“Breathe with it,” Azfar murmured. “Match its pulse. You can’t rule what you refuse to join.”
Rakhal closed his eyes. The earth’s rhythm met his own; slow at first, then aligning. Shadows stirred under his skin, drawn to the sound. His heartbeat deepened, the world narrowing until all that existed was the dull thrum of life and death interwoven.
Azfar’s voice came from behind him, low and deliberate. “Now we build the walls.”
Rakhal inhaled slowly. In the darkness behind his eyes, a fortress began to take shape—walls of obsidian stone, corridors branching like veins.
“Each voice has a door,” Azfar said. “You do not banish the dead. You give them rooms. Otherwise they haunt the hall.”
They came as he spoke: whispers slithering through the cracks, familiar and heavy. His father’s reprimand, his brother’s laughter curdling into scorn, the dying pleas of men he’d cut down. Even the voices of the mages he had slain in the dungeon echoed faintly, soft as rot.
They pressed against the new walls, testing the seams.
Rakhal named them—each one—and with every name spoken aloud, the pressure eased. Recognition sealed the cracks better than defiance ever had.
Azfar circled him in silence, bare feet soundless on the wet soil. “Good. Denial feeds them. Naming starves them. They are memory, not masters.”
Rakhal opened his eyes. The glade had dimmed until the air looked bruised.
“Up,”Azfar said. “The walls stand. Now fill them.”
He handed Rakhal a shallow bowl of stream water that shimmered faintly with its own light. “This is your mirror. Don’t drink. Watch.”
Rakhal peered into the water. The surface darkened immediately, images forming and breaking—the faces of the dead, the flash of steel, Eliza’s eyes in the half-light.
Pain lanced through him. The shadow within mistook reflection for invitation. Blood pricked along the scars at his ribs, glowing briefly like embers beneath skin.
He bit back a growl. The first drop of blood fell into the soil. The earth drank it greedily.
Azfar’s voice barely stirred the air. “Good. The ground is hungrier than you. Let it take what you can’t keep.”
The soil darkened beneath him, a thin mist rising as it absorbed the offering. The smell of iron and rain filled the glade.
“Now,” Azfar said, “feed the shadow where it belongs.”
Rakhal sank his hands into the soil. The shadows moved up his arms, veins of molten smoke, throbbing with each heartbeat. He exhaled—and darkness slid downward, into the waiting ground.
It spread in tendrils, black roots winding through the dirt. The earth trembled, shuddering in relief. The forest dimmed, the very air holding its breath.
The release was exquisite. The pressure uncoiled, pleasure mingling with exhaustion. For an instant he could have drowned in it.
Azfar’s tone cut through sharply. “Enough. Don’t feed it greedily. The soil remembers taste.”
Rakhal forced himself still, chest heaving. Sweat cooled against his back.
He understood now why Azfar’s calm unnerved the warriors—it wasn’t peace. It was vigilance sharpened to a knife edge.
Power wanted to be spent. Shadow wanted to be worshipped. He could feel both waiting in the dark like wolves outside the fence.
Azfar crouched before him, expression unreadable. “The blood and the dark are married now. You can’t undo it. But you can choose what they serve.”
Rakhal’s voice was raw. “How?”
“By remembering that hunger isn’t need. They will whisper for war, for vengeance, for her. You feed them patience instead.”
Azfar rose, his eyes reflecting faint silver light. “You’ll train until the tether holds through fury. Until then, no battle.”
Rakhal pushed to his feet, swaying slightly. “Kardoc rallies the clans. If I stay here?—”
