44
DARKNESS FORGED
ELYRIA
Time shattered around Elyria,each fractured second dragging out longer than the last.
She could see it—could feel it. The water swirling around Cedric, his body thrashing inside the orb. His mouth was pinned open in a silent scream, his hands scrambling at his throat, searching for breath that wouldn’t come.
Elyria’s pulse raced, a scream building in her chest, thoughts spiraling, panic gripping her mind.
This can’t be happening again.
Not him.
Not like this.
“Evander, stop!” She beat against his shoulder, hischest, his back. He paid her no notice, like he didn’t feel the strike of her fists or hear the screams tearing from her throat. Even as the decayed strips of his tattered wings sheared off and floated to the floor, he simply stared at the knight he was drowning, a placid smile on his vein-stricken face.
Movement stirred in both corners of Elyria’s vision. Thraigg was getting to his feet, his face still twisted in pain as he lumbered toward the floating sphere, broken arm clutched close to his chest. Dark blood stained the floor where Nox tried to rise as well. Zephyr let out a small whimper, pulling her limbs in toward herself.
All three of them were moving—against pain, against exhaustion, against defeat—drawn by Cedric’s suffering.
Suffering that, injured as they all were, Elyria knew only she could end.
Do something.
Her hands trembled. Or was that the ground—the very Sanctum—shaking? A familiar darkness whispered in her gut, her shadows leaking out and trailing over her skin with the softest caress. Heart pounding, she shifted her gaze back to Evander. His black eyes glittered with amusement, like he was savoring watching the life drain from Cedric.
He is gone. The thought pierced Elyria’s panic, a truth that cut deeper than any blade. She didn’t mean Cedric, who still clung to life within his watery prison.Evanderwas gone. This creature, this corrupted shell of a man, was not him.
Or at least, this is not what he would have wanted to become.
The thought was as clarifying as it was painful—the sharp sting of a slap rousing one from slumber. She would try to remember him as the man she knew before all this. Before the Crucible and Varyth Malchior robbed the world of Evander’s true light.
Do it now.
Her body moved almost on instinct, hands rising, shadows curling from her fingertips like smoke.
Like he could sense the magic, Evander whirled on her, eyes thin as slits. “Put those away, Elyria,” he hissed. “What good are your shadows when I have my own now?”
Just as he’d done with his tideweaving magic before, he conjured a ribbon of shadow and let it dance between his fingers, weavingbetween each knuckle.
“Varyth granted me a seed of his magic—magic born of Malakar himself.” His mouth tipped up in a smug grin. “And I’ve had twenty-five long years to tend it, nurture it, let it grow. How long have you been controlling your shadows? A handful of days? We are not the same.”
His fingers jerked, barely a flex, and the ribbon of shadow lashed out, binding Elyria’s hands together, her palms touching as if in prayer. She released a frustrated, feral sound, and inside, her darkness reared back and roared.
“Now stay there and wait like a good girl,” Evander said, lips pursing. “This will all be over soon.”
Rage sparked up her spine. It was hard to see him through the churning water of the orb, but she knew Cedric was running out of time. She felt for that golden thread in her chest, alarm seizing her when she found it limp and listless.
“You’re right,” she said, grabbing hold of that thread with whatever mental power she could spare. She let a pulse of magic rise to the surface.
Evander peered at her, dark brow furrowing.
“We are not the same.”
Much like she’d done to Cedric when he was burning, her shadows wrapped around her, a dense blanket of mist.
