Chapter 10 Dario
The darkness in the heart of the Forest of Night’s Bane was absolute. It closed in around me, thick and heavy, wrapping each tree, each stone, each breath I took.
But tonight, something was different.
She was back.
Until I felt Elena’s presence cross the wards of my forest once more, I did not realize how little I had believed she would truly return.
As soon as she had left me the previous day, I had fallen into a dazed slumber, my incorporeal form dissolving into mist and regenerating itself in the heart of the forest, where the darkness was thickest.
It was only when the sun had set and the moon had risen again that I was back in my own body and able to think clearly again.I had spent the hours until dawn pacing my forest, never feeling as confined as I had that night.
I spoke aloud to Meryn, cautioning myself each time not to get my hopes up that Elena would return.
When dawn came—a mercy, for once—it had put a thought to the maddening cycle of my circular thought—hope, then despair, then caution, then hope again. With the rising of the sun, it had all faded away again, until now.
Tonight, I felt her presence cutting through the endless dark like a blade of light. Elena. She was back, walking through the shadows with a confidence that bordered on reckless, though she was as silent as a whisper.
Every instinct told me to remain hidden, to pull back into the familiar, isolating comfort of shadow.
But instead, I found myself stepping forward, watching as she wove through the trees, her dark cloak—a deep velvet maroon, this time—flowing around her.
Her face was half-obscured by the hood, but the determination that burned in her golden gaze was unmistakable.
And though I had prepared myself for her betrayal—for her not returning at all—here she was. She had kept her word.
It was the first time in a hundred years that I’d trusted someone—and that trust hadn’t been betrayed.
A laugh, strangled and hoarse, threatened to claw its way up my throat. I swallowed it down, forcing composure, but inside something foreign and terrible swelled. Relief. Gratitude. Worse still, hope.
I had promised myself never to feel these things again.
I moved toward her, letting the shadows fall away, feeling a sudden urge to confirm that she was real, that she had truly come back. The way my heart tightened, the strange, quiet ache that followed—I crushed them both with a steely resolve, pushing the feelings aside.
No sense in revealing the effect her presence had on me. She’d have enough leverage over me as it was, without me adding more.
“Elena,” I said, my voice rougher than intended as it cut through the quiet.
She turned sharply, and the relief that flickered across her face did something strange to my chest. She took a few steps closer, her eyes tracing over my form, lingering on the edges of shadow that still clung to me.
“Dario,” she murmured. Her lips quirked in a slight smile.
“Do you know what you’ve done, priestess?” I murmured, my voice unsteady, pitched lower than I intended. “You came back.”
Her golden eyes met mine, steady as fire, and the faintest smile curved her lips. “I told you I would.”
Simple words. Unremarkable. And yet they cracked open the iron shell I had forged around my heart.
I looked away, afraid she might see it all too clearly—the weakness, the rawness, the aching loneliness I had buried beneath centuries of shadow.
I had been a prisoner of Nyx’s curse, yes, but solitude had been its cruellest shackle.
That solitude had been safer when no one tried to touch it. When no one could keep promises to me.
And yet… she had.
I tilted my head, studying her, memorizing the tilt of her mouth, the set of her jaw, the strange mix of exhaustion and determination etched into her features.
She had every reason to hate me, to fear me, to leave me behind.
Instead, she had walked back into the Forest of Night’s Bane, into the jaws of shadow, and found me.
“You’re braver than your stories,” I said at last.
She gave me a sharp look. “Braver, or more foolish?”
“Both,” I admitted. My lips curved faintly. “But it suits you.”
Her cheeks flushed a pale rose, though she tried to hide it beneath her hood. I felt the flutter of satisfaction low in my chest at the sight. It was a dangerous indulgence, but I couldn’t stop myself.
For a long moment, silence stretched between us. Not the suffocating silence of my cursed forest, but a silence alive with meaning, with everything unspoken.
I wanted to make a caustic remark, to pass off the moment.
And then Elena drew a sharp breath. “Let’s finish this.”
“Finish?”
“The wards. Your prison.” Her voice steadied, though her fingers trembled slightly as she drew back her hood. Her hair tumbled free, gold catching faint strands of moonlight, a banner of light in the heart of my darkness. “It’s why I came back, Dario. To break them with you.”
