Chapter 12 Dario
The air was cool the next night as we moved through the village streets, the evening shadows stretching across the cobblestone pathways, blending easily with my own as I kept close to Elena.
The streets were filled with the sounds of a village at night—the pubs emptying, people fighting, night markets setting up their wares.
And through it all, a sense of hopelessness pervaded the village.
The people went about their business as usual, but their eyes were dead.
Through them all, Elena stood out, for she walked with purpose, her cloak pulled tightly around her to disguise the glow of her presence, the soft light that seemed to emanate from her even when she was trying to go unnoticed.
We walked in tandem without saying a word, but the silence between us was anything but empty. It was thick, weighted with the tension that had grown between us, a tension that had gone far beyond the simple clash of enemies.
I didn’t know how much longer I could bear it—the constant battle within myself, the urge to push her away and pull her closer at the same time.
I could still feel the weight of our almost-kiss from the night before, the magnetic pull of her lips toward mine. It had taken every ounce of willpower to step back, to deny what my body and soul had been screaming for.
What madness had come over me?
She was the embodiment of everything I had fought against, everything that had cursed me. She was the High Priestess of Solaris, the chosen vessel of the Sun God.
And yet, when I was near her, all I could feel was the tightening in my chest, the ache of something I hadn’t felt in so long—something dangerous.
It was wrong. All of it was wrong.
I pushed aside the inconvenient attraction simmering under my skin, the growing draw I felt whenever she was close.
It was nothing.
I was nothing to her but an ally, one that she’d likely discard once her precious city was secure again. I had her trust, shaky as it was, and I’d have to be satisfied with that.
A warrior priestess of light and a cursed king of shadows? There was no logic in wanting her. And so I’d stop.
As soon as we’d done what we’d set out to do, I’d never have to see her again.
Pulling my thoughts back to the matter at hand, I glanced at Elena. In the dimness, with her hood concealing her face, she almost looked like any other traveler.
She’d come for me at dusk, where I’d come awake at the edge of the village. After Elena had left the previous night, I’d buried my shadows deep underground where the sun wouldn’t reach them, fencing off the village. If the mage tried to return, I would know, even asleep in the daytime.
But he hadn’t come.
Now, as the hour lengthened, I could feel his presence, growing closer to the house he had marked.
With a twist of whispered magic, I lengthened the path, making him go around in circles. I meant to confound him until I could mark him with my magic, making it easier for us to follow him back to his master.
A flare of magic made its way down my connection to the mage, and I stopped.
“Something’s wrong,” I murmured, trying to put my finger on it. A moment later, the magic flared again and I cursed. “He’s running. He knows we’re on to him.”
Elena frowned, calling up light magic in her palm, but I stayed her hand.
The lights were extinguished now. Darkness had fallen over the village.
My powers surged.
The darkness was mine. It had always been mine. I was made of it, shaped by it, and for nearly a century, it had been the only thing I knew. It was simplicity itself to bend the darkness to my will, to use the shadows to follow the mage we had marked as our quarry.
Wherever the mage thought to go, he couldn’t escape the shadows.
And I was the Shadow King.
Our footsteps echoed in the stillness as we turned down another alley, the faint glow of lanterns casting flickering patterns on the walls of the narrow streets, my shadows surging as they gave chase to my prey.
I could feel the mage’s faint aura just ahead of us, like the scent of sulfur clinging to the air, and my shadows hummed in response, sensing the dark magic that followed him like a trail. He was close; we were nearly on top of him.
Elena tilted her head toward me, her voice soft and low. “Are you sensing him still? He seems to be moving faster.”
I nodded, my eyes narrowing as I felt the traces of his magic weaving through the shadows ahead.
“He’s our only lead,” Elena said, her eyes narrowing as she followed the faint trace of his magic. “We can’t let him escape!”
He could try, but my shadows had marked him. I could taste the sharp tang of his magic in the air, acrid as burnt copper, clinging to the stone walls and damp alleys. It bled desperation. A rat always sensed when the predator was closing in.
He was running not to escape, but to reach something—or someone—before we caught him.
And I would not allow that.
The shadows pulsed at my heels, eager to be unleashed, eager to hunt. I let them out in ribbons, stretching ahead of me like feelers, clinging to every corner, every crack of the cobblestones. They whispered the mage’s direction back to me, a living map of pursuit, guiding me toward my quarry.
