Breath clouded from my nose as I eased into the bed of my newly appointed room. Earlier, I hadn’t wanted to be near it—let alone actually touch the thing. The bed was a skeletal, flimsy monstrosity, draped with a blanket that resembled more cobweb than cloth.
Still, as I had found, a hard bed and thin blanket were better than lying on the ground.
Far, far better.
I learned that lesson quickly enough, finding that the crack at the bottom of my door was just large enough to watch slinking, shadowy things pass by. Things that paused at the door. Scratched at it. Whispered fragments of sentences in broken, hollow voices.
“Let…us…out ,” one had pleaded.
I hadn’t answered it.
Curling into the bed was also better than staring at a window filled with nothing but shadows or the nub of a candle melted down to its final dregs of wax. My room would be dark soon, and I had no means of giving it any light. It was this thought that made my chest clench, making it difficult to breathe.
How long has it been since he locked me in here?
I turned away from the door, shivering. The nameless man despised me—wanted me gone. He had made that clear enough when he nearly beheaded me, and he made it clearer still when he locked me up, stalked away to some other Maker-forsaken part of his castle, and chose not to return.
So why hadn’t I woken up?
“Let us out ,” hissed another demon at the door.
“Letusouttletusouttletusout. ”
The castle was a living nightmare.
Two days had passed, but I felt no hunger or thirst. My chilled skin had dried, and my wet, tattered dress had re-stitched itself. My ankle had healed at some point—though when, exactly, I didn’t remember—and it no longer burned. The candle had also restored itself. It sat by the window, its creamy wax tall and unblemished. The castle reset itself each night, arranging its innards back to the beginning of some unholy, endless cycle.
No hunger, no thirst, and no sense of time. No wonder he’s a raving lunatic.
I slumped against the wall—a cold slant of stone—and cursed every piece of the leaking, miserable room and the bastard that ruled over it. I cursed until my mind was raw and fraying.
“Let us out ,” a demon howled at the door.
“I can’t!” I screamed back.
I tried everything to escape. I called the shadow-filled power back to my palms, but it ignored me. I bargained with the demons in the hall, but they had no understanding of what I was asking. I tried sleeping, willing myself back into reality with every last shred of my soul, but I couldn’t focus, couldn’t think .
“Let us out ,” repeated the demon.
This castle was Hell. Not a living nightmare, but Hell .
I woke up slowly. The moisture in my eyes had dried overnight, leaving them sand-crusted and unfocused. I pressed my face into my palms and tried not to hyperventilate.
For some reason, I thought of Elliot and his blanket burrow. How he’d hide from the world and all its monsters under a heap of warm cotton and wool. How he’d tuck Chester the cow into the crook of his elbow, its tufted brown fur was always knotted, its button eyes polished bright.
No, no, no.
I willed my tears to stay where they were: in my head , not running rampant down my face. But they slipped away regardless, falling in long, meandering lines down my cold skin.
Curse it all.
After a time, I opened my eyes. I had no choice; images of Elliot, Chester, and home were on the insides of my eyelids. The images were comforting, but false. I looked around my room, noting the dim light, the dirty ground, the stuffed cow in the corner—
A stuffed cow slouched against the corner of my room, its bright button eyes staring upwards.
I nearly fell out of the bed.
“Chester,” I whispered. The stuffed cow’s name felt odd on my tongue. Gingerly, I picked it up, thumbing the knots in its fur. “What are you doing here?”
Other things appeared. A wooden kitchen chair, scuffed and peeling where Eden had painted flowers on it years ago. The bookshelf in my room. Our beds. A favorite linen dress, its cloth soft and practical despite its fraying edges. A plant-filled wall from Mother’s apothecary. The beamed ceiling from our living room. Our front door, its window bright with morning light. In seconds, my room doubled, tripled in size—unfurling and shifting. It was a creature growing into its second set of skin.
I circled the room in awe.
The more I saw, the more I felt, and the more I remembered. The space shifted with my thoughts, readjusting and rearranging its innards until it more closely resembled what I knew to be home. Gone was my room in the nameless man’s castle. This was home .
“Elliot?” I called. “Mother? Father?”
