Chapter 6 #2
She raises an eyebrow. “Like teleporting?”
“Like travelling through the spaces between light. It is how my people move quickly across distances.” I gesture to the arena’s far end. “You are going to walk from here to there without crossing the space between.”
“That is impossible.”
“No. That is magic.” I summon shadows around my feet. “Watch.”
I step into them. The darkness swallows me.
For a heartbeat, I exist in the between-space, cold and silent and infinite.
There is no air there. No sound. Only pressure, direction, and the thin silver thread of my own will pulling me toward the place I intend to be.
Then I step out at the arena’s opposite end.
Morgana’s jaw drops. “That’s—how?—”
“Your turn.”
“I can’t?—”
“You can. You have shadow heritage. It is dormant but accessible.” I walk back to her the normal way. “You just need to trust the darkness to catch you.”
“Trust the darkness. Sure. That’s not ominous at all.”
“Morgana.”
“Fine.” She squares her shoulders, summoning her shadows. They come easier now, pooling around her feet like obedient dogs. “What do I do?”
“Step forward. As you move, pull the darkness up around you. Let it consume you.”
“And if I end up scattered across twelve dimensions?”
“You will not.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I will be with you.”
The words are out before I think them through.
“This is advanced. You are not doing it alone.”
Relief floods her expression. “Oh. Okay. That’s… okay.”
I move behind her again. The position is becoming dangerously familiar, as if my body has started remembering it before my mind agrees.
“When I count to three, step forward,” I say. “I will guide the shadows. You focus only on the destination.”
She nods. I feel it against my chest, a small, certain movement that should not feel as grounding as it does.
My hands settle on her waist.
She inhales sharply.
“The binding,” she starts.
“Will react. Ignore it.” My fingers tighten, just enough to anchor her, just enough to keep myself steady too. “One.”
Shadows rise around us. Mine and hers, slipping together until the boundary between them blurs.
“Two.”
She is shaking, not from fear, but from anticipation. The binding thrums between us like a living wire pulled too tight.
“Three.”
We step forward together.
The darkness takes us whole.
Shadow-walking with another person is intimate in ways I have never properly considered.
You cannot lead alone. You cannot drift.
Everything must align. Breath, heartbeat, intent.
A synchronization so complete it stops feeling like two bodies sharing space and starts feeling like something shared entirely.
With Morgana, it is overwhelming.
I feel everything.
Her fear spikes, sharp and immediate, then softens as she realizes she is not falling. Her awe unfurls slowly, like light trying to exist in a place that should not allow it. And beneath all of it, her trust, fragile and new, pressing toward me like a question she is not yet afraid to ask.
Her presence wraps around mine. Not merging, not consuming, but close enough that the distinction stops mattering.
We emerge at the far end of the arena.
She stumbles.
I catch her. Again.
This is becoming a habit I should correct.
“I did it,” she breathes, clinging to my arms as if the world is still deciding whether to hold her up. “We did it. That was…”
“Disorienting. You will adjust.”
“It was incredible.” She looks up at me, eyes bright in a way that feels too exposed. “Can we do it again?”
I should say no. I should end this now before?—
“Yes.”
The word leaves before I can stop it.
We shadow-walk seven more times.
Each crossing sharpens her. She steadies faster, breath evens sooner, fear loosens its grip until it is no longer the thing leading her through the dark.
By the eighth, she is laughing when we emerge.
It echoes through the arena, bright and unguarded, and something in my chest tightens in a way I do not immediately understand.
When was the last time I heard anything like that? Not forced. Not broken. Not careful.
When was the last time I caused it?
“Once more,” she says.
Not a request.
A decision.
“Please?”
The word lands differently.
The control I am trying to maintain fractures in a way I cannot name.
“Once more,” I agree.
We step into shadow again.
But this time, something shifts.
I feel it the moment we enter the between-space. A wrongness threading through my magic, deep and familiar in a way I have spent years trying not to acknowledge. The surrounding shadows tighten. Then twist. Not mine. Not entirely.
They turn hungry.
They wrap around Morgana’s throat.
Her eyes widen.
Fear detonates through the binding, raw and immediate, slamming into me hard enough that I almost lose the thread of control.
She is choking. I can feel it. Not just see it. Feel it.
For one impossible second, I am the thing hurting her.
“No.” My voice breaks. “No, no, no?—”
I rip us back.
The world snaps into place violently.
We hit the arena floor hard.
The shadows release her instantly, recoiling as if burned.
