My dreams were playing tricks on me.
The moon had shifted, revealing a hauntingly beautiful man with moon-white hair, bloodless skin, and eyes made alive by churning shadows. I couldn’t move, couldn’t so much as turn my head, but I could see him as clearly as I could see the embers of the legion’s dying fire.
The Shadow Bringer.
His movements were stiff and strange, as though he was uncomfortable in his own skin. And maybe he was. Where his skin was porcelain-smooth in the Realm, it was now marred by bruises and hollowing dips under his cheekbones. He looked awful—and more human—than ever. He flexed his pale fingers; dried blood still clung to his skin, and his ripped clothing was markedly darker in several places, smeared with what looked to be dirt, dust, and even more blood.
His? Someone else’s?
My eyes drifted shut. I was imagining him. He was not real.
He isn’t real.
Slowly, I began to feel the ground beneath my back, the wind pressing against my face, the leather cloak I had been wrapped in, and the feel of my hands clutched over my dress—
My hands were unbound .
I took a furtive glance around the camp, expecting the legionnaires to be awake and aware, but they remained silent and still, sprawled out atop their various bedrolls.
Too still.
Silas reclined near the half-dead fire. His eyes were closed, face unlined and unconcerned. I touched his neck, feeling for a pulse, and nearly jumped when I felt the steady thmp of his heartbeat. Not dead, but nearly.
My blood chilled. Where was the Shadow Bringer? Had that figure truly been him?
The tomb, watching over the sleeping camp like a yawning beast, stood open, a wound of black marking its entrance. Someone had moved the stone slab, leaving the entrance unguarded and bare. Strangely, I knew the Shadow Bringer would be inside. I could feel him, a breath of power amidst dust and rot.
A weight washed over me as I entered the tomb, a silent scream begging me to leave. But I couldn’t leave—not until I saw him.
When I found him, he was weeping.
The Shadow Bringer knelt at the bottom of a staircase by two skeletons, tears gleaming silver in the half-light of the tomb. Grief was familiar to me—it lived in the heart of Norhavellis. It lived in my Mother and Father after Eden’s death. It lived in Elliot, who had watched as his goat, a soft, gentle creature that he bottle-fed from birth, was dragged into the Visstill by creatures with white fangs and hateful red eyes.
This felt like a different kind of grief.
I paused at the top of the staircase, not wanting to intrude, but needing answers all the same. He had put the Light Legion to sleep again—had put them to sleep and wandered off to the Tomb of the Devourer as if he wanted me to find him.
And maybe he did.
The Demon Lord.
The Devourer.
The Shadow Bringer.
Who was the Bringer, really? A lord of demons? An immortal devourer of dreams?
Eden’s murderer?
In his current state, he looked no different than a weak, half-dead man who recently bathed in blood, sweat, and dirt. A man engulfed in sorrow and delusion. Moonlight filtered in from outside, casting the blackened walls in a strange, undulating light, and it made time feel strange. It felt as though I was walking in a dream—not stepping into a grave in the middle of the Visstill—and I moved forward carefully, slowly descending each step as the Bringer knelt over the bones at his feet.
I was halfway down the stairs when footsteps sounded from behind me. They were meandering and slow. Heavy in weight, as if their owner wanted to be heard.
Mithras .
He strolled into the tomb, unmasked, half-armored, his golden hair dull and dark in the shadows of the tomb. Still, his honeyed eyes glowed as if lit by some internal flame. The Bringer stood slowly and laid a hand on the tomb’s lower door. He took a deep breath, as if to prepare himself for something—as if to speak first. But his lips did not move.
“Esmer,” Mithras announced in greeting, his voice low and sinister. It sent shivers down my back. “Taking an evening stroll?”
I shifted uneasily. What was I doing here? Everyone else had been put to sleep by the Bringer, and yet I had followed him blindly into his tomb. The tomb that housed the creator of Corruption . Mithras may have had doubts about my allegiances before, but he’d see no excuses now.
“I thought I saw a legionnaire enter the tomb,” I explained lamely. “I wanted to assist, if help was needed. It seemed dangerous for them to go alone.”
“Such bravery,” Mithras drawled, looming over us at the top of the stairs. “And you would be capable of assisting my legionnaires? Destroying the dark should they need it?” He gestured toward my hands, which clearly held no weapons. “Quite impressive for a mere village girl. Your mother and father must have taught you well.”
Father had trained me in some things—tending animals, fixing fences. Basic archery and swordplay. Mother had, too. The proper way to heal cuts and bruises. How to read and start a fire. What oils to use in the finest—or most putrid, depending on what was available to us—perfumes. Which plants to season the barest of dishes. How to care for another. How to find the good in people, even when there appeared to be none.
How to hope for a better future despite the darkness surrounding us.
But neither my father nor mother had taught me how to deal with a situation like this.
“Oh, and the Shadow Bringer. A pleasure to see you in the flesh after so long.” Mithras directed his attention away from me, crossing his arms and widening his stance. “Did your guilt lead you to wake? Or was it the screams of every poor soul you’ve ever killed?”