I ran from room to room, frantically searching—but my home was silent. It looked like home, but there was no one there to fill it.
Outside, I sank into the ground, scarcely feeling the whisper of grass upon my legs. The morning light pressed its warmth into my neck, birds soared overhead, woodsmoke mingled with pine and lilac bushes, trees swayed in the breeze—but it was still lacking. All of it, lacking .
Where is everyone?
At the familiar clinking of pointed boots and taloned gauntlets, I turned around.
There was the cause of my despair, descending the wooden steps of my family’s front porch. His white hair and dark clothing were a stark contrast against the vibrant color around him; he looked unfit to be in the middle of such an earthly setting.
I lurched to my feet. “How long did you plan to leave me to rot? Until I was so old and hateful that my hair turned white like yours?”
“What have you done?” he asked, ignoring my questions. Despite how odd he looked on my family’s property, his eyes were curious, lost on the earth, the trees, and the sky.
What have you done?
Memories of the last few days rose up, cold and terrible. I hated his castle. I hated him .
The ground suddenly cleaved apart at his feet, sending him sprawling face-first into the grass.
Did I do that?
I tensed, expecting him to rise in a fit of rage, but he merely rolled to his side, picked a wildflower, and spun it between clawed fingers.
“What you’ve accomplished goes against the laws of my castle.” He tore his eyes from the flower, dropping it. “How did you do it?”
I crossed my arms, frowning at the hint of genuine wonder in his question. “You’d need to set me free before I can answer that.”
“What makes you think I can—or would—free you? You’re clearly not an ally of my enemy. You know nothing.”
“I’ve been telling you as much from the beginning,” I snapped, exasperated. “You really are—” I stopped, noticing something misshapen and dark forming behind his back.
Wings.
Two wide, velvet-black wings unfurled from him in a burst of feather and shadow. He glanced at them, surprise briefly registering in his face, before taking a powerful leap into the sky. Within a few beats he had disappeared into the mist beyond the clearing, leaving gusting, swirling patterns in the air behind him.
“What in the Maker ,” I hissed.
As the wake he left ruffled my dress, every sensation sharpened. I could feel the prickliness of the grass beneath my feet, the cool spot of mud pressing into my heel, and the edge of a stone touching my toe. Small, life-like sensations. Memories.
After some time, he reappeared through the mist.
He fell from the sky, not pausing to catch his balance, and collapsed into the grass. He ripped off one of the metal gloves that armored his hands, shaking as he did so, and clutched at the ground with white-knuckled fingers.
It was more unsettling, perhaps, than when he considered beheading me.
“…little,” I heard him murmur. He placed his brow against the tangle of grass at his knees, pausing as if to draw in a deep breath, then rose to his knees again, still grasping the ground. “Your world is so little.”
“Of course my world is little. I don’t have much of a say in the matter,” I responded, eyeing him warily from where I sat. “My parents are Absolvers. We have a duty to the people of Norhavellis.”
“So this is truly all you know? A town—no, a village infested with ruin and rot. That is Norhavellis? And then five miles at most beyond that—an uneven perimeter around your home. That’s all?” He paused to look up at the sky, almost as if he was uncertain about saying anything else. But then, as quickly as he had descended into that strange pit of sorrow and contemplation, he shifted—jolted upright as if branded by fire. “There has to be more.” He stormed over to me, his lifeless eyes now burning. “Give me your arm.”
I made to move away, to scramble back across the porch into the house, but the edges of the clearing had blurred, melding into smeared pools of pastel. I stumbled to my feet, swaying as he grabbed me by the wrist.
Trees shook as the sky darkened.
Wind tangled my hair and hissed past my ears. Sparks caught the side of my face, falling like dust around us, and I looked on, numb, as my home erupted into flames. Shadows of people, donning the garb of the Light Legion, marched from the depths of the Visstill, eyes haunted and faces hollow. Others ringed the shadow-scorched edges of a burning pyre, looking down, looking empty, as they stared at the—
At the—
“They’re burning them,” I said slowly, tasting the foulness of both the words and the air heavy with the smell of fire. It was the burning of all things—grass, root, pine, hair, flesh—it was all there, burning, mingling. Wrong .
