Chapter 23 #4
“This is what he did with his sacrifices. He forced the flower down their throats. Watched them choke. Watched them melt—skin, bone, soul. Then he bottled what was left. Their ruin. Their agony. Their screams, sealed forever in glass.”
I clenched my fists until my nails cut flesh. Bile rose hot in my throat.
“He kept them,” I whispered. “Not as weapons. Not as tools. Trophies of the horror he made.”
I dragged a breath into my chest, trying to steady the shake in it.
“Amara,” I called, voice rough, hollow. “I found the flower.”
She turned from a shelf crowded with jars and came quickly to my side. Her eyes widened as I lifted the dome into the light.
Inside, the Noctyss unfurled, petals as black as void, veined in molten silver. It moved as if alive, folding and blooming in rhythm with some hidden, ancient pulse. The light it shed was ghostly, more absence than illumination.
Amara’s breath caught. Awe softened her bruises for an instant.
“It’s… beautiful,” she whispered.
My chest tightened. Beautiful. Yes. And lethal. The kind of beauty that begged to be worshiped before it destroyed you.
“I need you to brew it,” I said, forcing steadiness into my voice. “A strong tea—just a few petals. That will be enough.”
“I know how,” she said quickly. But then her eyes darkened. “But not here. I need to do this in my healer’s room.”
“No.” The word cracked from me like breaking stone. “It’s too dangerous to move it. Severen could return at any moment.”
She hesitated—then slowly lifted her hand and pointed upward.
I followed her gaze.
Above us, half-hidden behind the velvet canopy, a narrow shaft split the ceiling. The opening cut clean through the stone, its edges jagged, breathing out a cold draft that smelled of rot and old incense.
Her voice broke with anger and shame when she spoke.
“That’s how he caught me,” she whispered. “I was spying on him through the opening—from my healer’s room. After the guards took you and Salvatore away, I went back. I wanted to find my father’s tome and free him. So, I climbed down the passage and hid inside his chamber.”
Her throat tightened, her gaze falling to the stone floor.
“I thought if I searched long enough, I might find my father’s book,” she said, her voice low and shaking. “But then Severen found me. He chained me to his bed. When I defied him—when I fought him—that’s when he beat me.”
Her voice quavered, but she did not lower her eyes. She met my gaze, fierce through the tremor in her breath.
“Through that passage,” she said, pointing upward, “I can climb back and finish it where it’s safe.”
The shadows stirred beneath my skin, writhing like serpents waking in a pit. I clenched my fists until the veins darkened, the coils beneath my flesh burning with unrest.
“I said no, Amara,” I rasped. “It’s too dangerous.”
She stepped closer, trembling, but her chin stayed high.
“Lazarus,” she said, voice edged with fire. “Help me up. You keep searching for what else he’s hidden while I brew it. That’s how we end him.”
Her certainty cut through me like a blade. I looked again at the jagged hole above us, at the pulse of darkness clinging to its edges, as though the stone itself remembered her passage.
At last, I exhaled, low and ragged. I set my hands on her waist, steadying her.
“Very well,” I muttered. “But if anything happens—if I hear you cry out—”
“You’ll come,” she finished softly. Her hand brushed my cheek, the touch fleeting and fragile, carrying the warmth of life in this cold place. “I know.”
I nodded once. She gathered the glass dome to her chest with both hands, careful, reverent. My palms tightened at her waist; her body tensed, but she did not flinch. Her chin lifted, and for a heartbeat, the fear in her eyes gave way to defiance.
“Hold steady,” she whispered.
I bent my knees, grounding my feet against the blood-darkened stone, and lifted her upward.
Her grip tightened around the dome, her breath hot against my throat. The torn edge of her linen brushed my arm, rough, light, real. For a heartbeat, I felt her pulse thundering against mine—frantic, and human.
“Higher,” she urged, her voice unsteady but sure.
I raised her higher. My arms strained, the sinew pulling tight, heat flooding through me. The shadows inside stirred, whispering their pleasure—soft, serpentine, insidious. They savored the nearness, every breath between us charged, every brush of her body against mine a quiet devastation.