The Shadow Bringer turned. He faced Mithras fully, meeting his gaze with eyes of molten silver. “Perhaps it was my guilt,” he finally answered, his tone matching Mithras’s. “Or perhaps it was my will to finally be free.”
“Then you are delusional. Do your delusions speak to you, or do they take the shape of a ghost? Perhaps they take the form of those two at your feet.” Mithras descended the stairs quickly despite the dark. I backpedaled, twisting to avoid him, but he caught up easily, slamming me against the stairwell by my wrists. “Eager to meet your fate, are you?” he hissed. “Then embrace it.”
I thrashed against him—wherever his hands touched, it burned . His skin was fire made physical, a flame with a body and a voice. My bones were melting, heating to a warm, pulpy liquid under his touch.
“You will regret hurting her,” the Bringer warned, voice like ice.
“I am a reasonable man,” Mithras said to me, ignoring the Bringer and clenching my wrists tighter. Heat was spreading, spiraling into my forearms; for a moment, his eyes flashed a rich, bloody red. “I was considering giving you my mercy—a chance to redeem yourself after the wicked display of your mother and father. But I have again found you consorting with the devil himself. A devil who calls ghosts his friends.” He let go then, causing me to tumble the rest of the way down. The Shadow Bringer rushed to meet me, ready to tend to my wrists, but the fire was only temporary—my bones were pain-free and whole. “You are wicked, Demon Lord. Or should I call you the Devourer, perhaps? I never know which name is preferable.”
“I am none of those things,” the Bringer said, unperturbed. His voice was frighteningly calm as he pulled me behind him. “Perhaps I once was. But I am no longer.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Mithras said. He drew a sword from his side, its blade long and cruel. “Your fate, as it will be for all eternity, remains the same.” The edge of his mouth tugged upwards. “Truly, some would call it miraculous that our paths crossed. You came close, Demon Lord. But the light will always damn you back to the hell you tried crawling from.”
Darkness crackled at the edge of my periphery.
“Had you planned to lure her here to take your place? A clever plan, but useless—had you your memory , you would not—”
The Bringer moved then, springing on Mithras in a blur of metal and rolling, swirling shadow. His blade of obsidian—likely drawn from his palm as he had done in the Realm—behaved strangely, interacting with the shadows as it cut through the ancient, stone-damp air. The dark was drawn to it, sparking across its surface in wild, random arcs. Mithras did not flinch. Instead, he leaned forward into the Bringer as he charged.
Their blades met in a hard, violent clang as silver met obsidian.
“You’re weak, Demon Lord,” Mithras spat, shoving the Bringer sideways with a forceful thrust of his blade. “Your shadows are nothing. You are nothing.”
“And you are no lord,” the Bringer growled. He parried, sending Mithras reeling toward the staircase.
“Then I will remind you.” Mithras drew his sword upward. Light spiraled down into the tomb, curling against its dark recesses and resting upon the skeletons, bathing their bones in a grey haze. “I am the Light Bringer. The chosen.” It settled brightly against Mithras’s blade, igniting it in a white glow. “As I will live in glory, you will rot in the shadows.”
One sidestep, a duck, a counter. An arcing, violent sideswipe. A lightning-fast parry.
Mithras and the Shadow Bringer fought with maneuvers so automatic and instinctive that each movement seemed part of a larger dance. And despite the strangeness, the impossibility of it all, Mithras didn’t cower from the Shadow Bringer’s shadows, even as they shifted to consume the Bringer as a second skin. It felt like a familiar fight—one waged before, somehow.
It was mesmerizing. A battle belonging to warriors of power and practice.
There was the Shadow Bringer, with his tattered black clothing, grey eyes the shade of a churning sea, and a face set in sharp angles. White hair tumbled down his pale neck, resting in loose, mangled curls. Then there was Mithras, the Lord of Light, with his immaculate armor and golden eyes that could condemn with a violent fire. Honey-hued hair framed strong features and a tanned jaw. They were foils to one another, it seemed.
Foils that wanted to kill each other.
At its heat, just as it seemed Mithras and the Bringer would fight for hours, too evenly matched for there to be a clear victory, a shadow slipped from the Bringer’s arm to my own. It sank into my skin, cool and soft, prodding away all memories of fire and hurt.
The Bringer glanced at me then, an eerie expression on his face.
He looked as though he were already dead. Hollow, gaping eyes. Ghostly skin marked with welts and gashes from Mithras’s blade. Cold, pale lips touched by blood leaking from his cheek. A walking corpse, a man half-alive.
I’m not sure how I knew, but I knew . He wanted me to help him.
He wants me to call on his power—like I did in the Realm.
And though we weren’t in the Realm, the Tomb of the Devourer bent the laws of reality itself. Here, shadow and light danced together, alive and singing. I could feel the shadows, the dark. They gathered around me, twining in a heavy cloak around my shoulders. They were there, roiling, powerful, and ready for my command. I didn’t know what I was doing—not even close —but I intuitively decided that I needed a weapon, a shield. Something to fend off Mithras. Something to allow the Bringer a chance to get the upper hand.
The Shadow Bringer.
Could I really side with the Bringer? Not the Light Bringer, but the Shadow Bringer ?
