Chapter 26 Lazarus #4
“If we succeed,” I said, “the traveler could stop the famine before it began. Strike down traitors before they open our gates. Forge alliances before they sour. Ugarit could live again. The people would sing your name.”
Salvatore tilted his head, the chains clinking softly, almost tenderly.
“And the tome chose me?” he asked, his voice slick, serpent-smooth.
“Yes,” I said. “The shadows chose you.”
He smiled, slow and poisonous.
“My, my. How flattering. I feel—”
“Don’t,” I snapped. “Don’t you fucking start.”
His laughter tore through the cavern, raw and harsh, echoing off the stone until it sounded like the earth itself was laughing with him.
“Still the same fire,” he said. “I must admit, it suits you, old friend. Seventy-five, and still cursing. Age has worn your face thin, but the anger remains.”
I stepped closer, the torchlight biting across his features. “And you,” I said, “have rotted behind your smirk. No amount of shadow-feeding can hide what you’ve become. Look at you—hair gone to white, skin to ash. Even your shadows are starving.”
“Careful,” he purred. “You sound like a man rehearsing mercy.”
I laughed once, short and bitter.
“Mercy died the night you did,” I said. “You murdered my mother. You killed Amara. You destroyed everything I built because you couldn’t bear to be second to anyone.”
The torch guttered in the damp air. Shadows crawled along the walls, restless and listening.
I took a slow step closer, letting the firelight cut across his face.
“Maybe I should leave you here,” I said. “Maybe I’ll find another—someone untainted, young, strong—and make him a Shadow Lord instead. Or perhaps I’ll break Severen’s tomb and let him take your place. The possibilities are endless.”
The smile slid from his mouth. The shadows around him tightened like coils.
“You wouldn’t dare.”
“I would,” I said. “And I’d sleep better for it.”
For a heartbeat, only the rattle of iron answered. The weight of my own mistake pressed through my ribs; I should never have come here, never have asked this thing for help.
I turned toward the stairs.
“Lazarus… wait.”
His voice was rough now, stripped of its old pride. “Don’t leave. I’ll help you. I’ll do it. We’ll make your traveler.”
I stopped at the first step, the torchlight shivering against the damp stone.
“If you make one fuck-up—one—I swear I’ll bind you to your own Tome of Shadows and throw it into the fire. The shadows will feed on your screams until nothing of you remains.”
He did not laugh this time. He only watched me, the hunger flickering behind his eyes. When he spoke again, his tone was quieter—not humbled, but calculated.
“And if I behave?”
I held his gaze, the answer forming as slowly as a wound reopening. For a moment, I considered leaving him in the dark, letting the city fall rather than trust him again—
I exhaled.
“Then I’ll give your Tome of Shadows back.”
The air seemed to vanish from the chamber. Even the shadows paused.
His eyes widened, and a tremor passed through his jaw before he hid it behind a thin smile.
“So that’s your bargain.”
“That’s my mercy,” I said.
He studied me for a long moment, the torchlight cutting across his face. Then he nodded once, slow, deliberate.
“Fine,” he whispered. “You have my word. I will obey you.”
I didn’t believe him, but I reached for the chains anyway.
The runes along the iron flared when my fingers touched them. One by one, the symbols dimmed, their light sinking back into the metal until the iron sighed and released its hold. The air thickened, hot and alive with the taste of salt and dust.
When the last link fell, he stood.
The ground trembled underfoot. The torchlight wavered.
And for the first time in fifteen years, Salvatore stood unbound—his smile small, hungry, and far too certain of the bargain he thought he’d won.
The shadows shuddered, tasting freedom for the first time in fifteen years.
I turned toward the stairs, and he followed—our silhouettes stretching long across the walls, twin ghosts walking upward from the dark—one bound by duty, the other by nothing at all.
We climbed the narrow stairs in silence.
The torchlight licked across the limestone, painting the walls in flickering gold. The air grew warmer the higher we rose, until the smell of the sea pressed through the cracks like breath.
When we emerged into the upper room, the night waited for us—salt wind curling through the shutters, the hiss of the waves below. My house felt smaller with him in it, as if his presence took more space than the walls could bear.
Salvatore crossed the room first, unhurried, the drag of his bare feet whispering over the stone. His white hair caught the torchlight, glinting like a blade’s edge. He looked around slowly, as though he were inspecting something he already owned.
“So, this is where you’ve spent your exile,” he said. “A home above my tomb. How poetic.”
I said nothing.
“Tell me, Lazarus,” he went on, “when we tear time open and make your precious traveler, what then? Are you going to save Ugarit… or are you going to crawl back into the past and drag your beloved Amara out of her grave?”
The question hit like a blade slipping between ribs.
I turned toward him, the words catching in my throat before I forced them free.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “This is about saving Ugarit. That’s all.”
He laughed, soft and cruel.
“You lie even to yourself. You never cared for thrones or crowns. You want what every damned man wants—a second chance. You crave redemption. You’d burn the world to hold her hand again.”
His shadow reached for mine, long and serpentine on the floor.
“So, tell me, when the time travelers are created, will you save the city, or will you trade it for her heartbeat?”
I clenched my fists until the skin broke. “Enough.”
I stepped past him and went to the table. The Tome of Shadows sat there, closed, the leather dark and still. I laid my hand on its cover; the surface pulsed beneath my palm, as if something sleeping stirred below the skin.
“Shadows,” I said quietly, “tell me how to create a time traveler.”
The flame in the torch snapped. The wind died. The house itself seemed to hold its breath.
The book shuddered beneath my hand and then, slowly, the cover lifted. Smoke poured out—thin at first, then thick, filling the air with the scent of salt and iron. Pages turned on their own.
From the darkness inside came a murmur—hundreds of voices, whispering as one.
“So, it begins. This is where everything changes, Lazarus,” the voices breathed, their tone both promise and curse. “For him. For you. Forever.”
The tome flared open, pages bleeding light.
And the shadows began to write.