”
Trik’s breath stilled.Images, blurred until now, stabbed behind his eyes: a vast cavern split between blinding radiance and living shadow, power clashing like storms, and trees whispering as knowledge flooded him.The Chamber of Light and Dark.His heart slammed once, hard.
“There it is.”Myrin said as he no doubt saw the recognition hit.
Trik swayed as the memory uncoiled fully, centuries of forgetting falling away in an instant.The magic in the Book surged, a dark tide rolling through the chamber.
Something in the bond flared?—
Cassie.
