Chapter 32
Chapter
Thirty-Two
Loren stared out the window overlooking the courtyard, watching as Ilyana rushed through the gate with dusk on her heels.
Thorne must have survived then—there would be no reason to send for a Healer otherwise.
And Araya—she would certainly be angrier if Thorne was dead.
Grief-stricken, even. But all he felt through the bond was a confused tumult of frustration and worry.
For Thorne, of course, he assumed. Not for him.
The fool who’d nearly let his wayward magic murder his best friend.
Go to her, the shadows whispered, stirring around him.
“She doesn’t want to see you.” Loren didn’t bother to look down at them. “Not after what you did earlier.”
Us? The shadows hissed. You left her. Foolish prince—
“You attacked Thorne!” Loren hissed, yanking his arm back as one of them dragged a frigid tendril across the back of his hand in reprimand, as sharp as a frozen blade.“Have you forgotten the difference between friend and foe?”
Friend?
The shadows recoiled, muttering amongst themselves as they broke apart and reformed, working themselves into a churning frenzy.
He raised his hand. Reached for her. We saw—we saw—we protect. Protect her. Protect you. We don’t know—can’t say—
Goddess help him, they were madder than ever. Loren braced his hands against the sill, staring down at the empty courtyard. He couldn’t shake the memory of her panicked face, her shield the only thing between Thorne and death as she shouted at him to stop.
But he hadn’t been able to.
Because you falter, the shadows muttered. You fail—failed her. She is yours—yours to protect. And they hurt her. And you— their voices broke apart, hissing over one another. Coward. No vengeance. You refused—you failed—
“I know,” Loren hissed.
The temperature plummeted. A hairline fracture raced across the glass, the aetherlamps guttering in their sconces.
Loren bit his lip until he tasted blood, his knuckles white on the edge of the stone sill—but it wasn’t enough.
The crack was a fault line across the window, silent proof of just how close he’d come to losing control. Again.
The shadows coiled around his boots as he stormed away, their many voices echoing the truth he refused to speak.
They were slipping. And so was he.
By the time he reached his room his breathing had evened out, the pressure in his chest easing. He sank into a chair, not bothering to kindle the aetherlamps. Stone walls and darkness—that was all he was meant for. He might as well have stayed in that cell after all.
They were right about him. He couldn’t keep his mate safe. He’d made mistakes at every step—claiming her against her will, hiding the truth from her—short of locking her up again, there was nothing he could do to make her stay.
“I’m sorry,” Loren murmured into the shifting darkness. “I know I’m a broken excuse for the prince you chose. You would have been better off with Eloria.”
You are not the only broken one, foolish prince. The shadows murmured amongst themselves, their voices ebbing and flowing before coming together again. We are splinters. Shards. Only pieces of the greater power. Lost.
Loren frowned. “What do you mean?”
The whispers fractured, breaking apart in discordant hisses before falling silent so abruptly Loren wasn’t sure they would answer him at all. But then—
We remember. Their voices were thin, strained and out of sync. But to speak it—
Pain, another whispered.
But we can show you, several voices said as one. Should. Should show you—if you’re ready.
Loren knew it was a dream the moment he opened his eyes.
He stood on the steps of the temple, its polished stone shot through with threads of aether, lighting it from within.
It glowed in the bright moonlight, shining down from a sky free of shadow and mist. This was Eluneth as he remembered it, the surrounding forest alive with the sounds of animals and the air sweetened by the flowers that bloomed on the vines climbing the temple walls.
Not a dream, a sibilant chorus of voices whispered, curling around him like smoke. A memory.
Loren swallowed hard, dread filling his heart as the warm breeze kissed his face, already knowing what he would see when he turned to face the temple. There was only one night the shadows would show him like this.
His father stood on the threshold beside Thorne’s father, tall and grim. The silver crown atop his long, dark hair gleamed in the moonlight, shadows trailing him like a living cloak. They licked at his heels, coiling in slow, serpentine waves over the ground behind him.
