The rich, fertile earth of the Riverian Jungle is thinning. Birdsong and low-hanging vines have given way to nothingness. To the space between the edge of the jungle and the beginning of the curse.
The Decay is close—I can feel it. The same feeling that hums through the air right before lightning severs the skies.A charge.
I know it in the same way I know the feel of a perfectly weighted blade—precisely.
Therion’s clenched fist shoots into the air, signaling us to stop. The group responds instantly—tightening the reins, palming weapons in an instant. The horses blow hard through flared nostrils, stamping at the ground at the swift change in energy, but Nyx is steady under me.
Cresting the ridge, The Decay appears in the distance—a wall of shadow that swallows the horizon, blotting out what little light bleeds through the clouds that plague The Wastes.It’s not still. The darkness churns, roils, climbs itself in slow, soundless waves, as though some vast, unseen ocean presses against it from the other side. I’d once thought The Decay was a land you entered and left. I’d been wrong. It’s a living thing you approach, and it watches you come closer.Waiting.
If we stay too long, The Decay knows—it senses our presence, blocking entry, closing channels, or worse; signaling Maldrak. We often find Maldrak’s Marked men waiting through The Decay—we’ve been ambushed more times than I can count. Therion has grown attuned to the feel of them stirring on the other side—sensing, feeling, tasting the energy that no one else can see for any sign of their presence.
“Do we just… walk through like last time?” Seren whispers through the silence. “I’ve been wondering how The Decay actually works.”
“The Decay parts for the Crown—and those who serve it,” I explain. “It’s why Maldrak’s men can’t get out into true Zerynthian territory unless they travel by Gateway of Threads—they’re not in service to the true Crown.” I don’t need to say more. They all know.
Because the true Crown is me.
“So because we were helping you, it let us through?” Seren clarifies.
I nod.
“Well, that was a risky little game, wasn’t it?” Ronyn quips with his signature lop-sided grin. “What if we’d been the bad guys or something?”
“Then The Decay would’ve saved me a job of eliminating you myself,” I say simply.
Seren swallows audibly, and I know I’m being harsh.
“Helped us all trust ya, actually,” Daelen adds lightly, directing his words to Seren, and I’m grateful for the redirection. “We knew you had pure motives.”
Seren’s face sours. She pauses. Weighing her words. Finally, she bites, “At least someone did.”
I hear her, but my eyes are on Therion. He winces at her jab as if he’s been struck. “We need to keep moving—if it senses us here for much longer, it’ll block the pathway through,” Therion states coolly, brushing it off. But I saw it. I’ve been seeing it more and more.
The way he watches her. The way he softens his tone in her presence. Like she’s something breakable. Like she’shisto protect. But I see the way he’s conflicted, too. As if he’s betraying Taali, or breaking an oath. He’s spent ten years alone. He deserves to have this.
“Hold on, so The Decay is a sentient, moving shadow with a fucking mood?” Ronyn jibes, cleaving through my thoughts in a way only he can.
I huff a laugh. “Give or take a few details, yeah.”
Seren’s face relaxes at that. Something about Ronyn disarms everyone around him. He’s a pain in the ass, but if there’s one thing I know; he’s got a big heart for those he loves.
Jax urges her mare forward, riding past the group. “Sometimes volatile and temperamental can be fun in the right context, Ronyn,” she winks at him, biting her bottom lip seductively.
Ronyn’s eyes look as if they’re about to tumble unceremoniously out of his head, and I can’t stop the laugh that spills from me.
“Jaxxy, for fuck’s sake,” Merrik admonishes, rubbing the scruff of his beard, and somehow, the easy banter makes it feel like nothing’s changed between us all. But when I look around at the bonds forming, I know this truth like the burn of salt in an open wound: we’re each other’s weaknesses now. Because one blade at their throats, and I’d incinerate everything before me to save them.
“We enter here,” Therion states matter-of-factly, sensing a clear path through the rippling waves of shadow.
The others look unsettled, but here, in the chilling expanse of shadows, I feel at home. There’s a darkness that lives in all of us—a gnawing, sinister thing that waits for its moment, lurking behind the ribs. Most people spend their lives pretending it isn’t there, drowning it in light, praying it sleeps quietly, avoiding that which rouses it from its slumber. But not me. I’ve looked mine in the eye. Named it. Fed it. Invited it to sit at my table and drink deep.
It doesn’t frighten me.It sharpens me.
And mine? It’s not buried. It’s always sitting just beneath the surface. Because when the day comes that I look Maldrak in the eye, gods fucking help him—no weapon will stop the force of my wrath.
“I’ll go first—meet anything that awaits on the other side,” I announce, unsheathing my twin swords, not waiting for a reply before urging Nyx forward.
The waves of death crawl across my skin, crackling against my flesh like static. Like resonance.Like kin.
