The darkness thickened, black as pitch, swallowing every sound. Eliza felt it move past her, through her, into the very metal of the gates. Her heart pounded as the air seemed to fold in on itself. Then came a sound—soft, impossible—a low groan of iron shifting.
The gates were opening.
Rakhal stood still, head bowed, his eyes lost to shadow. The tendrils of darkness moved at his command, parting the chains, drawing the bolts, rolling the massive doors wide.
He didn't touch them. He didn't need to.
Eliza stared. The power that flowed from him was not the same as before. It wasn't just the shadow—it was something deeper, older, hungrier. A cold sweat broke over her skin, even as heat pooled low in her belly. Fear and desire tangled together until she couldn't separate them.
"What are you now?" she whispered.
He turned to her, and she saw the answer in his eyes. A prince. A weapon. A man half-claimed by the dark. And something else—something that burned for her with an intensity that made her breath catch.
"Alive," he said, and held out his hand. "And yours, if you'll have me."
She took it, fingers intertwining with his. The shadows curled around their joined hands like a promise. And together, they vanished into the night.
Chapter
Forty-Six
The city fell away behind them, its towers and burning spires swallowed by rain and smoke. Maidan's last light bled across the clouds like an open wound.
Rakhal pressed forward, relentless.
His stride was fluid, every movement precise and powerful. The veil of his power wrapped them both, muffling sound and blurring their outline into a shimmering ghost that slipped between scattered fires.
Wet stone and ash filled her lungs. The screams had faded, but horns still called through the storm—both warning and mourning.
Rakhal moved through the mud. When the ground grew uneven, he caught her without hesitation and lifted her into his arms.
The world tilted. Her body pressed against his: shoulder to chest, hip to thigh. The heat of him cut through the cold like a living flame. He didn't falter under her weight, didn't slow. His breathing stayed steady, deep and controlled, though she could feel the muscle in his jaw tighten every time the lightning flashed.
The shadows around them pulsed in rhythm with his heart. She could feel them, alive, whispering against her skin, trailing like fingers along her throat. The sensation was strange, intimate, almost unbearable.
She turned her face against his chest to breathe. His scent—smoke, rain, blood, something darker—filled her head. She could hear the low rumble of his voice when he muttered to himself, words she didn't know, shaped for the shadows.
Each time she moved, his grip tightened with her every movement, protective rather than possessive, yet the tension beneath his control remained unmistakable.
Whatever he'd become in that dungeon, whatever the shadows had done to him, it was inside him now: coiled, breathing. She could feel it.
The storm softened as they reached higher ground. He slowed, breath visible in the mist. The ridge opened before them—an endless sweep of plains drowned in fog. Maidan was a dim smear of orange light behind them.
Rakhal set her down carefully, his hands firm at her waist, lingering just a heartbeat too long.
Eliza steadied herself, pushing damp hair from her face. "What happened to you down there?" she asked quietly. "In the dungeons."
He didn't answer. His gaze was fixed on the horizon, the muscles in his shoulders taut beneath the soaked fabric.
When he spoke, his voice was rough, quiet. "Something woke."
She frowned. "What do you mean?"
He looked at her then, and she saw it: the faint glimmer beneath his skin, like shadowlight moving through his veins. His expression was calm, but there was nothing calm in his eyes.
"Something that remembers the old wars," he said. "The kind of power that doesn't forgive the living for surviving."
The words made her shiver despite the heat between them. She wanted to reach for him, but something in the air held her back: the hum of his magic, the wild edge in it.