Corwin Shadowbane looked every bit the king Loren remembered, but there was a new strain in his expression, a hollowness beneath his eyes, where grief had aged him faster than time ever could. Elric Emberwood walked beside him, one hand on the hilt of his sword as they looked out over the soldiers.
Loren tried to turn away, to close his eyes, but the dream held him fast. Shadows bled from the edges of his vision, winding around his wrists and ankles.
Watch, they hissed.
Loren could do nothing else as two hundred fae warriors took their places before the temple, faces set with grim resolve as the human army crested the ridge.
They just kept coming, marching down the same road he’d walked with Araya—hundreds strong, many wielding stolen magic bound inside grisly artifacts.
If battles were decided on numbers alone, this would surely be a slaughter.
But the fae had dara’el.
The shadows burst from Corwin like a wave torn from the sea—black and wild, but united in their purpose.
His father’s eyes glowed with power, the shadows answering to his command as they moved with him—never against. Together, they cut down the front line of Dominion mages with deadly grace, wrapping his father in mantle of darkness that shimmered like liquid night.
This was how it was meant to be. This was what a worthy ruler looked like.
But there were so many humans.
They struck back with stolen magic, forcing their way forward despite the shadows.
The fae cried out, pushed back step by step until their backs were pressed against the temple walls.
Loren couldn’t look away from his father’s face, his desperation growing as he wielded the power the Goddess had gifted him to protect her people—and failed.
The first blast of magic struck the temple.
The doors groaned under the force of it, cracking down the center as huge chunks of stone crashed to the ground, shattering the steps.
Corwin stumbled back, Elric’s hand on his arm pulling him away.
For a heartbeat, Loren thought he would do the only wise thing and retreat—even though he already knew how this ended.
But then the human Commander stepped through the settling dust, the Arcanum’s Eye gleaming gold over his heart.
In his hands, he lifted a staff fashioned from an entire fae femur, raising it toward Corwin with deliberate finality.
Loren held his breath, waiting for killing blow.
But instead, the shadows broke.
With a soundless roar, dara’el tore free from his father’s body, surging forward in a tidal wave of darkness. The Commander had only a moment to react. His eyes widened. His lips parted in what might have been a command, or a scream, but it was lost as the shadows swept over him.
They spared no one.
Fae warriors were dragged screaming into the dark. Human soldiers fell with their lungs full of shadow. The battlefield turned into a graveyard. Thorne’s father fought his way forward, carving a desperate arc through the chaos as he cried out for Corwin to call back his shadows.
But Loren already knew—he couldn’t.
Corwin dropped to his knees as Elric fell where he stood, the darkness devouring him whole. His crown slipped sideways, his fingers curling into the blood-soaked earth. All around him, the battlefield fell silent—because there was no one left to scream.
The shadows slowed, wavering as they slunk amongst the bodies, fae and human alike. They gathered slowly, coalescing around the fallen king. And Corwin, tears pouring down his face, closed his eyes and bowed his head as the shadows he should have wielded to protect them all turned on him at last.
Loren could only watch—frozen and horrified—as the shadows spread across the battlefield.
They poured over the corpses like spilled ink, devouring armor, blade, and flesh with equal hunger.
Smoke-like tendrils crawled through the broken remains of the temple, seeped into the soil and made themselves at home among the trees.
Even the air itself turned thick and gray, the stars winking out one by one as darkness shrouded the night sky.
“You killed them all,” Loren whispered. “That’s why there were no survivors.”
His father hadn’t raised the Shadowed Veil to protect the fae. It had raised itself because there had been no one left to command it.
His shadows stirred, curling around his boots and flickering at the edges of his vision. We remember, they said, their voices jagged and fragmented. What we were. What he made us. What we became. You—you should have brought us together again. Reforged. Whole.
“You’re only part of it,” Loren murmured. Araya had theorized as much, even without knowing the details. “The Shadowed Veil—it’s something else, isn’t it?’
Lost. The shadows thickened, drawing tighter around him. Do not break us further, lost prince.
“I’m sorry.” Loren stared out over the darkened battlefield. “But she’s right. The fae need control of the Shadowed Veil or we’ll all die. I can’t do it. But if she can…we have to let her.”