I hit the dirt hard, the breath punched from my lungs as I skidded across the alley outside the arena. The world tilted, my ears ringing. Smoke curled around me. My bones ached like they’d been cracked open.
Inside the wall—through the ragged hole—Vael stepped into view.
He didn’t rush. He didn’t need to.
Electricity crawled across his skin like living thread, lighting him from the inside. He looked like a god carved from lightning and shadow.
“Still think you can fight me?” he asked, voice calm. Mocking.
I forced myself up, coughing, blood warm in my mouth. My shadows swirled around me, black tendrils whipping through the smoke like they were ready to tear the sky apart.
I lifted my chin. Spat blood in the dirt.
“I don’t think I can fight you,” I said, voice shaking. “I know I can.”
The shadows met lightning mid-air—an explosion of darkness and light that cracked the sky like thunder. The sound was deafening. The force rippled outwards, slamming through the alley, shattering windows and splitting stone.
I ran straight into the chaos.
Vael’s shape blurred behind the storm, flickering in and out of focus as my shadows clawed at him. They shrieked like wounded animals, tearing into the static, hungry to rip him apart.
But his power wasn’t passive.
The lightning surged, forming a jagged spear that shot from his hand like a javelin. I barely dodged. The bolt scraped my ribs, tearing through cloth and searing flesh. I cried out, but I didn’t stop.
Icouldn’tstop.
“You’re still afraid of me,” he said, stepping through the fire and smoke like a god walking the wreckage of a dream.
“I’m not afraid,” I lied.
He raised a hand. Another arc of lightning cracked toward me—but this time, my shadowscaught it. They wrapped around the bolt like tendrils of night, devouring the energy, drinking it down like something sweet.
Vael faltered.
He hadn’t expected that.
Good.
“You’re not the little girl I raised,” he said, almost admiring. “You’ve grown teeth.”
“I’ve always had them,” I snapped. “You just weren’t looking,”
He moved fast—too fast. One moment he was distant, the next he was in front of me, hand closing around my throat. My shadows surged, but not in time.
“You never should’ve left me,” he whispered, voice dangerously soft. “We were supposed to end the world, Elira. Together.”
My fingers clawed at his arm. My power coiled at the edges of my vision, screaming for release.
“We still might,” I hissed.
Then I drove a shadow spike straight through his shoulder.
He roared, staggering back. The hold on my throat loosened and I dropped, coughing, shadows wrapping around me protectively.
This wasn’t just a battle.
It was a reckoning.
