Utterly,completely alone.
Darkness descended once more, that endless void curling around her, surrounding her, enveloping her.
This is who you are, the darkness whispered in her ear.
This isn’t real,she tried to say back.
It’s who you’ve always been. A monster. A creature of vengeance. Darkness infinite.
“Get out of my head!” she screamed—in her mind, outside of it, the past bleeding into the present.
Elyria fell to her knees, head clutched in her bloody hands, shadows coiling tight around her torso. The images in her mind warped and melded together. Two hundred years of constant vigilance. Of doing everything—anything—she could to keep the darkness under control, keep it chained, keep it buried. Two centuries of fear over slipping, over what would happen if she ever let it out again.
Two centuries filled with regret and sorrow over the few times she did.
Hardly anyone knew. Not even Kit. There were whispers, to be sure. Rumors of what happened on the battlefield outside Castle Lumin. But that’s all they were. Elyria had kept the truth locked away—entombed so deep inside her that it only surfaced in her darkest moments. No, her weakest ones.
Except for him.
Evander had known. Had been there the first time she slipped. The first time since the Battle of Luminaria that shadows tore out of her, seeking blood and vengeance. It wasn’t a lapse born of malice; she knew that. It had been a reflex. A defense. The outpost where she was stationed was nearly overwhelmed, one of the remaining cells of Malakar’s cultists having infiltrated in the night. The chaos was unbearable—soldiers falling all around her, crystal arrows piercing wings, puncturing armor.
Elyria was already bloodied, weary after fighting to push the enemy back, to force them past the boundaries of the outpost so the wards could be reinforced. She couldn’t get them all out. And she’d been so busy battling another wave of cultists that she hadn’t noticed the singlesanguinagiadvancing on a trio of young soldiers—barelymore than recruits—who were scrambling to hold the line.
They didn’t stand a chance. She could see it in their eyes—couldfeeltheir terror as the blood mage stalked toward them, a glowing crystal sword materializing in his hands. Their fear, their desperation, their hopelessness. It cracked something inside her.
She felt the darkness claw its way to the surface. It whispered such sweet promises. She could save them. She could stop this. Stop it all. All she had to do was let go.
So, she did.
And when the darkness finally receded, when the shadows slithered back into the depths of her soul, there was nothing left.
Not of thesanguinagishe meant to stop.
Not of the young soldiers she meant to save.
She’d killed them all.
Evander found her afterward, huddled in a corner of the ruined courtyard. Shaking, frayed, broken.
He hadn’t flinched.
Hadn’t recoiled from the monster she was.
He’d held her close. Told her she wasn’t alone. That he would stay with her, would help her, wouldfixthis.
Elyria knew better. Knew there was no fixing this. There was no going back from what she’d done.
It didn’t stop Evander from trying. And twenty-five years ago, when he declared to Elyria and Kit and his mother and the entirety of the Ravenswing estate that he would be entering the Arcane Crucible to win the Crown of Concord—for glory and country, for their people—she knew.
She knew he was doing it for her.
Elyria’s breath hitched. It was her fault he’d entered the Crucible. Her fault he’d gotten tangled up in this mad quest for an unwinnable prize. Did the Crown of Concord even exist anymore? For all anyone knew, Daephinia could have shattered it into a thousand pieces. The prize at the end of this endless trial could be nothing more than a few fragments of power. Hardly worth dying over.
But that’s what Evander was. Dead.
Because of her.
Guilt weighed Elyria down. It crushed her, flattened her to the ground. The shadows curled closer, chains that tightened around her.
