Chapter 22 #2
Aytara set her torch in a bracket near the entrance, the flame seeming dimmer here, as if the crystal devoured even light itself. "This is where it all began," she said. "Where the shadow magic was born."
I couldn't take my eyes off the crystal. It pulsed with a rhythm that matched my heartbeat, and with each pulse, the voices in my head grew stronger. My hands were shaking, and I realized I had taken another step toward it without conscious thought.
"Taveth." Tarshi's hand landed on my shoulder again, and I jerked back to awareness.
"It's calling to me," I said, my voice hoarse. "I can feel it pulling at something inside my chest."
"That's because it recognizes you," Aytara said grimly. "You carry a piece of it within you. All shadow mages do."
She moved to stand between me and the crystal, her expression grave.
"Thousands of years ago, our ancestors told of a rain of fire that fell from the skies.
Great burning stones that destroyed entire villages, ripped up forests, and crumbled mountains to dust. The impact was so great that darkness fell for weeks—ash and debris blocking out the sun.
Hundreds of settlements were wiped from existence. "
I forced myself to listen, though every fibre of my being wanted to push past her and reach for that beautiful, terrible thing.
"For centuries afterward, stories were told of the darkness that lay over these mountains.
The Talfen people avoided them, called them cursed.
Until the Empire came." Her voice hardened.
"War drove our people up into the heights, into lands we had sworn never to touch.
Within two generations, children were being born with abilities we had never seen before. Shadow magic."
Tarshi's grip on my shoulder tightened. "Something came with that rain of fire," he said, understanding dawning in his voice. "Something that doesn't belong to our world."
Aytara nodded. "The impact created this valley, but it brought more than just stone and metal. The rocks contained a strange material—one the Empire eventually discovered could be used to forge collars that enslaved and controlled dragon shifters."
"Is that what causes the shadow abilities?" Livia asked. "The metal?"
"That was my first theory," Aytara admitted. "I thought perhaps it was contamination from water that drained through the metal deposits. But then we found this." She gestured toward the crystal. "And we realized it was the true source."
Yes, the voices hissed. The source. The beginning and the end. Touch it. Take it. Make it yours.
I was moving again, my feet carrying me forward despite my mind's protests. The crystal seemed to grow larger as I approached, its dark fire swirling faster, more eagerly.
"Taveth, stop." Livia's hand slipped into mine, her fingers ice-cold against my burning skin. The contact helped, anchoring me to something real and warm and good.
But the pull was getting stronger. The crystal sang to me in a language older than words, promising power, promising an end to the constant battle in my head. All I had to do was reach out and take it.
"Why didn't you tell me about this?" I managed to ask, though my voice sounded strange and distant to my own ears. "All these years, why didn't you tell me what I was fighting?"
Aytara's face crumpled with something that might have been shame. "Only three Talfen elders know of this place. I'm breaking sacred laws by bringing you here."
"Then why?" Tarshi demanded. "Why now?"
She looked at Livia. "Because someone I care about came to me demanding a cure, demanding knowledge. She loves you fiercely, Taveth, and she made me realize that my silence was killing you as surely as the shadow magic itself."
The admission hit me like a physical blow. Livia had fought for me, had demanded answers when I had given up hope. The guilt that followed was almost worse than the crystal's pull.
"I didn't want to confess that I had lied to you all these years," Aytara continued, her voice heavy with regret. "Your father knew about the crystal. When you began to develop strong shadow magic, he came to me with the same desperation I see in Livia's eyes now."
My father. The madman locked in the deepest cells, the psychopath who had to be restrained and sedated daily to keep him from trying to kill anyone who came near him.
"He begged me to let him try," Aytara said. "I had a theory that the crystal might be used to draw the shadow magic out of those afflicted, perhaps even to negate the Empire's dragon collars. But I refused to let him attempt it. He was our most powerful mage, and we needed him."
But he tried anyway, I thought, pieces of a long-buried memory surfacing. I remember. I was called to help restrain him, to drag him down to the cells.
"He kept insisting," Aytara continued. "Said he couldn't watch his son suffer when there might be a way to help. Finally, I relented. I let him try to bend the crystal to his will."
"Did it work?" Tarshi asked, though I think we both already knew the answer.
"For a few moments, yes." Aytara's voice was barely a whisper. "Sayven managed to draw the darkness back through himself and into the crystal. He said he could feel everyone its taint had touched—every shadow mage across the mountains. For a heartbeat, I thought we had found our answer."