He tightened his grip, pulling me to him. “You can’t go to them. They will not see you.”
“But this is my home,” I protested. “I need to find Mother—” I twisted away from him, fury growing wild in my stomach. “Father—” I ripped free. “Elliot—” I stumbled into the clearing. Wave after wave of warm, fire-fed air pushed into me, drying my eyes and heating my lungs. My home was an inferno of flame and smoke, cracking and groaning so violently it was as though it were alive.
Dying, but alive .
The nearest legionnaire was tucked into the shadows of the Visstill, the golden metal of his breastplate charred and streaked with blood. He was gazing past me—eyes fixed on the pyre, the smoldering house, sparks exploding across the sky—and made to turn away, moving deeper into the trees.
“Stop!” I screamed, running toward the forest and clawing my way through the smoke that drifted between us. “Please—stop!” As I ran, darkness began to cloud the edges of my vision. “Stop! ” I screamed again, crying out so forcefully that my voice cracked.
The legionnaire paused, turning back toward the clearing—just as an explosion of red flame and dark, all-consuming smoke thundered behind us.
My home had collapsed into itself, releasing its innards to the earth.
I staggered sideways into the legionnaire, gasping, wild-eyed, and suffocating on both the smoke and my own panic. I should have fallen against the man’s metal front, but I fell through him instead, crashing to the ground as he walked forward and through me .
This isn’t happening.
I stumbled to my feet, lunged forward, and grasped for the legionnaire’s shoulder, only to pass through him in a wave of shadow.
This can’t be happening.
The nameless man broke free from the flame and smoke, ringed by shadow and wielding his sword. Soot marked his skin, curving from his eyes and wrapping around the hollows of his jaw. I expected the legionnaire to notice, but he continued walking, completely oblivious to the man’s powerful, inhuman presence.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know,” I answered, miserable and aching. “I can’t find them.”
I looked toward the pile of burning bodies. If they were burning the Corrupt, then would Mother, Father, Elliot—?
He interrupted before I could finish that thought. “No, not your family. Who caused this? This is a warped dream based on your current reality. There has to be someone at the root of it.”
The Light Bringer.
“Then Mithras, the Light Bringer. The Lord of Light.”
“Mithras?” he repeated, eyes flashing in recognition and revulsion. “He is no lord .”
Another explosion shook the ground around us, igniting the air in wood, stone, and debris.
And the fire rained down.
He threw up his arms, letting his blade fall to the earth, and from his hands he summoned a protective shadow that rose like a mountain and sank down like a storm-battered sea. It crashed upon us quickly, swallowing us before the fire hit. For a few silent, darkened moments, we were alone in the void, listening to the muffled crashing of my world—my burning, ravaged world—falling against it.
“We’re dead, aren’t we,” I finally managed. “We died in the fire, just as my family did.”
“No, not at all.” He looked past me, eyes cold, as if he could see past his wall of darkness. “What you saw was merely a half-truth, as most dreams are. It held parts of your reality, but not the whole. This isn’t real. Your family will be safe.”
I looked at the shadows, trying to see what he could see.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” he said simply, shaking his head.
“This is exactly what I left behind before I fell asleep and dreamed of you.” I cursed, a familiar rush of sorrow and fear ripping through me. Around us, the sea of shadow roared louder and louder. “They’re dead . They’re gone. I can feel it.”
Something snapped in me again, a familiar pulling of my ribs. Only this time, instead of connecting me to something past my reach, it connected directly to him . He turned toward me, brow furrowed and eyes wild. His hair had curled against the damp of his skin, melding with the soot that marred it. He looked positively beautiful—and monstrous.
“Again,” he asked, alarmed. “How are you able to call on my power? What are you?”
There was something in his tone that gave me pause.
“What are you ?” I echoed.
How had I not already realized it? The signs were all there, laid out before me in a horrible, ruinous pattern. He was more than a demon—more than a monster.
“Enough.” He held me by my shoulders, pinning me to a tree with a grip of iron. His sphere of shadow unfurled its hold around us, falling back and blanketing the scorched, ruined land around us.