Amara reached upward. Dust rained down—bitter, dry—settling in her hair and across my shoulders like ash from a burned offering.
The flamelight caught her face as she pulled herself toward the jagged lip of the shaft, her expression caught between fear and resolve.
For that heartbeat, she looked unearthly—like something torn between the mortal and the divine.
“I’ll be quick,” she whispered.
Then she was gone—swallowed whole by the black above.
The silence that followed pressed like a shroud. Even the torches seemed to dim, their flames shrinking as if in reverence or fear.
I turned back to the hidden compartment. The vials within shimmered, silver and gold writhing through black, serpents trapped in glass. I pushed them aside, my hand brushing something leather and heavy.
I dragged it free and found a tome.
The same size and weight as mine—bound in black hide that pulsed beneath my touch. Heat spread through my palm, unnatural and rhythmic, as though it were breathing. Symbols gleamed across the cover, etched deep and uneven, as if burned there by flame.
Then I saw the words, branded so deep they seemed to bleed shadow—
Mistress of Shadows
And beneath it—Marianna Lorian.
My breath caught.
Salvatore’s mother.
Her Tome of Shadows.
Her prison.
The book pulsed in my palm—a weak, stuttering heartbeat fluttering beneath the leather. The air around it grew colder, dense with a silence that felt alive.
Then, a voice.
“Who is holding me?”
It filled my skull, brittle and quivering with centuries of torment. Not an echo—a cry. A plea.
“Lazarus,” I said, my voice flat, steady, though my chest felt carved hollow.
The pulse quickened.
“Please… give my son my book,” she whispered—Marianna Lorian, her voice fragile, breaking apart inside my head like shattered glass.
“Please, Lazarus. Give it to Salvatore. He will free me. I want to see him, feel him, hear him. I was stripped away from him the moment he was born. I was denied my child. Please… give my son my book.”
Her words cut through me like claws—not with pity, not with sorrow—but with something far crueler.
Rage.
I felt it rise inside me.
I thought of how all of this began.
The prison. The chains. The trials.
All of it—because of Salvatore.
Amara, too, was dragged into this hellhole because of him. She had been taken for helping me, beaten and bound in Severen’s den, made to bleed for a sin that was never hers.
None of this—none of it—would have happened if Salvatore had not done what he did.
Orin and Rian’s screams still echoed in my mind.
My mother’s body, pale and still.
Amara’s wrists were bruised from shackles.
The pit that tore me apart.
The shadows that hollowed me out.
All of it—because of him.
And now Marianna wanted me to give him this? A chance to hold her, to know her? To be reunited with the mother he never remembered.
No.
He didn’t deserve her.
He deserved to fester in the emptiness he left me in.
Just as he had taken everything from me, I would take this from him. Forever.
My jaw locked as I pressed Marianna’s tome to my chest. The leather pulsed, a weak heartbeat trembling beneath my palm. Inside, her voice quavered—desperate, pleading, endless.
“Lazarus, please—!”
“I will not,” I whispered. “He will never have you. He will never know you. He will be without you forever, just like he took my mother away from me.”
The shadows hissed with laughter, their pleasure curling through my blood like black fire.
I turned away, her cries fading to a ghost in my skull, but my decision held.
Salvatore would never be given the chance.
“Lazarus!”
Amara’s voice came through the chamber. I looked up sharply.
She appeared at the rim of the ceiling shaft, barefoot, her toes gripping the jagged stone as she lowered herself down. Dust cascaded through her hair. The dim torchlight caught her trembling arms, her torn garments, and the vessel clutched to her chest.
“Catch me,” she whispered.
I set the tome upon the slab and stepped beneath her, arms rising.
The air rushed between us as she fell. I caught her cleanly, her body colliding with mine in a breathless gasp.
Her bare feet grazed my legs before she curled into my hold, shaking, her breath warm against my neck.
For a heartbeat, I held her tight, as if the darkness might reach down and steal her away again.
