37. Seren
SEREN
I wake to a battle of sound; my heart’s rampant beat and the echoes of her words fighting to be heard. Salt coats my lips. The scent of lavender embraces me.
For a long time, I simply lie there staring at the ceiling, waiting for the auditory chaos to cease and my heart to slow.
The curve of the stone is veined with light—a faint, velvet glow from the staff casting shifting shadows across the walls.
Every breath sends a tremor through my ribs, as though the water is still inside me, refusing to leave.
Kael sleeps nearby, his head resting on his arm, his cloak spread beneath him. The light paints his face in shifting patterns—half velvet, half shadows. I wonder which half he belongs to.
My pendant warms as I sense the shadows swirling beneath his skin. The sensation makes my chest tighten. Beneath the rhythm of my heart, I hear her voice again: A currency you have only just begun to use.
A flash of her eyes—blackness encased in a ring of purple—steals my breath. When I blink, it’s gone.
I crawl toward Kael, the stones digging into my palms as I move precariously to avoid waking Eira. I shake his shoulder. “Wake up.”
He shifts uncomfortably against the hard floor, his eyes blinking rapidly. “How long was I out?”
“I don’t know. I’ve only just woken.” My voice sounds strange to my own ears—hoarse, threaded with something deeper.
He looks away, observing the perimeter with a set jaw. “We should move. The longer we stay, the higher the chance they catch our scent.”
As I nod, a deep hum rumbles through the earth, as if the world itself is opening up. It sends my heart hammering against its cage of bone, sweat slicking my brow. Eira lets out a high-pitch whine, crowding close to my side.
I turn toward the shrine as cracks begin to chase one another across the walls. The pool boils, hurling up steam that reeks of salt and ash. I snatch the staff, motioning for Eira to follow as Kael grabs my arm and drags me toward the nearest tunnel. The stone groans beneath us.
“Move!” he shouts.
We run.
The light from the runes pulses behind us like a heartbeat losing its rhythm. Water surges through the corridor, licking at our heels. My shadows slither across the walls, pulling us deeper. I lose track of the turns as stone and dust rain down over my head.
My breath comes in shallow waves; the dust is a thick, choking veil. Adrenaline surges, pushing my legs to fight for air. For life. The staff grows heavy, a clumsy weight in the tight confines, but I refuse to let go.
Winding path after winding path—it feels never ending—until at last, the floor inclines. The air turns thinner. Cleaner.
The shadows lead us upward to a grated shaft that opens to the streets of Auria. Kael hoists me into the air with a grunt of effort. I claw at the bricks with my free hand until the shadows take over, snaking over my skin and forcing the masonry apart.
The metal gives with a scream, and I spill out into the night.
Black tendrils wrap themselves around Kael and Eira, hauling them through the narrow hole until we are a tangled heap on the pristine stone.
Auria looms above, its Guild Hall towers untouched, the surrounding streets half-deserted.
Somewhere, bells ring—a warning or a mourning—I can’t tell.
We scramble into the nearest darkened corner, pressing into the stone. Kael leans against the wall, coughing harshly. “We can’t stay here,” he wheezes. “They’ll be searching everywhere.”
I close my eyes and exhale, feeling the tension melt from my chest. I crane my neck until it cracks, a shiver of relief crawls down my spine. The fiery inferno of adrenaline subsides, replaced by a spreading, icy calm.
I look at Kael. He is bent double, fighting for breath, eyeing the shadows with desperate caution.
It dawns on me then: I’m no longer fatigued.
My body feels unscathed by the drowning, the running, the fall.
My breathing has already returned to a steady, natural rhythm.
Yet, my hunger is a silent, endless roar that only gets louder the more I listen to it.
Everything is in focus—sharper than before. Minute details feel magnified. The blossoms clinging to the white buildings are a violent pink; their scent overwhelming my senses until my head spins.
My head tips back. I gaze upon the night sky that has no end—a scattered canvas of impossible brilliance. A billion diamonds pepper the curtain of blackness, winking with a silent, ancient energy.