“You’re the Shadow Bringer.”
It made sense. There were his powers—the way he could control darkness and make it bend to his will. Then there were the demons that lived with him, tormenting his castle with their screams. The tales had said his eyes would be red and body fiendish, but he possessed many features that made him cold and cruel nonetheless.
The man standing in front of me was the origin of the plague that ripped apart families, destroyed souls, and isolated humanity from dreams. And what did it mean that I could harness some of his power? Was I a monster, too?
“Enough ,” he repeated, the color fading from his skin, his eyes, his lips. “Please.”
He looked at me with wild desperation.
But I couldn’t stop. The shadows roared.
“Deny it!” I screamed. “Devil—demon—monster !”
His expression forfeited what his silence could not.
“You killed my sister! ”
Emptiness ripped at my stomach and cleaved my heart in two. It laid bare the space where I had a family who loved me and a home that protected me. Mother and Father, uncorrupted. Elliot, safe and without tears. A future and a hope for a better life. Without realizing it, my eyes closed. I was screaming, sobbing, begging—for what, I didn’t know. For this vision to be a lie. For the Shadow Bringer to end it all.
And the dark roared louder.
When the chaos settled, the shadows dropped, clinging to the ground like a low-lying fog and leaving the Shadow Bringer and I exposed in its center. To my disgust, he was still holding my shoulders, and I was unintentionally leaning into him, face pressed into his chest. A quick shove sent him sprawling; his shadows had drained him, scattering to the wind and skimming the grass instead of returning to his body.
The sensation of being watched—and not by the Shadow Bringer—snapped me to my senses.
Mithras, ringed by his Light Legion, was standing across from us, shoulders dark with ash and boots marred by the Shadow Bringer’s low-lying shadows. His eyes, golden and predatory, betrayed an expression of abject shock, and the legionnaires that had previously ignored us were now staring, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.
The Shadow Bringer, half-crumpled at my feet, cursed.
“You’re the Havenfall daughter. Esmer,” Mithras began, taking a step forward. Light threaded around his fingertips, dissipating some of the shadows that clung to him. “And who is the monster at your feet?”
The Shadow Bringer staggered upright. The fog began to move, darting around ankles and rising to meet his outstretched hands.
Mithras’s face paled. “You aren’t meant to be freed, yet.”
“It’s been a long time, Mithras,” said the Shadow Bringer, his shadows beginning to hiss. “Perhaps your death will finally give me peace.”
“You’ll never find peace,” Mithras spat, the color beginning to return to his skin. “Monsters like you aren’t worthy of it. You will be returned to your castle immediately.”
“Nonsense,” the Shadow Bringer said, smiling brilliantly. And in an instant, his shadows became serpents, grabbing legionnaires and yanking them to the ground. He laughed and the darkness rose, swallowing the rest of them.
“After them! ” Mithras shouted, but the majority of his followers were either incapacitated or drowning in the shadows.
I side-stepped a legionnaire that fell from the dark, blindly swiping a serpent from his throat, only to catch an elbow to the ribs from another. I bent over, gasping. Fire shot through my ribs, stinging my lungs as I tried to catch my breath.
It was here, in the midst of the fray and my pain, that Mithras found me.
He held his hands behind his back in a false show of civility, but his eyes were murderous. I stumbled backwards, nearly tripping over one of the Shadow Bringer’s serpents.
“Did you free the Shadow Bringer, Esmer?”
“Of course not. I was his prisoner,” I gritted out, wincing at another sharp wave of pain from my ribs. “Why were you burning my home? Where is my family?”
Mithras made a sound of disappointment. “As an Absolver daughter, you should know better than to question your Light Bringer. To burn is to purify. If their souls aren’t purified, they’ll be reborn in the Shadow Bringer’s castle as one of his demons.” He held himself very still. “But perhaps you are right to be afraid. You were found consorting with our kingdom’s greatest enemy, after all.” He raised a hand, light simmering, and I flinched. The shadows nearest to me mimicked the movement. Mithras cocked his head. “And manipulating the darkness yourself, no less.”