Her face lifted to mine, streaked with ash and sweat, eyes bright and wild. She clutched the vessel tighter, swallowed, and whispered, “The brew is ready.”
I set her down gently, though my hands lingered longer than they should have. Then, taking the vessel, I placed it beside the slab. The shadows rippled beneath my skin, restless.
I reached for Marianna’s tome. The leather still pulsed dimly, like the slow rhythm of a dying heart.
“Take this,” I said, pressing it into her arms.
Amara looked down, confusion flickering into alarm as the warmth seeped through her hands. She stared at the black leather, at the sigils that seemed to shift and breathe beneath the surface.
Her voice came soft, almost disbelieving. “Lazarus… this is a Tome of Shadows.”
I said nothing.
Her eyes widened, fear and wonder tangling together. “Whose is it?” she asked, her breath catching. “How did you find it?”
Her fingers trembled as she traced the edge of the cover.
Her eyes flicked up to mine, wide and uncertain. “Lazarus—whose book is this? How did you find it?”
I met her gaze, my voice low, the truth heavier than iron.
“It’s Salvatore’s mother’s,” I said. “Marianna Lorian’s.”
Her face blanched. Shock hollowed her voice. “I had no idea… his mother was a Mistress of Shadows.”
“She was,” I said. “But right now, I need you to take it and get out of here as far as you can. Hide it where no one will ever find it.”
My tone came out harder than I meant—rough, almost desperate. She flinched slightly, but she didn’t let go.
Her lips parted, that familiar hesitation rippling through her. Torn between the need to trust me and the instinct to fight back. When she finally spoke, her voice cracked. “Lazarus…”
I stepped forward. My hands rose to cradle her face, my thumb brushing the dust from her cheek.
“No more words,” I whispered, my breath unsteady. “Just promise me. Promise you’ll leave now, while you still can.”
Her eyes glistened in the torchlight, her lips trembling with denial.
Before she could answer, I pulled her to me and kissed her—fierce, desperate, tasting of sweat, dust, and the shadows that would never let me go.
It was raw. Heavy. Possessive. A kiss born of fury and farewell, of the unbearable need to feel her alive against me one last time. Her lips quivered, then softened, yielding beneath mine. The taste of her hit like fire—salt, blood, breath, life.
The shadows inside me writhed, purring in ecstasy. My tattoos flared beneath my skin, the heat climbing my arms as though her touch itself was feeding them—feeding me. Every stroke of her lips dragged me deeper into hunger, into something darker than desire.
Her hands gripped my arms. Her breath caught against my mouth, a sound between surrender and fear. The taste of her deepened, as heady as wine.
The shadows whispered their pleasure in my mind, a fevered chorus.
“More. Take more.”
Her lips lingered against mine one last time, tasting of salt and smoke. When she pulled away, her tears caught the torchlight, streaking her face.
She didn’t look back as she turned, Marianna’s book pressed tight to her chest.
“Go,” I whispered after her, though my throat felt like it was closing.
Her footsteps faded into the corridor, swallowed by the Dreadhold’s endless dark.
I stood there for a moment longer, her taste burning on my lips, the shadows writhing in satisfaction. Then I turned to the table. The vessel sat sealed in cloth, steam curling from its rim.
I gripped it in both hands.
“This ends tonight,” I muttered, my voice rasping against the stone.
The shadows hissed their agreement—low, eager, slavering.
I left Severen’s chamber and stepped into the darkened corridor.
The torches along the walls burned low, their flames thin, as if even the fire recoiled from what I carried. The air was heavy with smoke and the sour stench of old incense. My feet scraped against the stone, each step echoing through the passage.
The vessel pressed against my side, warm beneath the wrappings, the heat of the brew alive within.
Ahead lay the great hall, and Severen.
If Salvatore had done his part—if he had freed the prisoners—then the two of us would meet there before the night was through.
I prayed, though the words felt foreign in my mouth.
Prayed to gods that had long since turned their faces from this place.
Prayed that Salvatore had succeeded.
Because if he had not, the cries of the innocent would haunt these stones until the end of days.