Page 111 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

The ley lines appeared in my mind’s eye like rivers of sunlight, flowing beneath the surface of everything. The nexus directly below us was a massive confluence, streams of power converging from every direction. Most were thin like spider silk, but here, beneath the God Spire, they converged into a massive lake of raw magical potential. I could feel them all—threads stretching to Skyspire, to the Golden Rose Fields, to a thousand other places of power.

Through our shared bond, I felt Arabella’s consciousness alongside mine, her presence a warm, golden light in the darkness. Together, we traced the flow of energy, searching for the main artery that led toward Solandris, beneath the Eastern Sea.

A pulsing channel of power, thicker than the others, stretched away from the nexus toward the distant kingdom.

There, I thought, pouring my will into the working. Arabella’s power joined mine, bright where mine was dark, healing where mine sought to dominate. Together, we grasped that line.

Moving a ley line was like trying to redirect a river with your bare hands. It wanted to flow where it had always flowed, following grooves carved by centuries of use. But we were nothing if not stubborn. Inch by inch, we pulled. The line resisted, thrashing like a living thing. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I poured more power into the working, my runes screaming in protest.

And then—

It moved.

The ley line snapped away from its original path, curving back toward the Spire in a loop that bypassed the corrupted nexus entirely. The shift was so sudden I nearly lost my grip on the magic, but Arabella’s presence steadied me.

We did it.

I felt her elation, fierce and bright. The sheer headiness of it—the power we’d just wielded, the fundamental force we’d just altered—made my blood sing. This was what we were meant for. This was—

The magic curdled in my stomach.

One moment I was riding high on our success, the next I felt like I’d swallowed acid. Rage, sudden and inexplicable, flooded my system. Not the cold, calculated anger I typically wielded, but something primal and destructive.

MINE.

The thought wasn’t mine—or at least, it didn’t feel like mine. It carried an ancient weight, a possessiveness that went beyond mere territorial instinct. I clenched my jaw, forcing my expression to remain neutral even as my runes began to burn like brands. Arabella’s eyes found mine across the circle, a question in their depths. She’d felt the shift.

I gave her the slightest shake of my head. Not now.

The Alchemist was saying something about the successful separation, about how we’d bought ourselves time, but their words seemed to come from very far away.

The world tilted. The ley lines’ power still sang through my bones, and with it came something else—something that had been sleeping.

One moment I was standing in the ritual chamber, the next I was on a battlefield littered with the dead. The sky above was the color of old blood, and the air tasted of iron and ash.

I stood atop a mountain of corpses, shadow stretching around me. Below, armies fled in terror from my approach. This was before Soriven, before the golden rose, when I was whole and terrible and—

“Kazimir?”

Arabella’s voice snapped me back to the present. I blinked, finding myself still in the ritual chamber. Both she and the Alchemist were staring at me with concern.

“I’m fine,” I said automatically, though my hands were trembling slightly. “Just aftereffects from moving the ley line.”

But even as I spoke, more images flooded my mind. Not visions this time, but memories.

A woman with eyes like stars, carving runes into a child’s bones.

Skyspire, but different. Built with my power when the world knelt at my feet and I was—

The golden rose, burning against my essence. Soriven’s face, implacable as he spoke the binding. The prison weaving around me, then century after century of trying to break free—

I gasped and staggered back a step.

I remembered.

Not just the vision from the Heirloom chamber, but something deeper. Echoes of sensation that weren’t mine but felt intimately familiar—the weight of ancient armor, the taste of absolute dominion. And more. Strategies I’d never learned, rage at imprisonment I’d never suffered, the inexplicable certainty that I’d built Skyspire with my own hands centuries before I was born. The Shadow King wasn’t some ancient evil lurking in the ley lines beneath Solandris.

A piece of him lived inside me.