11
Dinner with the Weavers passed in a blur.
After discussing their notes about the trial and any updates on Noctis, Corruption, and the citadels—all which rushed past me like a torrential river—I quietly excused myself, quickly found the most unassuming exit, and started running.
“Run all you want,” the voice taunted. “It will not change what is already inside of you. What is waiting to come out.”
“Get out of my head!” I half shrieked, half gasped.
“Where else would I go?” the voice prodded. “I am already everywhere.”
“You are nowhere. You are nothing. Just a figment of my imagination,” I said with as much conviction as I could muster.
The voice gave a low, scornful laugh, clearly mocking me.
Branches reached for my arms, desperate to slow me down, but I ignored them all and kept pushing.
Faster. Faster. Faster. I was unraveling, and the Weavers would have no mercy.
They’d see only the darkness within me, not my merit.
It would undermine their fragile faith in Erebus’s leadership and every bold, courageous choice we’d made during the trials to ensure our dreamers’ safety.
If they knew I harbored a demon—or a wicked spirit, whatever it was—they’d never remain our allies. No, they’d turn on us.
Attack us, even.
And if that happened, there would never be an end to Corruption.
Shadows surged up, eager to protect me from the encroaching trees, but they were too late.
A sharp branch snagged my forearm, splitting the skin.
Darkness dripped from the cut, sliding down my arm before curling into the air like smoke.
I hissed in pain but kept running, avoiding both the dreamers’ quarters and training grounds.
I ran until I couldn’t run anymore.
Until my arm burned and cold tears streamed down my face.
The domain’s outer boundary was the blackened shore of the demon-infested Nocturne.
I could go no farther. I halted with an angry sob, wishing more than anything that I could dive beneath the sea’s dark waves and scrub it clean.
Scrub myself clean, too. It was evening, which meant the sky was a shade of deep, bruising plum and filled with millions of silver-bright stars.
Still, not even starlight was reflected in the inky waters.
The Nocturne was a rich, muted black; no light in, no light out.
I collapsed on the shoreline, scarcely feeling the damp sand as it soaked the dress I’d donned for dinner.
Had the Nocturne been fully functioning, the shoreline would have been beautiful: soft, pillowy sand and iridescent seashells of all shapes and sizes.
Instead, the ancient sea of dreams stretched before me in a taunting, nightmarish sweep.
My chest felt tight—too full. Too overwhelmed.
The fate of humanity rested on my shoulders. I was the Dream Realm’s final hope.
And if I failed to reclaim Citadel Evernight and destroy Raelion, all would be lost.
“There is another way,” the voice said. “I can give you the power you seek.”
When the voice first spoke to me, I didn’t assume it was malicious. I had even wondered if it might be the Maker guiding me. But now it felt vile, a sharp, jagged nail behind my ears.
“There isn’t another way. Be gone.”
“I have something you want,” the voice urged. It was fainter now, a dull ache instead of a roar.
I want nothing of yours, I thought back.
Maker, it felt as though the voice smiled.
“If you refuse to yield, Elliot and Erebus will be mine. Just like your parents. Just like Eden.”
You don’t know anything about me, I snapped.
“Oh, but I know everything.”
Tears stung my eyes as I clutched the sand, squeezing it tight between my fingers.
Being a Shadow Weaver was supposed to offer me protection against the dark, not beckon to it like a shining beacon.
The voice didn’t feel holy like the Maker, nor did it feel like an ordinary demon, either.
It felt familiar in a way that wasn’t quite placeable; a wicked, commanding presence that knew exactly how to speak to me in a way that I couldn’t ignore.
I wanted what it wanted. To be seen. Recognized. Heard.
To have more power.
More.
More.
“More,” echoed the voice.
“Get out!” I shrieked.
Shadows bloomed around me, exploding like a tempest. They didn’t know where to strike, so they struck everywhere.
The sand, the sky, my clothes, the Nocturne.
The voice chuckled darkly. And then, like a claw loosening from my mind, it was gone.
My fingers burrowed into the sand as I tried to steady myself.
The voice was gone but its touch lingered, pressing against the edges of my skull.
I shuddered, feeling the air around me turn colder.
Or perhaps it was the chill that came from within.
From that poisonous whisper that had twisted itself in my mind.
“Esmer.”
I gasped, jolting upright.
