Chapter 18
The refugees kept coming. Wave after wave of broken humanity, their flesh marked by dragon-fire, their eyes hollow with trauma that went deeper than any physical wound.
I stood in the temple courtyard, watching Mira tend to a woman whose arms were wrapped in blood-soaked bandages, and felt something dark and hungry stir in my chest.
They deserved this pain. The thought came unbidden, sliding through my mind like oil. They were weak. Pathetic. They hadn't fought back when the dragons came. They had simply cowered and burned.
No. I clenched my fists, driving my nails into my palms until I drew blood. That wasn't me thinking. That was the thing inside me, the darkness that grew stronger every day, feeding on violence and rage until I could barely tell where I ended and it began.
"They hit Millbrook at dawn," the woman whispered, her voice distant and broken. "The children were still sleeping. The dragons... they were so beautiful. I thought they were there to help us."
Guilt crashed over me like a physical blow.
I should have been there. Should have done something, anything, to stop the slaughter.
But instead I had been here, safe in my tower, while innocent people burned.
The darkness whispered that it was because I was a coward, that I was no better than the Imperial riders who commanded those dragons.
You could have saved them, it hissed. If you weren't so weak, so afraid of your own power.
I turned and walked away before I could do something I'd regret.
The woman's pain, her grief—it was making the shadows restless, making them hunger for more suffering.
They wanted me to add to her agony, to show her what real power looked like.
The urge to reach out with shadow and simply. .. squeeze... was almost overwhelming.
The corridors of the temple felt too narrow, too confining.
My skin crawled with the need to destroy something, to release the pressure building in my skull.
Every face I passed looked weak, fragile, begging to be broken.
A young healer carrying supplies—how easy it would be to trip him, to watch the bottles shatter and cut his hands to ribbons.
An elderly woman praying at one of the shrines—a simple twist of shadow around her throat and she'd never have to worry about pain again.
Stop it, I told myself, but my own voice sounded foreign in my head, competing with the whispers that never ceased anymore. These are your people, and they need help. They're not your enemies.
But the darkness laughed, showing me images of what I could do to them. How their bones would sound when they snapped. How their blood would look spreading across the stone floor. How peaceful they'd be once I silenced their pathetic whimpering forever.
I made it to my chambers and slammed the door, pressing my back against it as if I could physically keep the madness out. But it was already inside me, had been growing there for weeks now, turning my thoughts into a battlefield where I was losing ground every day.
The room felt too small, too bright. I paced from wall to wall like a caged animal, my shadows writhing independently of my will. They wanted out. They wanted to hunt, to kill, to feed on terror and pain until nothing remained but beautiful, perfect silence.
Livia. The thought of her was like a lifeline thrown to a drowning man.
When she was near, the whispers quieted.
When she touched me, the darkness retreated just enough for me to remember who I was supposed to be.
I needed her. Needed her warmth, her light, her body pressed against mine until I could forget the monster I was becoming.
I sank down on the floor, bringing my knees up to my chest, holding my head in my arms, focusing only on pushing away the voices that seemed to consume me.
Hours passed, maybe minutes—time had lost all meaning.
The voices in my head grew louder, more insistent.
They showed me every way I had failed, every moment of weakness that had led to more innocent deaths.
The refugees in the courtyard weren't just victims of the Empire—they were victims of my cowardice, my inability to be the weapon this kingdom needed.
You know what you have to do, the darkness whispered. Stop playing at being human. Accept what you are. Embrace the power.
By the time Livia returned, I was barely holding on to sanity by a thread. She walked through the door looking exhausted, her clothes stained with blood and soot from tending to the wounded. Beautiful, compassionate, everything I wasn't. Everything I was going to destroy.
"Taveth?" she said softly, and even her voice made the shadows in the room respond, reaching toward her like hungry fingers.
I needed her. Needed to bury myself in her until the voices stopped, until I could remember what it felt like to be human instead of this hollow shell filled with rage and darkness. She was the only thing that could save me, the only anchor I had left.