Beside me, Elena kept pace, her movements brisk but far too loud for my liking. She was light, and light did not know how to conceal itself in darkness. Even now, with her cloak drawn tight and her hood shadowing her golden hair, she glowed faintly, as if her very skin remembered the sun.
I risked a glance at her, and my chest constricted.
She looked nothing like the untouchable High Priestess I had first imagined when she stepped into my forest days ago.
Now she looked like a woman walking a knife’s edge: jaw clenched, eyes burning, her lips set in determination that dared anyone—mortal or god—to stop her.
Why did that make something inside me want to stop running, just for a heartbeat, and press her against the alley wall, not to silence her, but to taste that fire?
I bit the thought down savagely. She was not mine to want. She would never be mine to want.
A flash of white above interrupted the dangerous current of thought.
Meryn streaked across the rooftops, silent and sharp-eyed, a pale arrow in the dark.
Her wings carried her effortlessly over the slanted tiles, and with each beat of her feathers, I felt the bond between us pulse. She had him. She would not lose him.
“Your owl,” Elena murmured, her voice carrying the faintest thread of wonder. Even in pursuit, even with danger ahead, she found awe in the simplest thing. “She doesn’t falter, does she?”
“She never has,” I said, more gruffly than intended. I didn’t want Elena to hear what lay beneath: the pride, the affection, the sheer gratitude that Meryn had not abandoned me when every other living soul had.
Elena tilted her hooded head, but said no more.
We pressed forward. The streets grew narrower, pressed in with leaning timbered houses whose shutters hung broken and whose doors sagged on their hinges. The scent of stale ale and unwashed bodies clung to the air, overlaying the fainter trace of the mage’s magic.
“He’s flagging,” I muttered, feeling the sharp dips and stutters in his trail. “His spellwork frays when he pushes too hard.”
“He’ll lash out,” Elena said quietly. “Cornered prey always does.”
We turned a corner into a square, long-abandoned. A shattered fountain sat dry in the center, the stone rim cracked and overgrown with weeds. The faint glow of a sigil shimmered at the far end of the square—an echo of the mage’s last spell.
“He’s close,” I murmured.
Elena touched her dagger, her other hand hovering near the chain of her pendant, as though the touchstone of her god could steady her.
A rustle above. Meryn gave her low, warning cry.
The mage appeared in the narrow street opposite us, his cloak billowing though there was no wind. He moved quickly, but his head snapped back once, eyes glinting—a feral, mismatched stare of green and brown. His face was pale, lips pulled tight as he flung out a hand.
Green fire lanced the cobblestones between us. Stone split apart, heat and sulfur blasting into the night. Villagers screamed in the distance at the eruption, though none dared step into the square.
Elena flinched, but did not retreat. Brave. Foolish. Both.
The mage whirled again, bolting for the far side of the square.
“Meryn,” I commanded softly.
She streaked downward, a silent missile of white. She would follow him from above, drive him where I wished. He would not leave this village without us.
We gave chase, Elena at my side.
He flung another spell over his shoulder. A lash of green energy crackled through the air. I threw my shadows up like a shield; they absorbed it, hissing, dissolving the strike before it could reach us.
But then—
A sound that shattered me.
Meryn’s cry. Not warning this time, but pain.
My head snapped upward. She spiraled out of the sky, her white feathers burning green where the mage’s bolt had struck her.
“No,” I breathed.
Her body hit the cobblestones with a sickening thud. Feathers scattered like snow, glowing faintly with corruption, then dulled to ash. She lay still, her wings twitching once before falling limp.
The world narrowed to a pinpoint.
All I could see was the broken bundle of feathers, the one soul who had stayed by my side through the endless, bitter nights—struck down by that worm’s filthy hand.
A sound ripped from my chest, raw and inhuman.
Shadows surged, not at my command but with my very heartbeat, rising in a storm that blotted the moon. The ground trembled beneath us. Windows shattered outward as black tendrils lashed from me, splintering wood and stone.
The mage faltered mid-stride, his head snapping back toward the darkness exploding in the square. He knew—he knew he had awakened something worse than death.
I would tear him apart. Bone by bone.
“Elena,” I growled, though the word came out warped, thick with power. “Stay back.”