The sound of Erebus’s voice made my chest clench, but I didn’t turn around. I kept my gaze on the Nocturne’s surface, its darkness swallowing the starlight. The sea of dreams, now a void that mirrored the clawing emptiness within me.
He moved closer, his presence casting a deeper darkness around us.
“Are you running because of something that happened in the trial?” he asked. I could feel his gaze, intense and penetrating, as if he were peeling away my layers to reach the heart of my fear. “Or are you running from me?”
There was an honest, tender hurt in his voice. He thought I was afraid of him.
“Neither,” I whispered, raw and fraying. “It is you who should be running from me.”
“You know I would never run from you. You faced my darkness at its worst; I will face yours gladly.”
I glanced at him, catching the gleam of his silver eyes beneath a lock of his white hair. The air between us felt charged, like the calm before a storm. Poised. Alive.
I don’t deserve him.
He needed to know. He needed to know, but it would change everything.
“I’ve been hearing a voice,” I finally confessed.
His eyebrows drew together. “A voice?”
I curled inward, clenching my hands to my chest. Part of me had hoped the voice was just a dream—a harmful figment of my imagination. But today’s trial proved me wrong. The voice was a real and present danger, and I hated how much it twisted my heart, begging me to agree with it.
“Yes. And I think it’s Raelion.”
It pained me to admit the sin I’d been hiding for days.
But Erebus was unperturbed.
“The Dream Realm is rife with illusions. It could be your own fear twisting into the shape of something foul,” Erebus supplied, kneeling by me in the sand.
His gauntlets vanished from his hands, revealing strong, slender fingers that he used to examine my arm.
Shadows still flowed from my cut, drifting thickly into the air.
It hadn’t been so long ago that my shadowy blood first told me I was connected to the villain inside my head.
To the Shadow Bringer. “The more you listen, the louder it will get.”
“But it’s more than just an illusion. It knows things about me that no one else does.”
Erebus raised a brow. “No one else?”
“No one but you,” I clarified, heat rising to my temples despite the circumstances. “It spoke of my family—and of you. Of what it could do if I didn’t listen. It’s sentient, Erebus.”
The faintest hint of worry flickered in his eyes, though his face largely remained impassive.
“This voice, whatever it claims, is no god over you.” He leaned in, armor grazing my shoulder as he cradled my injured arm.
His voice was low, unwavering. “Esmer, there is nothing in this world or the next that will touch you without facing me first. No nightmare, no demon, no force in existence will ever claim you so long as I still breathe.”
“Erebus—”
A quiet cough broke the moment. Erebus and I turned together, instincts sharp.
Ceveon was leaning casually against a tree near the beach, amusement glittering in his green eyes. Sorren stood beside him, less amused and more quietly concerned.
“And to think it took me five hundred years before witnessing our prince of shadows waxing poetic,” Ceveon teased.
His tone was light, but there was a thread of relief beneath it, as though he’d been holding his breath.
“I truly hate to break up such a beautiful moment, but we needed to check on you two.”
Sorren nodded, expression wary as he noticed my injury. “You both bolted from the castle like demons were chasing you.”
“Not exactly subtle.” Ceveon pushed off from the tree, stepping closer. “I had to make quite the creative excuse for your graceless exit, by the way. The Weavers were perplexed but fortunately didn’t ask too many questions.”
They joined Erebus and me on the sand, stretching their legs and peering wistfully at the Nocturne.
Their obvious concern made me feel seen in a way I hadn’t known I needed.
I wasn’t alone in my fear; these three were here, willing to stand with me, even if they couldn’t truly understand the depths of what haunted me.
Still, I needed to try to make them see.
“Have either of you been hearing things lately?” I asked, desperate to believe that my darkness wasn’t mine alone to bear. “A voice that calls to you in your darkest moments?”
Sorren immediately nodded. “Of course. I’ve been haunted by a voice for centuries. It’s a rather miserable one, too.”
My stomach dropped.
If Sorren can hear the voice, too, that changes everything.
“We’ve all felt something strange,” Ceveon offered. “Whispers of doubt. Sometimes I think that’s how the darkness finds its way in. Through the cracks it senses in us.”
“You’re both so unbothered by it,” I noted, drawing further within myself. I truly didn’t understand how they both exuded such confidence. The voice I’d been hearing, the voice that felt as though it could be Raelion, was terrifying. Was I just weak? “How are you not scared?”