"I need you," I said, my voice coming out rougher than I intended. "Now."
She looked at me—really looked—and I saw the exact moment she recognized what was happening.
The fear that flickered across her face should have stopped me, should have made me back away and fight harder against the darkness.
Instead, it fed the monster inside me. She was afraid of me, as she should be. As everyone should be.
I rose from the floor, my movements predatory even as I tried to fight them. She backed toward the door, her hand moving instinctively to the dagger at her hip, and that small gesture of self-preservation sent fire through my veins.
"Don't," I said, my voice carrying harmonics that made the shadows dance. "Don't run from me."
"Taveth, you need to calm down," she said, her voice steady despite the fear in her eyes. "The refugees, the attack—I know it's affecting you, but—"
"Affecting me?" The laugh that escaped me sounded nothing like my own. "They're dying because I'm not strong enough. Because I keep pretending to be something I'm not."
I could see her calculating, weighing her options. The door was behind her, but I could reach it with shadows faster than she could move. The window was too high, too narrow. She was trapped, and we both knew it.
"You're strong enough," she said, taking a careful step forward instead of back. "You saved us in the mountains. You—"
"I tortured them." The memory sent a thrill through me that I hated myself for feeling. "I broke every bone in their bodies while they screamed. And I enjoyed it."
Her face paled, but she didn't retreat. Instead, she moved closer, her hands raised peacefully. "That wasn't you. That was the shadow madness. You can fight it."
“I am,” I said calmly as I moved towards her. “I just need to feel like me again.”
“How can I help you?” she asked.
“Take off your clothes,” I said, running my tongue over my lips as my gaze focused on where her robes skimmed over her hips. “Or lift your skirts and bend over the bed. Now.”
"No," she said, her voice calm but firm. "Not like this."
The refusal hit me like a slap. She was my mate. Mine. The bond between us gave me certain rights, certain claims on her body that she couldn't simply deny. The darkness seized on my anger, amplifying it until it became a roaring inferno in my skull.
"You're my mate," I snarled, taking a step toward her. "You don't get to refuse me."
Even as I said it, some small part of me recoiled in horror. This wasn't who I wanted to be. Livia deserved better than this, deserved a mate who could love her without destroying her. But that voice was so small now, barely a whisper against the roar of rage that consumed everything else.
"I will not let you treat me like a vessel for your rage," she said, standing her ground even though I could smell her fear. "I am not your slave, Taveth. I won't let you use me to quiet the voices in your head."
Voices in my head. She knew. She could see what was happening to me, could see the madness eating me alive from the inside. For a moment, shame cut through the rage like a blade. I didn't want her to see me like this, didn't want her to know how far I'd fallen.
But then the darkness surged back, stronger than ever, and the shame transformed into fury.
How dare she judge me? How dare she act like she understood the burden I carried, the weight of all those deaths on my conscience?
She had no idea what it was like to feel the shadows whispering constantly, showing me increasingly creative ways to hurt the people around me.
The rage I had spent hours fighting to hold back exploded out of me with physical force.
My shadows lashed out like whips, destroying everything they touched.
The mirror shattered, sending glittering fragments across the floor.
Chairs reduced to splinters. Books torn apart, their pages floating through the air like snow.
The destruction felt good. Felt right. This was what I was meant for—not saving people, not playing hero, but breaking things.
The darkness purred with satisfaction, showing me how easy it would be to extend this destruction beyond furniture, beyond objects.
Livia was right there, soft and fragile and so easy to break. ..
"You will submit," I heard myself say, the words coming from some place deep and vicious inside me. "You will give me what I need."
She was on her knees now, driven down by the force of my rage through our bond.
I could feel her terror, her pain, and it only fed the hunger growing in my chest. This was power.
This was what I was capable of when I stopped pretending to be something I wasn't. I slid my hand into her hair, gripping tight and forcing her head back.
“Mine,” I roared. Defiance flashed in her eyes as she glared up at me.
“Not just yours,” she said.