I never truly saw the night sky from the windows of my gilded cage. Not like this. My jaw goes slack, my hand reaching toward the void as a chilly breeze brushes my skin. Each light seems to shimmer with an intimate secret laid bare for the first time. The sheer beauty of it steals my voice.
Stars.
I once thought seeing the sun was magnificent, but this is different. It’s as if I’ve found a part of me I never knew was missing. The final piece of a puzzle I didn’t know I was solving.
An ache as deep as the sky above me yawns in my chest. I think of Sylas and all he has missed. He would have loved this.
And then I see her. The Great Pale Mother, in her milky fullness, curved into a crescent. She’s even more majestic than the fables promised. Wetness winds its way down my cheeks, carving clean paths through the dust.
Voices sound nearby. They yank me out of the trance, every word as clear as if I were standing amongst them—the sensation is disorientating. My mind struggles to calculate their distance, desperate to gauge our chances.
“We have to go,” I croak, dashing over to Kael and hauling him up by the elbow.
“How do you expect us to hide with the entourage we’ve collected?” He gestures to the staff, then down at Eira, who stares right back at him. “We aren’t exactly blending in.”
He’s right. Even under the cover of night, we are ink-blots against a white canvas.
Think, Seren. Think.
Nyx’s words wrap around my skull, caressing the inner reaches of my brain. Use the shadows, child.
I look at the staff in my hand, its metal warming at my touch. “Of course,” I mutter. “Eira, get close. Shadows—keep watch.”
I grab Kael’s wrist. He flinches as a strange warmth spreads from my palms into his skin. “What are you—”
I don’t give him time to finish. I reach for the energy humming inside the staff.
The velvet eye glows softly, its rhythm matching the life coursing through my veins.
I close my eyes, feeling for the thread between us.
The words slip off my tongue with a terrifying ease: Shadows, blend us with the night.
A tingle spreads through my marrow, ripples of power shivering out into my limbs. Kael stares at me, his eyes glowing silver as the space around him begins to dissolve.
Blackness swirls around us, as we become at one with the night.
I release his wrist as the sensation coating my skin stills.
It is done.
“What did you do?” he breathes, staring at his own hands as they fade into the murk.
“Saving us,” I bite back. “Now, move.”
We move as a single entity, a pocket of living night drifting through the streets.
I look to the Great Pale Mother again, relishing her rays as they absorb into my pores.
She is lower in the sky now, the deep indigo of night beginning to bleed toward the grey of dawn.
Time feels distorted, a blurred sequence of hours.
How many days were we trapped beneath the stone?
We move seamlessly through the alleyways, hoarding the darkness while we still can. Tucking tight against the corner, I stop. The jingle of a bell has me sucking in a breath, my arm barring Kael’s chest, forcing him hard against the wall.
Glass clinks. Slurred cheers of delight spill out as a door swings open and shut. A soft, golden warmth radiates through the tavern window panes.
The smell of stale beer escapes through the doorway as someone disappears into the press of bodies.
Nausea rises in my throat, and I force it back down.
Inside, servers weave through the crowd; the hum of conversation rises and falls with laughter, punctuated by the rhythmic clinking of a celebration.
What a privilege it is—to be afforded the luxury of eating, drinking and socialising as if the world held no cares.
The tavern laughter sours in my stomach.
It drags up memories of home and the only gathering we allowed ourselves; the Night of the Great Pale Mother.
An annual event where the nights seemed longer, darker.
Where her resonance was at its strongest. If we had been able to step above ground, we would have seen her pale face looking down, casting us in her milky rays.
Instead, we resorted to feeling her presence within us, our bodies humming with a borrowed light. We threw parties, celebrating all that is Her.
It was the only time of year we shared our provisions—cooking and eating to our hearts’ content. We would dance into the night, imagining the feel of her light radiating down.
Then, it would end.
We would return to normal: avoiding gazes, spitting curses, fighting over scraps. Back to the hunger. The savagery.
I spit on the ground, forcing the taste of their laughter from my mouth.
“Seren?” Kael whispers.
“Move,” I mutter.