I nearly laughed, half in disbelief, half in relief so sharp it bordered on pain. I had not dared to hope she would say those words aloud. The wards that bound me were Nyx’s last cruelty, a lattice of ancient spells woven with malice and iron.
They had come into being the moment Nyx had placed her curse on me, woven through with layers of dark magic as twisted as the trees that guarded this cursed place.
Even I didn’t know their full extent, but with Elena’s power alongside mine, I could feel the slightest possibility, the faintest edge of hope that together, we might finally break them.
For a century, they had been unbreakable. Alone, I could scratch at their surface, unravel a thread here or there, but never more.
But with her light—
With her…
The thought made my shadows twitch and coil at my feet like restless hounds.
“You have no idea what you’re offering,” I said at last, the words rough, almost ragged. “Once the wards break, there’s no undoing it. You’ll have loosed me upon the world.”
Her eyes flashed, unflinching. “You’re not a monster, Dario. You’ve convinced me of that much. And if Solaris cannot see past its own fear, then… I will. I need answers, and you cannot help me find them chained to this place.”
Her faith in me—so newly given, so undeserved—cut deeper than any blade.
In that moment, though I had sworn never again to kneel before gods or women or fate, I think I might have fallen to my knees for her if she had asked.
Instead, I bowed my head once, sharply. “Very well. Together, then.”
I led her deeper, into the thickest dark, where the forest itself seemed to hold its breath. I could feel the power radiating out from the heart of the forest here, toward the ancient boundaries that had held me prisoner for a century.
The ground hummed faintly with power, veins of ancient magic running like molten ore beneath our feet. Every step we took closer to the heart of the wards made the air heavier, pressing against my ribs until each breath felt stolen.
And yet she walked at my side as though she belonged here. The crimson folds of her cloak whispered against my shadows, her light—muted though it was in my domain—flickered stubbornly like an ember refusing to die.
When we reached the boundary, the wards revealed themselves. Even Elena drew a sharp breath.
Before us stretched a wall of darkness, not my shadows, but Nyx’s. It rippled like oil on water, etched with faint runes that glowed with a pale, cruel silver. The sigils twisted as though alive, each one thrumming with the Goddess’s voice, whispering chains tighter around my soul.
Elena raised a hand, light blooming at her fingertips. The glow pressed against the surface of the wards and the entire barrier quivered, shrieking faintly in a tone only I could hear. My body flinched in answer.
“Steady,” she murmured, glancing at me.
Her calmness infuriated and comforted me all at once.
“You’ll weaken the outer threads,” I told her, my own voice low, dark with anticipation. “I’ll strike when you open the seams. But don’t linger—if the wards taste your power too long, they’ll turn it against you.”
She nodded, jaw tight. “Then stay close. If they strike back, you’ll shield me.”
I almost laughed. That she thought I could protect her from Nyx herself. That she believed it. But the truth was: I would. I would shield her with everything I had.
“Very well,” I said, stepping behind her, so close that her cloak brushed against me when the wind shifted. “Let’s begin.”
She lifted her palms, light spilling out like liquid fire.
Golden streams cascaded into the barrier, searing across its surface, unraveling the silver sigils.
The wards screamed. The sound tore through me, every nerve in my body convulsing with memory: a century of chains, a century of silence, a century of watching freedom rot just beyond reach.
My shadows surged in answer, spilling from my hands like black water. They sought hers instinctively, weaving between threads of light, sliding into the fractures she made. Her fire cut, and my shadows slipped inside the cracks, prying, unraveling.
It was like a dance.
Her heat. My cold.
Her brilliance. My darkness.
And the barrier quaking before us.
I had broken many things in my cursed life—bones, wards, the wills of paladins who had come too far into my forest.
But never like this. Never in concert. Elena’s magic did not repel mine; it welcomed it, coaxed it, made room for it. My shadows, which had always devoured light, curled around hers without extinguishing it. They wrapped her fire in velvet dark, sheltering it as much as feeding from it.
“Elena…” Her name left my mouth unbidden, rough with awe.
She didn’t turn, but I saw her shoulders rise and fall as she caught her breath. “Don’t stop. We’re close.”