She gasps, coughing, hands flying to her throat.
I push myself back blindly. Away from her. Away from what just happened. My shadows are no longer contained. They writhe beneath my skin, visible now, black veins pressing against pale flesh, like something trying to push its way out.
“What was that?” Her voice is raw. Shaking. She stares at me as if she is trying to reconcile two versions of me that no longer match. “Your shadows just tried to kill me.”
“I am fine.” The lie is immediate. Automatic. It tastes like ash. “Training accident. Nothing more.”
“Bullshit.” She pushes herself up, unsteady but refusing to stay down. “I saw your eyes. They went black. Completely black. And your skin, Azrael, there is something wrong with you?—”
“I said I am fine.”
It comes out sharp. Too sharp.
She flinches.
I hate the way that feels.
The shadows are still fighting me. Still pushing. Still searching for a crack in whatever control I have left. The corruption is stronger now. Faster. The breach must have accelerated it.
I need distance. I need containment. I need darkness that is not this.
She moves.
Touches my arm.
It is barely anything. A brush of fingers against skin.
And the shadows recoil.
Not slowly. Not reluctantly.
They withdraw.
As if her touch burns them out of existence.
Nothing has made them retreat in years.
The pressure inside my chest shifts. The corruption pulls back, just for a moment, as if it has forgotten how to hold on.
Her hand is still there.
She is staring at it like she does not understand what she is seeing.
“What…” she whispers. “What just happened?”
“Kieran.”
I step away from her abruptly, breaking the contact as if it is dangerous.
“KIERAN.”
He appears within seconds.
Of course he does.
His gaze takes in everything at once. Morgana on the floor, still recovering. Me, barely holding myself together. The visible corruption under my skin. The aftermath of something that should not have happened.
He does not react outwardly. He never does.
But he understands.
“My lord,” he says carefully. “Perhaps you should?—”
“Status report. Now.” I cannot look at Morgana. Not yet. “The rifts. The courts. Anything.”
Kieran hesitates, then glances at her.
“She is bound to me,” I say sharply. “Speak.”
“Intelligence from Earth,” he says, his tone shifting into something more controlled. “The Storm Court and the Flame Court are aware of the rift. Both are demanding emergency council assembly.”
Morgana pushes herself to her feet. Slowly. Still unsteady.
“What does that mean?” she asks.
“It means politics,” I say. The shadows are still settling under my skin, restless but no longer breaking free. “And blame.”
Kieran continues, “The courts will want explanations. Reparations. Blood.”
“Whose blood?” she asks quietly.
I finally look at her.
And I do not soften it.
“Yours, most likely.”
Silence drops.
She goes pale.
“You broke the seal,” I continue. “To them, that makes you the easiest answer.”
Kieran speaks again, cutting through the tension. “There is more.”
I do not look away from her. “Say it.”
“A second issue has emerged. Someone is hunting mirror pieces on Earth. Someone who knows what they are. And where to find them.”
The world narrows. First the corruption, now this. Every wall I have built is failing at once.
Everything in me goes still.
“Who?” I ask.
And the word is not just a question.
It is a threat.
“Unknown. They hit a collector in Tokyo three days ago. Took a mirror fragment and killed two security guards. Human authorities think it’s organized crime.”
“But it’s not.”
“No, my lord. The method matches high-level Elemental work. Whoever it is, they are skilled. And they are moving fast.”
I am already calculating. Two pieces in New York. One in London. If this rival player reaches them before we do?—
“We leave now. All of us,” I say. “Forget waiting until morning. Open a portal to New York. Prepare a team.”
“My lord, Miss Bellamy is exhausted?—”
“I will be fine,” Morgana interrupts.
I look at her then. She is watching me with that sharp intelligence I both respect and dread, like she is already placing herself inside a situation she does not fully understand but refuses to step away from.
“If someone else is after the pieces,” she says, “we need to move. Right?”
“Right,” I say.
She nods once, already deciding. Then she turns to Kieran. “Give me ten minutes to change into something appropriate for New York.”
“Five minutes,” I correct. “We do not have ten.”
Her jaw tightens slightly. “Five minutes, Your Majesty.” The title lands with deliberate sarcasm.
She is gone before I can respond.
Kieran waits until her footsteps fade. Then, carefully, “My lord. The corruption?—”
“I know.”
“It is spreading faster. That was the worst episode I have seen.”
“I know.”
A pause.
“She repelled it,” he says quietly. “When she touched you. I saw it. The void-taint retreated from her.”
I say nothing.