29
Citadel Evernight was a nightmare.
Its lavish walls dripped with red smoke, and dreamers—no, demons disguised as dreamers—crowded its twisting halls like blood surging through the veins of a behemoth.
No longer were we in beautiful adornments of white and gold; everyone was now wearing various hues of bloodred crimson and rich, all-consuming black.
A quick glance at my hands told me I was dressed similarly.
Clawed black gloves tightened across my forearms, leading to a crimson dress with a plunging neckline.
A neckline that very clearly was designed to outline Raelion’s mark.
Cool air brushed against my back, startling me.
My back was open—bare.
“It suits you.” Raelion’s voice slithered through my mind, rancid as a dying snake. “Now, come to me.”
I winced, stumbling into a nearby Reveler. No—demon.
The woman’s pale blue eyes flashed red, clearly revolted that I’d stepped on her foot.
“Watch where you’re running, you wretched thing,” she said with a sneer. Bones unfurled from her spine, curling around her like the cocoon of some diseased caterpillar. Other demons looked like her: part human, part monster. “You must be a lower demon—so disgustingly similar to a human.”
One of her bones dug into my shoulder, pinning me in place against a wall.
“Perhaps I will use you as a footrest in my new manor. Would you like that, you clumsy rat?”
“I am not yours to take,” I snapped, growing furious. “Let me go.”
I grabbed the bone digging into my shoulder, intending to shove it aside.
But instead of pushing past her to find Erebus, Elliot, anyone, my limbs moved on their own.
My hand squeezed the bone so tightly that it fractured under my grip.
She shrieked, howling as if I had broken her arm, and continued to hiss as I slammed her into the ground.
Her riblike bones, protruding from her spine and flexing like skeletal fingers, cracked.
Raelion was the master behind the puppetry—the fire fueling my rage.
“Look at you,” I heard myself say. But it wasn’t me at all; it was Raelion behind my throat. Raelion using my breath, tongue, and teeth. “An insect struggling to crawl.”
The woman’s eyes widened. Saliva trickled down her chin, dribbling down to her crimson robes. “Lord Raelion,” she murmured in reverence. “I-I did not recognize you. F-forgive me, m-my lord.”
Other demons had stopped to watch the scene unfold. Some bowed, some nodded in reverence.
But none intervened.
I drew my sword from my palm, still under Raelion’s control, and pressed it to the woman’s throat.
“M-my lord, have mercy,” the woman begged, squirming under my blade. The crowd gasped, sneered, laughed. “I am yet not attuned to my human’s inferior body. Had I been in my true form, I would have sensed you.”
I felt my lips peel back. “You are not suitable for my new world,” I snarled. “You will return to the rot from whence you came.”
And then I severed her head from her body.
It rolled around, the demon’s long blond hair tangling in the others’ feet before fading into wisps of red-tinged smoke.
I dropped the sword with a clang; it folded quickly into shadows, merging with my arm once more.
My hands shook. My feet felt numb. Raelion’s laughter swirled around my mind, squeezing it in a vise. He had me under his control.
He has me under his control.
The sea of Revelers—all red-eyed demons wearing the bodies of their chosen humans—opened for me as I passed, dropping into low bows.
They recognized me for who I was. Who I held within my skin.
I wanted to be sick. Instead, I shoved the feeling down, using my newfound status to quickly ascend Evernight’s tunnels.
The top of Evernight had become a weeping wound, a distortion of the beautiful coliseum that was once tucked into its many spires.
The open-air arena was both magnificent and menacing—a space that breathed with malevolent purpose.
The edges were adorned with grotesque tapestries in shades of crimson and black, their woven images depicting scenes of torment and ecstasy.
Greenish flames floated like sickly ghosts, casting flickering shadows that danced to the rhythm of the haunting melody that filled the air.
The floor was black glass, polished to a mirror’s shine.
It reflected a violet-red sky churning with restless clouds, their underbellies lit by the smolder of an unseen inferno.
It was an unsettling illusion, as if one misstep could send a dancer tumbling into the void below.
At the center of the arena, a raised platform of red stone jutted from the floor.
Its surface was slick as though wet with blood.
It glistened sickeningly under the baleful green light.
The atmosphere carried a sharp, metallic tang, the unmistakable scent of iron mingling with the acrid bite of sulfur.
Everything about the space seemed both to beckon and threaten—a siren song of wicked beauty and complete destruction.