We slip through the alleyways, our bodies pressed so tightly we melt into the shadows as a single mass.
We reach the market square. It looks so much larger from the ground.
I peer up at the windows of the Guild Hall, finding the ones just beneath the gold-tipped spires.
Somewhere in that stone is the room where I was held captive—the room now stained with the resonance of my soul.
My blood boils at the memory, cooling only when I look at Eira and the staff. My mouth curls into a wide, jagged smile. I am not their prisoner anymore—but I can still be their monster.
We press against one of the walls, searching for a way across the vast, exposed cobblestones.
In the heart of the square stands a colossal figure of Solan.
An imposing idol of gold and grandeur—a perfect depiction of deceit.
The metal hums with a stolen power, golden motes dancing across its surface.
An orb, like a captured sun, glows from the tip of his staff.
His other hand is raised, palm outstretched to the limitless expanse above.
His face is a mask of divine will—a defined jaw and a chilling, blank stare that doesn’t just observe the people, but weighs on them in permanent, silent judgement.
He is striking. And he is frightening.
Kael looks at me, our gazes meeting. The thread of connection thrums beneath my skin. We have to go, I say down the thread.
He flinches, his jaw tensing at the intrusion, but he offers a curt nod. As one, we stumble into the square. But as we cross the threshold, the statue’s orb penetrates our shroud, acting like a strobe of light fixed on single point.
A voice cuts through the night. “Kael?”
A guard in gilded armour steps around his comrades. The metal plates glint under the orb’s light. Relief flashes across his face as he looks at Kael—then he looks at me. His features harden into stone.
“What in Solan’s name—”
“Wait,” Kael says, stepping forward. “Listen to me. She’s not—”
“You’re with her? After what she did?” Daren’s blade clearing its scabbard is the only sound in the square.
The guards advance. Panic flares. My pendant burns. Shadows ripple at my feet before I can stop them. Kael turns, seeing the tendrils coiling like vipers around my ankles. His eyes go wide. “Seren, don’t—”
The shadows uncoil and strike—a whipcrack of oily smoke and gnashing teeth. For a heartbeat, I think of pulling them back. Then the fear surges, sharp and absolute, and they answer.
Time slows. I watch the shadows engulf Daren, a fiery storm of blackness until he is buried beneath the mass. He struggles; his knife pokes through gaps in the dark, but the tendrils coil tighter. He shouts once—a sickening snap cracks into the night—and then, silence.
Daren’s blade clatters to the stone.
I don’t realise what I’ve done until the quiet comes. When the shadows withdraw, he is on the ground, his eyes open and unseeing. His skin bears no marks, but his limbs lie at all the wrong angles.
The other guards pause, their eyes widening. Without a word, they turn and run, unwilling to meet their god so soon.
The world stops. There is only the sound of Kael’s harsh, ragged breathing as he throws himself beside his best friend. His fingers tremble, hovering over a chest that no longer moves.
“I had to,” I whisper.
“You didn’t!” His voice is raw, tectonic. “You could have given me a chance! He would have listened!”
He would have ended us, child, Nyx’s whisper curls through my mind. He was too consumed by their lies to see the truth in the shadows.
With a gentle stroke of his friend’s hair, Kael closes his eyes in one slow motion.
“He was my friend.” Kael stands, his face a mask of grief and burgeoning fear. He waves a hand aimlessly at the body. “I thought you were better than this. This was…unnecessary.”
He turns from me, staring toward the voices rising in the distance.
When he looks back, his grey eyes have hardened behind his gold-rimmed spectacles.
His hair is dishevelled, falling across his brow.
He stretches out his arm, offering his wrist like a sacrifice.
I look down before our gazes meet, reaching for that bond between us.
But all I can feel is the heaviness of a noose on the verge of snapping.
“Do your shadow thing,” he says. “And let us be gone.”
I grab him. The muscle in his jaw feathers at my touch. An icy shiver trails over both of us as the world dissolves. Shouts sound nearby, but we move as one entity. Above, the dawn begins to break, and the light looks colder than it ever has before.