“I will strip you of your Light,” she says, as the glow from her staff pushes deeper into his mind.His neck bends backward, his resistance faltering.“Until all that’s left is the darkness I grant you.”
She pushes the staff into his head until he topples, falling to the floor.
* * *
He doesn’t move.
The wind subsides.Silence follows—dense and immediate.
Seren’s bare heel digs into the dirt as she slowly turns, her gaze shifting to the acolytes spying from the rocks.Riven and his men lie like broken scraps on the ground.
The icy power at my fingertips slows, settling into a deep hum that charges my body.The blue light has faded to a soft afterglow, pulsing in sync with my beating heart.
Yara squints into the darkness, stumbling forward with her hand outstretched, searching blindly.Guided by her shadows and Eira’s presence, Seren steps forward to meet her.
“Where were we?”she drawls.
Despite her age and failing form, Yara moves quickly back to the mouth of the pool, muttering curses about Light’s last protest before the rebirth of shadow.Seren stands at her side, looking out at the glassy expanse of perfect black.The water lies dark and still—untouched, indifferent.Its stillness is unnerving; a perfect abyss captured in liquid form.
The drum of my heart beats wildly; an accelerando building to a frantic, unsustainable pace.My fingertips prickle, sending shards of frost skittering over my skin.Power grinds beneath my flesh, a gritty vibration like stone against stone.I watch Seren and Yara’s lips move, unable to parse any sound over the screaming in my ears.
Time passes.They nod a silent exchange.Yara raises the chalice and blue flame once more.Her words pierce the static rattling my skull.
“Earth to water, burn to light,
Mother rise and pierce the night.
Where darkness took what day forbade,
Return to us, in flesh remade.”
With the final word anchoring itself in the silence, the cavern's ceiling fractures with light.Violet lightning spiderwebs across the stone walls, as the crescent sigil sends jagged bolts downward to lap at the dark, glassy surface of the pool.The ground vibrates, dust doesn’t rain, it pours.
Every instinct in my body screams to close the distance.Panic overrides thought.I bolt for Seren, grabbing her wrist and hauling her back.
She fights against me, a curving smile coating her lips.What are you doing?she asks through the invisible tether.
Trying to keep you safe,I project.Even as the words form, I realise how utterly absurd they are.I let go of her wrist as heat flushes my cheeks.
She notices the flinch and cups a palm to my cheek.The mental link locks tight, joining our minds like two sides of the same coin.Warmth spreads from her—a collision of light and dark, meeting without resistance.A spark of unity that is both raw, and untapped with potential.
Her gaze is an invisible current pulling me deeper into the ring of violet.Her pupils dilate from the surge of power flowing between us, mirroring my own.She tilts her head, her mouth forming a genuine smile I’ve never seen.
After what you’ve seen, you should know it’s not safety I need.Her voice is a whisper of smoke in my thoughts.I can’t help but return the smile.
She drops her hand, my own heat rushing to fill the cold hollow of her absence.And as she does, something rises from the inky depths—silent, vast, and impossible to name.A ghost from the deep, piercing the glassy stillness.
50
SEREN
The thing that rises from the pool isn’t made of water.It’s sculpted from stone as black as a starless night, ancient silt clinging to its surface, glowing faintly with violet light.
Crescent sigils etched into the stone pulse with a heartbeat of its own as the structure ascends, silent and majestic, casting long shadows across the surface.
The rest of the world fades to a blur.Only my eyes remain in sharp focus as the well of gravity pulls me in.I should step back—but an invisible current holds me in its embrace, demanding more than my attention.Instead, I move forward, toes faltering on the edge as a cold, light pressure wraps around them; tiny icy fingers testing my balance, stroking my spine.
Something stirs in my stomach.Talons scrape the inside of my skull, clawing for release.Every breath feels borrowed; every heartbeat not mine.