Seven thick chains surrounded the platform, each encasing a Weaver.
They floated weakly above the dais, eyes closed and unmoving.
Even Fenrir, usually so combative and strong, was a lifeless husk of his former self—cheeks sunken, lips gray, ruby-slippered feet dangling.
The crowd parted for me as I made my way to the dais.
To the two demons atop it. I had no plan. No strategy.
Just rage.
Mithras stood next to Silas—or rather, Raelion stood next to Estaroth.
Several horns jutted from Raelion’s scalp, and his mouth was twisted in a triumphant smile.
Even his eyes radiated triumph—glittering red jewels that burned with the fire of two suns.
He was dressed head to toe in crimson armor, and bony wings protruded from his back, the thin connective tissue swirling with the shadowy faces of screaming heads.
Estaroth wore similar armor, and twin horns protruded from his black hair, curling toward his ears.
Monsters.
Raelion’s eyes found mine through the chaos. My muscles tightened, spasming, and Raelion’s grasp left my skin like barbs being ripped from cloth.
“I wonder how you will use your last moments of freedom,” Raelion mused, his voice wrapping around my mind. “Will you scream? Cry? Perhaps you will beg.”
I stormed toward them both, unsheathing my sword again when they fixed their smiles on me.
The closer I got, the more horror unfolded.
Two chains were laid out upon the platform, chains I hadn’t noticed before.
Two figures lay slumped awkwardly on the jagged stone, faces twisted in pain as their chains squeezed them tightly.
One was already unconscious—Elliot. The other was still awake—Erebus.
Monsters.
I halted just before the dais, shadows rising around my body in a thick, deadly sweep.
Erebus struggled to stand, but the chains dragged him down again.
Instantly, my shadows responded, lapping against his legs and coiling around his wrists.
Wondering, seeking, searching. Desperate to release him but unsure how.
But at once, Erebus’s eyes flashed red, bloody—and the shadows dropped away, no longer recognizing the man who stood before them.
“What did you do to them?” I demanded, scarcely recognizing the menace in my voice. “Elliot—Erebus!”
Elliot did not move. Erebus merely gave a strange smile and tilted his head—a gesture that Raelion was mirroring perfectly. When Raelion’s clawed hand rose, so did Erebus’s. When Raelion bade him to kneel, he did.
“Welcome to the remaking of our world,” Raelion said grandly, widening his arms. At once, the Revelers—thousands of demons around the coliseum—sat, eagerly awaiting what would happen next.
“Once the second Shadow Weaver has taken the place of her brother, the ritual can begin. Nine Weavers and one god. Together, we will merge Noctis with the Dream Realm. Together, we will tear down the veil and take our rightful place upon mortal soil.”
The arena shivered. The sky blackened.
“Do you feel it, the fabric of your reality fraying at the edges? The dreams these wicked mortals sought to suppress slipped through the cracks of their fragile world—my whispers, burrowing deep into their hearts and minds.” Raelion’s voice was thunder, his eyes lightning.
I was frozen in place, unable to do anything but listen.
“For too long, this ‘veil’ has stood between the Dream Realm and the waking one, acting as a prison for beings of true power. Beings like us.” The crowd roared, snarled, shrieked in affirmation.
“But no prison lasts forever. Every thread has its weakness, and I have found it.”
Slowly, the chained Weavers began to float higher, forming a tentative circle around the arena, just as the glossy floor began to turn entirely transparent, revealing a well of demons—a well of thousands of demonic, monstrous bodies—roiling underneath our feet.
My stomach dropped. These monsters weren’t demons—these were people.
Citizens tucked inside the bodies of their monstrous hosts as their own bodies were overcome by the demons themselves.
Demons that were now standing around me, posing as citizens of Noctis.
“Soon, the Dream Realm and reality will become one. The walls that separate them will crumble, and the illusions of mortal safety will burn away. Oh, the chaos that will follow!” Raelion laughed, and so did the demons.
“Demons, creatures of nightmare and pure despair—the skies will bleed with our arrival, the rivers will run black with our Corruption.”
He peered down at the horrific well of broken souls beneath his feet.
“And you, mortals—what purpose will you serve? You who squirm and twist like worms, clinging to your Maker’s lies of dreams and salvation.
I have already severed you from His light and stripped you of His love.
What’s left for you is the Beyond.” Raelion turned his face toward the sky.
The clouds churned wider, faster—much more and I feared the coliseum would snap apart and crumble into the Nocturne.