“I’m not manipulating anything,” I insisted, voice cracking. “My sister was killed by the Shadow Bringer. I’m not what he is.”
But Mithras was not swayed. His hands glowed bright, drawing nearer to me like flames on the pyre—and the shadows around me shot forward, slamming him to the ground.
Oh, hell.
Mithras rose, eyes glinting. Blood dripped from his mouth, staining the top of his armor. “It’s now becoming clear. Only the foulest of beasts can be held in the Shadow Bringer’s castle. Are you saying that is what you are, Esmer? I don’t think you were held captive, I think you sought him willingly .”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you. That wasn’t me .”
“I beg to differ,” Mithras snapped, making a point to raise his burning hands. To my horror the shadows flared up, sensing my alarm. They hovered by my waist, ready to strike. “You represent the worst of humanity. And to think I was ready to bestow mercy upon you.”
The light in his hands burned brighter and hotter, just as his eyes began to glow, aflame with unspent fury. His mouth curled up, showing blood-stained teeth. A predator’s smile before landing the killing blow. The shadows at my waist rose higher, breaking into several serpents of varying sizes. A small one clung to my wrist, strangely comforting in its weight. If I didn’t stare too closely, it reminded me of Elliot’s hand.
Mithras raised his fist and charged, sending a powerful blast of light at my head.
The shadows around me hissed, throwing themselves into the light, but they were instantly destroyed, shattering as soon as their bodies met the Light Bringer’s blinding flames. The serpent on my wrist tightened, yanking me down a second before the blast could touch me. I quickly rose, making to sprint toward the tree line, but the serpent pulled me back, almost as if it was tied to something—or someone—else.
The Shadow Bringer.
He looked as horrified as I felt, trying to flick the serpent from his wrist that tied us together like some unholy rope. It was clear he wanted to charge forward—at the Light Bringer—but I refused to let him. I had conflicting feelings about the Light Bringer and his legion, but that didn’t mean I wanted the Shadow Bringer to eviscerate them.
The Shadow Bringer and I grabbed the serpent-rope at the same time: I yanked left, he yanked right. He was glaring daggers at me, clearly distracted, but managed to send a blast of darkness at Mithras, sending him flying. Taking advantage of the momentary chaos, I hurled my weight toward the woods, desperate to break the bond that tied us. Unfortunately, the Bringer came with me, plummeting into my side. I kicked him, but the shadow only tightened, bringing us closer together.
“Why are you doing this?” the Shadow Bringer breathed, chest heaving. “He’s so close, Esmer. Let me go so I can have my revenge.”
It was the first time he’d said my name, and it ignited something strange in my chest.
Disgusting.
“To let you free would be to spit in the face of everything I stand for.” I tested the shadow again, but it didn’t budge. It sat tight on my wrist, looping up and around my forearm in the same manner it clung to the Shadow Bringer’s. “I wish for nothing but to see you die at the hands of the Light Bringer.”
Or me.
If I could kill Thomas without guilt, surely I could do it again. And wasn’t this what I always wanted?
“Do you want to share the same curse as I? Because that’s exactly what will happen if you don’t let me go. He will bind you to the dark like a monster.”
“He would never. You’re the monster, not me. This is just a misunderstanding.”
“You think so?” The silver in his eyes flashed. I had clearly struck a nerve. “Then know that your version of reality is built on lies and deceit.” His riotous gaze fell to his gauntlet-covered arms; he flexed them, anxious to be rid of the serpent, but it clung on. “But that doesn’t matter anymore—soon I’ll be rid of you. For good. Your Light Bringer wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The dark began to rush back to the Shadow Bringer, surging to his hands and under his skin. What was left rose behind us in a threatening tempest, filling half of the sky in a pit of starless night. The sudden influx of shadows left the clearing in front of us empty, void of anything but the Light Bringer, his legion, and—
The Corrupt from Norhavellis.
They stared at us in horror and recognition, clutching their necks and tripping over themselves to retreat. Some begged for mercy, others begged the Light Legion to kill us. Mithras pointed a deadly charge of light our way, screaming at the legionnaires to strike—just as the Shadow Bringer brought the tempest down, swallowing us all.