The crystal pulsed brighter, as if responding to the memory of my father's attempt. The black fire within it danced more violently, and I felt an answering surge of power in my own chest.
"But the crystal was too strong for one man," Aytara finished. "It’s evil completely absorbed him, turning him into the monster he is today."
Understanding crashed over me like an avalanche. My father—the man I had both feared and pitied, the cautionary tale of what shadow magic could do to a person—hadn't simply succumbed to madness. He had been consumed by the very force he had tried to defeat.
"You didn't tell me," I said, and my voice was getting harder to control. Shadows began to leak from my skin, responding to the fury building in my chest. "All these years, you let me think he had just... snapped. You never told me he was trying to save me."
"I didn't want you to repeat his mistake!" Aytara said, stepping back as the darkness around me intensified. "I couldn't bear to lose you the same way!"
She's afraid, the voices laughed. They're all afraid. Look how they cower from your power. You could take the crystal now. You could finish what your father started.
"I'm stronger than he was," I said, and I wasn't entirely sure if the words were mine or the shadows speaking through me. "I could succeed where he failed."
"No!" Aytara's voice cracked with emotion. "Taveth, please. You're not strong enough. No one is. I love you like my own son—I can't lose you too."
"You're going to lose me anyway," I snarled, the shadows pouring off me in waves now. "I'm already nearly gone. At least this way, I could choose how it ends. At least this way, I could try to save the others who suffer as I do."
The crystal called to me again, its song growing more insistent.
I could feel its alien intelligence brushing against my mind, welcoming me, promising me everything I had ever wanted.
Power to protect those I loved. An end to the constant battle for control.
Unity with the darkness that had always been part of me.
"Taveth, don't." Livia's voice seemed to come from very far away, though she stood right beside me. "Please, you don't know what it will do to you."
But I did know. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones, in the darkness that had lived in my soul since childhood. The crystal would complete me. It would end the constant war in my mind, the exhausting battle between who I was and what the shadows wanted me to become.
"I'm tired," I whispered, and the words came out broken. "I'm so tired of fighting. Of hurting people. Of being afraid of what I might do."
Yes, the voices urged. Take it. Take it and become what you were always meant to be.
I took a step forward, my hand reaching out toward the pulsing crystal. The voices in my head were screaming now, a chorus of hunger and need that drowned out everything else. The black fire within the crystal swirled faster, as if responding to my proximity.
"Taveth, no!" Livia's voice cut through the cacophony, sharp and desperate.
But I barely heard her. The crystal was singing to me in harmonics that resonated in my bones, promising relief from the constant war raging in my skull. All I had to do was touch it. All I had to do was accept what I had always been meant to become.
Tarshi moved towards me. "Brother, stop. Look at me. Look at me!"
I turned toward him, and the expression on his face made me freeze. It wasn't fear or anger—it was understanding. Through our twin bond, I could feel him experiencing an echo of what I was going through. The pull of the crystal, the whispers of the darkness, the terrible promise of power.
"I can feel it too," he said, his voice strained. "But this isn't the answer. You know it isn't."
Livia's hand was still in mine, her grip desperate and strong. And Tarshi's presence beside me was a steady anchor, his own pain at our father's fate echoing through our twin bond.
They were trying to hold me back, trying to keep me from the one thing that might actually end this nightmare. But they were also the only things standing between me and complete damnation.
The war in my mind raged on, sanity and madness locked in their eternal struggle. And in the centre of the chamber, the crystal waited patiently for me to make my choice.
Come to us, it whispered in a voice like breaking glass. Come home.
Tarshi stepped in front of me, breaking my gaze, and set his hands on my shoulders, holding me firmly.
My eyes locked onto his and the crushing pressure in my skull suddenly lessened, as if some of the weight had transferred elsewhere.
Through our connection, I felt the shadow magic flowing into him, sharing the burden that had been mine alone to bear.
Tarshi gasped, his face going pale as the alien darkness touched his mind for the first time. He staggered, nearly losing his footing, but his grip on my shoulders never wavered.
"Fight it," he gritted out, his voice shaking but determined. "Fight it, Taveth. Don't let it win."
The relief of not carrying the full weight alone allowed me to think clearly for the first time since we'd entered the chamber. I took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded, feeling my control slowly return.
No, I told the voices firmly. Not today.
I turned to Aytara, my jaw set with grim determination. "We need to leave. Now."
The crystal pulsed once more behind us, its song fading to a whisper of frustrated hunger. But I didn't look back. I couldn't afford to.
Not when I finally understood what my father had faced—and what choice I would ultimately have to make.