Page 242 of The Dark Lord’s Guide to Honeymooning (and Other Acts of Tyranny)

I knelt before her, ignoring the Shadow King’s smirk. My hands cupped her face, and I spoke not to the entity wearing her skin, but to the woman trapped beneath.

“You’re a fighter, Arabella. The fiercest I have ever known.” My thumbs traced her cheekbones, feeling the unnatural cold of her skin. “But I won’t ask you to fight a battle that will tear your mind to shreds. I will not watch you break.”

The Shadow King opened Arabella’s mouth to speak, but I wasn’t done.

“I will end this,” I promised, my voice rough with everything I couldn’t say. “I will find a way to save you. But I need you to trust me now, even when I’m taking away your choice. Again.”

Her gaze shifted to hold mine, and for just a heartbeat, I saw her. Really saw her. And in that moment, I gave her the words I should have said on the battlefield.

“I love you.”

Before the Shadow King could twist those words into mockery, I pressed my palms to Arabella’s temples and released everything I had left.

Not a jolt this time. Not a crude slam of power. This was deeper, more precise—a wave of dominion magic crafted to induce not just sleep, but complete stasis. A magical coma so profound that nothing could reach her, not even dreams.

The Shadow King snarled as I wrapped layer after layer of compulsion around Arabella’s consciousness. He fought me, but I had one advantage: This was my magic, my specialty. And I was fighting for her.

For a moment, I felt resistance—not from the Shadow King, but from Arabella herself. She was the only person who’d ever been able to resist my compulsion magic, and even now her will pushed back against mine. Not in panic or anger, but with deliberate, measured force. In that resistance, I understood what she’d been trying to tell me. She didn’t want to be used as a weapon against those she loved. Not against me, not against Griffin, not against anyone at Skyspire.

Then, like a tide retreating from shore, her resistance faded. She understood this was the only way. Her surrender was a choice—her last act of agency before the Shadow King could strip it away completely. I felt her acceptance like a brush of fingers against my mind, and knew with absolute certainty that beneath her sarcasm and fire, Arabella loved all of us at Skyspire, whether she would ever admit it aloud or not.

Arabella’s body went limp. I caught her before she could fall, cradling her against my chest. The malevolent light in the Heirloom dimmed to a sullen glow, like banked coals waiting to reignite. The Shadow King was still there—I could feel his presence—but he was trapped now. Blind, deaf, and mute.

She looked peaceful, finally. Like she was just sleeping.

The Alchemist exhaled slowly. “That was the correct choice. Painful, but correct.”

I sat holding Arabella. The lover in me wanted to stay here, to hold her until I found a solution. But that man was a luxury I couldn’t afford right now.

The Dark Lord had work to do.

I turned to Vex, who had returned during the chaos. “You’re in command of Skyspire. Full authority in my absence.”

Her eyes widened slightly. “Your absence?”

“Thorne guards this tower,” I continued, ignoring her question. “No one enters except the Alchemist. No one. If anyone other than the Alchemist tries, Thorne has permission to kill first and ask questions never.”

Vex put a hand on my arm. “Where are you going?”

I looked down at Arabella’s sleeping face, then back at my most trusted advisors. The answer was obvious, really. There was only one person who might know how to free the Shadow King. One person who had studied his prison, who had worked with Auremar to weaken it.

One person I should have hunted down and killed years ago.

“I’m going to find my mother.”

71 Face Your Nightmare

(to Doom the World)

Kazimir

The portal snapped shut behind me, leaving me standing before the gates of Sunspire Palace. Smoke rose from the eastern horizon where my army still fought—or more likely, stood around wondering where the hell their commander had gone. Once more, I’d left them just as victory was ours, but I couldn’t bring myself to care about it just now.

I recalled my shadow warriors with a thought that sent spikes of pain through my skull. One hundred tendrils of darkness raced back across the battlefield, abandoning their posts. The effort nearly dropped me to my knees. Without the Heirloom’s amplification, without Arabella’s power feeding into mine, I was just a man with some impressive bone carvings and a talent for dramatic entrances.

Well. That and a fragment of an ancient evil rattling around in my subconscious. But I had locked him away on the battlefield. My internal battle with him was won, and now Arabella was paying the price.

The palace gates hung open, one twisted off its hinges. Bodies littered the courtyard—guards, mages, a few of my own soldiers who’d pushed too far. The Golden Roses that had once climbed every wall were dead, their metallic petals scattered like coins across blood-soaked stone.