If I chose him, I wouldn’t be able to take it back.
And maybe it was the image of the Bringer, wretched and shaken as he knelt by the skeletons at his feet. The Bringer with his roaring shield of shadow as fire rained upon us. The Bringer, broken and alone, sleeping while demons gouged at his door. Or maybe it was that look he had given me. A look that was a simple, veiled plea for help.
I didn’t know for sure. I didn’t know anything. But a choice needed to be made.
The Bringer deflected another of Mithras’s wide, sweeping blows, ducking as he countered, and moved clockwise, forcing Mithras to stand with his back exposed to me.
I had to make a choice now .
Sinking into the power at my shoulders, I stepped back, balancing its weight as it grew in size. It flickered in and out of more physical forms, shifting back and forth between a thousand daggers, a kaleidoscope of broken glass, and billowing mist.
I grit my teeth against the pain. It was so heavy.
A sword. Change into a sword, a scythe.
The shadows twitched, flickering into a vague, sharp shape before fading back into mist. I groaned, shaking from the effort. The shadows weren’t listening. Why weren’t they listening?
Bind Mithras—rise and pin him against the wall.
Again the shadows twitched, gathering together as Mithras and the Bringer continued their battle. They pooled toward the floors, crept out toward the ceiling, but they disintegrated before it reached their target. I cursed quietly under my breath, attempting to summon them together once more. The Bringer looked at me again. Only this time, his eyes were not dead. They were not hollow or weak.
They rioted in the colors of a raging storm.
The Bringer ran my way, ducking as Mithras misjudged the weight and timing of his swing—his first mistake—and collapsed, taking my hand. His skin, typically covered in the Realm, felt cold and stiff, like it hadn’t experienced human touch in many, many years.
“What are you—” He drew my hand into his chest, resting it against the shredded cloth of his tunic. I felt it, then, what he was doing; my shadows teetered over my shoulders, rising to merge with his own. Night, shadow, darkness—they became one above us, tousling our hair and clothing in their swirling, churning wind. It lifted the curls from my neck, grazing skin that was damp with sweat. It mingled my sleeve with the ragged edge of the Bringer’s.
Mithras’s eyes widened at what he saw. He remained near the staircase, unwavering in his stance, but he did not approach us, either. “Look at you!” he began, shouting over the darkness storming above. “A perfect match.” He let loose a short, barking laugh. “And like the shadows you are, the nothing you are, you will both be burned away by the light. You think this gives you power, Lord of Demons?”
“He’s stalling,” I whispered, just loud enough for the Bringer to hear.
“You truly believe you’ll leave this place again?” Mithras continued, beckoning around him. His blade glowed in the same ethereal light that shone from his eyes. “This place of rot and ruin was made for you!”
“He’s—” I paused, looking, watching. Yes, I was certain of it. It was in the way Mithras edged closer to the stairs, keeping his shoulders open, ready, but not moving in for an attack. Mithras continued ranting, unaware. “He’s waiting for his legionnaires.”
The Bringer gave a growl of frustration and squeezed my hand tighter, drawing more shadows into the air. They loomed over us, both beautiful and terrifying.
As an answer, the Bringer roared, charging the mass of shadow into Mithras.
The shadows heaved against Mithras’s limbs, flinging him to the ground with a sickening crunch as skull slammed into stone. Mithras struggled to stand—he struggled desperately, fighting against a sea of darkness that sought to consume him whole. It forced him down regardless. Mithras raised his sword, parting some of the shadows as it rose, but the dark won. It coiled around its length and snapped the metal in two, suffocating its light in a short burst of fire.
We needed to leave—we needed to escape. Now .
I pulled the Shadow Bringer’s hand. “What are you waiting for?” I gasped out, failing to understand why he wasn’t moving. “Come on .”
He blinked, as if waking from a dream. But just as quickly as his eyes appeared lucid, they glazed over, dulling down into a dark, depthless nothing. “No,” he said, distantly, wretchedly, dropping my hand and moving to stand in front of the skeletons. “I shouldn’t have forced your hand. I need to stay here.”
“After all that—after all that —you’re going to stay here? Why?”
“I have no other choice,” he said simply, bowing over in pain. “This is my fate. Perhaps it has always been my fate.” He slammed a fist into the stone and leaned his head back, closing his eyes. “But it doesn’t have to be yours,” he rasped. “Leave. Go .”
I made a sound of pure frustration. He was right, but where did that leave me? The truth of what we had done finally settled in. I had attacked Mithras . Mithras, the holy Light Bringer.
“Maybe you can still maintain the dream from outside the tomb,” I suggested weakly.
“I can’t,” he said simply, gritting his teeth. “I want to, Esmer. But I can’t. Not like this. Now go. Leave me and be free.”
As if on cue, Mithras shouted for his legionnaires, for the Bringer to rot in Hell. He screamed that Elliot would die in the pits of Istralla. He screamed that he would burn us alive. His light had extinguished completely, shrouding the tomb in darkness once again.
I backed toward the stairs, still thinking—hoping— that the Bringer would follow.
He didn’t.
So I turned, cursing in frustration, and ran for my life.