“Do not mistake this for injustice,” Raelion continued, leveling his crimson gaze at me.
“No, this is perfectly just. Your Maker created a world of division and constraints. I will free it. Free us. And by the time the last bell tolls, there will be no more waking or sleeping—only an endless, perfect union of darkness and power. And I will reign over it all, the first and final sovereign of both realms.”
Gong.
The first bell vibrated through my bones, a sound more menacing and consuming than anything I’d ever heard. With it, Fenrir seized, body going rigid as fire poured from his eyes, nose, mouth, and hands.
Gong.
The second bell clattered my teeth. Nephthys straightened as if shocked by lightning, a river of blue water pouring from her exactly in the same way Fenrir’s fire poured from him. Eyes, nose, mouth, hands.
Gong.
Ceres was third. Vines, flowers, and earth shoved from her throat, from her hands. Cloyed around her eyes and nose.
Gong.
Lelantos was fourth; wind, rain, and lightning spiked from his body.
Gong.
By the fifth bell, I was viscerally sick. I couldn’t move, couldn’t think—not even as Somnus snapped straight, a torrent of bone-white light rushing from his limbs.
Gong.
Xander was sixth; from him burst spikes of iron.
Gong.
Theia was seventh. Despite her alliance with either Mithras or Raelion, she was equally as doomed as her fellow Weavers. Clear, crystalline light swirled from her pale lips, spewing into the sky in chaotic constellations.
Gong.
The eighth was Erebus. He rose at the center of the dais, eyes flashing from red to silver before shadows coursed from his powerful body.
They spun around his arms, his waist, his legs.
Searching for something to hurt. To kill.
But they eventually rose up to meet the other Weavers’ magic, creating a brilliant tapestry of power and glory.
Raelion and Estaroth roared in victory.
Elliot’s chains lifted from his limp body, darting toward me like snakes. They coiled around my ankles, bit hard against my wrists, and shoved me forward. Raelion stared down at me, mouth still lifted in that damnable smile. As if he’d won. As if he’d known the outcome all along.
He wrapped his claws around my throat, caressing it down the middle with the sharp tip of his thumb.
Any deeper and he’d surely draw blood, but I couldn’t feel it.
Instead, there was just his riotous power, sifting through my mind and trying to find a way to break it.
My mouth worked open and shut as my lips quivered.
It was all for nothing, then. It all—for nothing.
I sent a frantic plea to the Maker, a desperate prayer for mercy. But there was no answer. Only a faint, wavering ripple and the sudden onslaught of peace.
As if everything would be fine.
My eyes welled with tears. Nothing was ever going to be fine again. Hope was lost.
“Welcome to eternity,” Raelion declared, commanding the chains to squeeze me tighter.
I screamed as Raelion propelled me high into the air, sobbing as I came to rest shoulder to shoulder with Erebus.
His silver eyes were nothing but dark, roiling shadows, his mouth a riotous storm.
Shadows began to pour from me, too, tearing from my body in painful waves.
By the time they slid from my eyes, nose, and mouth, I was scarcely conscious.
We had lost.
We actually lost.
The well opened at the center of the arena, widening like the jaws of a monster, revealing at last the sounds and screams of thousands of agonized dreamers. Dreamers in demonic bodies—bodies they’d never be able to escape from.
“Let us out!” they shrieked. “Let us out!”
With the last of my strength, I focused on that well of dreamers and the pit opening up beneath them. The shadows parted just enough for me to see; it was a swath of endless dark and deep, howling misery.
The Beyond.
Just a glimpse of it made me recoil. My body screamed at me to run, to flee, to fly.
But if I could somehow use the darkness…
I managed to send a weak thread of shadow down that unfathomable hole, tethering it to the void that lurked at the bottom. For a moment, it seemed as though nothing was there. I had nothing to anchor myself to. Tears rolled down my face, streaming into my open mouth. It was too late.
Too late—
But then a faint, sluggish pull grabbed hold of my thread.
I couldn’t see what it was, but it was beyond the pit of darkness.
Or maybe it was somewhere within the pit of darkness.
Quickly, desperately, I willed my shadows to wrap around Erebus.
And then I followed the tug, letting my mind be gathered by its pull.
Raelion cocked his head.
He knew.
“You cannot run from me, you wretched—”
His words snapped away, ripping from my mind and growing dull in my ears.
And then the world went dark.