Chapter 35 #3
The sound alone rips me out of my sleep, my body jerking upright as power slams through the room like a shockwave.
The candles gutter, shadows snapping violently against the walls.
Smoke pours through the doorway. Black flame coils along the stone like a living thing, hissing and crackling as it eats the air itself.
Korithax stands in the threshold. Not the man who held me hours ago. Not the one who shook in the shower, broken and grieving. This is something else entirely.
His armour has re-formed around him in jagged plates of obsidian shadow, etched with writhing veins of fire so black it’s like a void. Smoke curls from his shoulders and horns, his eyes burning so dark they swallow the light entirely. The bond screams. But it’s sharp, panicking, and entirely wrong.
I scramble backwards, my spine hitting the headboard as my heart slams against my ribs. “Kori—”
His gaze snaps to me for half a second, but there’s no recognition. Then his eyes slide to Maelkar and the temperature in the room drops.
“Really, Shadowtongue?” Korithax growls. His voice is layered and distorted, like something evil and ancient is speaking through him. “My fucking woman?”
Maelkar blinks once, then bursts out laughing. “Oh yeah,” he says lazily, stretching his arms behind his head. “Absolutely. I’m totally fucking your girl, Child of Ruin.”
I suck in a sharp breath. “Maelkar—don’t—”
Korithax doesn’t hesitate. He moves faster than I can track—one moment he’s at the door, and the next, he’s crossing the room in a blur of black fire. Maelkar’s shadows whip up instinctively, lashing towards Korithax—and vanish. Just... gone.
Maelkar’s smirk drops. “Oh shit,” he manages before Korithax’s hand closes around his throat and slams him into the stone floor with enough force, the entire chamber shudders. Cracks spiderweb beneath Maelkar’s back as the impact knocks the air from his lungs.
I scream, “Korithax, STOP!”
He lifts Maelkar one-handed as if he weighs nothing at all, void-black fire crawling hungrily up his arms as he holds him suspended in the air. Maelkar claws at his wrist, eyes widening as he struggles to breathe.
“You think this is funny?” Korithax snarls, leaning down, smoke spilling from his mouth with every word. “You think you get to touch what’s mine?”
Maelkar chokes out a laugh, even now. “Gods… you really came back unhinged, didn’t you?”
Gods damn him, he really needs to learn to shut his mouth. The black fire surges, writhing like something alive. And I feel it. It’s not him. It’s The Void inside him—pushing, whispering, ravenous for violence. Feeding on jealousy and fear and possession.
“No. No, no, no,” I gasp, scrambling off the bed and stumbling forwards as my legs tangle in the sheets. “Kori, look at me. LOOK. AT. ME!”
He doesn’t. Instead, his grip tightens as Maelkar’s feet scrape frantically against the floor, his hands locked around Korithax’s wrist as his face darkens with the lack of air. His eyes are blazing, but his breath is failing quickly.
“You don’t get to have her,” Korithax continues, voice quivering with rage. “You don’t get to be here. You don’t get to exist near her.”
Panic explodes through me and I move before I can think better of it.
“Korithax!” I throw myself between them, pressing both hands flat against his chest. The heat pouring off him is relentless, yet it doesn’t burn.
“It’s not like that,” I choke out. “Nothing happened. I couldn’t sleep. I just—I needed someone. I needed grounding.”
For a moment, just one, tiny moment, The Void hesitates. I see it in the way the fire falters. His eyes flicker, and pain flashes across his features.
“Kori,” I whisper, voice breaking apart. “Please.”
The bond pulses violently, agony flaring sharp enough through my chest to make me gasp. His suffering crashes into me through the tether—grief, terror, possessiveness, shame, The Void gnawing at every wound it can find. Slowly, so slowly it’s agonising, his fingers begin to uncurl.
Maelkar drops to the floor in a heavy heap, coughing wetly as he drags air into his battered lungs.
He rolls onto his side clutching his throat, the small sliver of shadows returning snapping around him like protective teeth.
Korithax staggers back a step, his chest heaving as black smoke pours from him like he’s burning from the inside out.
He stares down at his hands as though they belong to a stranger.
“I—” His voice cracks. “I saw you. In his bed. I felt it and—”
“And you lost control,” I snap, the fear of losing Maelkar sharpening my words. “You almost killed him, Korithax!”
His head jerks up and the look on his face nearly drops me to my knees. Gods. It’s horror and shame, but something feral is still fighting underneath it all.
“I thought I lost you again,” he says hoarsely. “I thought The Void was right. That I was already too late.”
My knees shake as the adrenaline drains away slowly. Behind me, Maelkar groans and forces himself upright, rubbing at his throat with a murderous sheen to his eyes.
“Next time,” he rasps, glaring up at Korithax, “try knocking before you go full demon-king.”
Korithax doesn’t look at him, he looks at me. But staring back at him, I’m not sure if I recognise what’s standing in front of me at all.