My blood boils at the memory, cooling only when I look at Eira and the staff.My mouth curls into a wide, jagged smile.I am not their prisoner anymore—but I can still be their monster.
We press against one of the walls, searching for a way across the vast, exposed cobblestones.In the heart of the square stands a colossal figure of Solan.An imposing idol of gold and grandeur—a perfect depiction of deceit.The metal hums with a stolen power, golden motes dancing across its surface.
An orb, like a captured sun, glows from the tip of his staff.His other hand is raised, palm outstretched to the limitless expanse above.His face is a mask of divine will—a defined jaw and a chilling, blank stare that doesn’t just observe the people, but weighs on them in permanent, silent judgement.
He is striking.And he is frightening.
Kael looks at me, our gazes meeting.The thread of connection thrums beneath my skin.We have to go,I say down the thread.
He flinches, his jaw tensing at the intrusion, but he offers a curt nod.As one, we stumble into the square.But as we cross the threshold, the statue’s orb penetrates our shroud, acting like a strobe of light fixed on single point.
A voice cuts through the night.“Kael?”
A guard in gilded armour steps around his comrades.The metal plates glint under the orb’s light.Relief flashes across his face as he looks at Kael—then he looks at me.His features harden into stone.
“What in Solan’s name?—”
“Wait,” Kael says, stepping forward.“Listen to me.She’s not?—”
“You’re withher?After what shedid?”Daren’s blade clearing its scabbard is the only sound in the square.
The guards advance.Panic flares.My pendant burns.Shadows ripple at my feet before I can stop them.Kael turns, seeing the tendrils coiling like vipers around my ankles.His eyes go wide.“Seren, don’t?—”
The shadows uncoil and strike—a whipcrack of oily smoke and gnashing teeth.For a heartbeat, I think of pulling them back.Then the fear surges, sharp and absolute, and they answer.
Time slows.I watch the shadows engulf Daren, a fiery storm of blackness until he is buried beneath the mass.He struggles; his knife pokes through gaps in the dark, but the tendrils coil tighter.He shouts once—a sickening snap cracks into the night—and then, silence.
Daren’s blade clatters to the stone.
I don’t realise what I’ve done until the quiet comes.When the shadows withdraw, he is on the ground, his eyes open and unseeing.His skin bears no marks, but his limbs lie at all the wrong angles.
The other guards pause, their eyes widening.Without a word, they turn and run, unwilling to meet their god so soon.
The world stops.There is only the sound of Kael’s harsh, ragged breathing as he throws himself beside his best friend.His fingers tremble, hovering over a chest that no longer moves.
“I had to,” I whisper.
“You didn’t!”His voice is raw, tectonic.“You could have given me a chance!He would have listened!”
He would have ended us, child,Nyx’s whisper curls through my mind.He was too consumed by their lies to see the truth in the shadows.
With a gentle stroke of his friend’s hair, Kael closes his eyes in one slow motion.
“He was my friend.”Kael stands, his face a mask of grief and burgeoning fear.He waves a hand aimlessly at the body.“I thought you were better than this.This was…unnecessary.”
He turns from me, staring toward the voices rising in the distance.When he looks back, his grey eyes have hardened behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.His hair is dishevelled, falling across his brow.He stretches out his arm, offering his wrist like a sacrifice.I look down before our gazes meet, reaching for that bond between us.But all I can feel is the heaviness of a noose on the verge of snapping.
“Do your shadow thing,” he says.“And let us be gone.”
I grab him.The muscle in his jaw feathers at my touch.An icy shiver trails over both of us as the world dissolves.Shouts sound nearby, but we move as one entity.Above, the dawn begins to break, and the light looks colder than it ever has before.
38
KAEL
Daren’s body lies motionless behind me.
The same ocean-blue eyes that laughed across the tavern table only a few nights ago are now open and unseeing.I looked too long at his face, imprinting the scene into my mind so I never forget what became of my friend.
