Chapter 70 Confess Your Feelings
(Then Put Her in a Coma)
Kazimir
The weight of what I’d just agreed to crashed over me. Free the Shadow King. Save Arabella. Doom the world.
Simple math, really.
“Excellent choice,” the Shadow King said through Arabella’s lips, but her left eye twitched violently mid-word. “Now, shall we discuss the specifics? The anchors are already weakened, but—”
“Shut the fuck up.” I needed to think. How exactly does one free an ancient entity from a prison designed by the First Hero? Destroy the Heirloom? No—we’d need it to fight him later. Besides, the damned thing was still fused to Arabella’s head, pulsing with that sickening dark light.
The Alchemist watched me with disapproval radiating from every inch of their body. “You’re actually considering this madness.”
“I’m not considering anything. I’ve decided.
” I studied Arabella’s possessed form, watching the micro-rebellions of her body against the Shadow King’s control.
A finger spasm here, a shoulder jerk there.
She was still fighting. “But I need somewhere secure to keep her while I figure out the logistics.”
“Keep me?” The Shadow King laughed, and Arabella’s throat convulsed mid-sound. “I’m not a pet to be kenneled, boy.”
Boy. The condescension in that single word made my teeth grind. But I had bigger problems than my pride.
Where could I put her that would be secure enough?
The dungeons were out of the question—the dark magic there might strengthen the Shadow King and hinder Arabella.
The war room was too central and not secure enough.
Our private chambers held too many memories, too many ways for the Shadow King to twist our intimacy into weapons.
Then it hit me. The one place in Skyspire even I rarely ventured.
The structure that had resisted every attempt at renovation when I first conquered the citadel, where workers experienced strange accidents and tools broke inexplicably.
I’d tested whether that resistance could be useful and discovered it was exceptional at containing dangerous magical items. I’d repurposed it as a vault for things too dangerous to destroy—cursed artifacts, failed experiments, unstable magical items.
Now I thought I understood why it had such potent containment properties.
“What keep?” The Shadow King’s interest sharpened, but Arabella’s fingers clenched involuntarily. Still fighting. Still mine.
I ignored him. I had a choice to make. Put her back to sleep, silence the Shadow King, and remove her ability to resist? Or keep her conscious, let her continue fighting even though it meant enduring his mockery and manipulation?
I’d tried to strip her of her agency once before, at the Gilded Gallows. The memory of her fury, her sense of betrayal, still burned. If she could speak now—really speak, not through the Shadow King’s puppet strings—I knew what she’d say.
Let me fight, you controlling bastard.
“You stay awake,” I decided. “Fight.”
“How touching,” the Shadow King drawled, but there was something calculating in the way he tilted Arabella’s head. “Though I wonder if you’re keeping me conscious for her benefit or because you enjoy hearing her voice, even corrupted as it is.”
I ignored him, turning to the Alchemist. “Will you help me free him?”
“Absolutely not.” Their response was immediate, vehement. “I’ve spent my life maintaining the balance of the ley lines. I won’t be party to unleashing that kind of chaos.”
I resisted the urge to threaten them. The Alchemist would rather die a horrible death or live in misery than go against their purpose. “Then will you at least help contain him now?”
The Alchemist was quiet for a long moment. “That I can do. Someone needs to minimize the damage of your romantic stupidity.”
Good enough. I wrapped shadows around Arabella’s wrists and ankles—not tight enough to hurt, but firm enough to restrict movement. She—the Shadow King—tested the bonds with an amused expression.
“Kinky,” he commented. “She has such interesting memories of your shadow play. Would you like me to share the details?”
I pressed my hand to Arabella’s shoulder and tore open a portal. The destination was clear in my mind: the one place in Skyspire that might contain what she’d become.
We emerged on a small island separated from the main citadel. The Old Keep rose before us, half-crumbled walls and narrow windows giving it the appearance of an ancient ruin. I’d deliberately kept it looking abandoned—better that people thought it forgotten than knew what I stored here.
The Shadow King turned Arabella’s head to survey the structure. Her neck moved in stuttering jerks—still fighting.
A shimmer of pink-tinged shadow rippled through the air, and Nyx materialized in a graceless tumble of wings and claws.
She collapsed onto the stone floor, sides heaving, her scales flickering between obsidian and rose like a dying ember.
The dragon’s liquid silver eyes rolled wildly before fixing on Arabella’s bound form.
Nyx’s keening cry pierced the air. She dragged herself forward, wings trembling from the strain of phasing across half the Western Realms.
“Guard the keep,” I commanded. “I’ll take care of Arabella.”
The dragon’s head swayed, a low rumble building in her chest. For a moment, I thought she might try to tear through me to reach Arabella.
Instead, Nyx spread her wings and launched herself upward.
Stone crumbled beneath her claws as she found purchase on the keep’s highest remaining wall, positioning herself where her silver gaze could track every movement below.
I set Arabella down just inside the dusty entrance, checking the shadow bonds. After unlocking the heavy wards at the door, I summoned Vex through the scrying crystal in my pocket.
Old Keep. Now. Bring Griffin.
Her response was immediate. On our way.
It would take a few minutes. Griffin would need to create a lightning bridge to get here. I always portaled when I came, and no one else was ever allowed. Arabella had never even been here.
While we waited, I studied the chamber with fresh eyes.
The exterior might look like a ruin, but inside, the ancient magic remained potent.
The space was functional if austere, and the floor was already marked with containment circles I’d discovered when I first claimed Skyspire—circles I’d been using to store my most dangerous acquisitions.
They’d proved more effective than any wards I could create myself.
Now I knew why. They were his work. The Shadow King’s original containment circles, and the layers were obviously his previous attempts to retake the citadel.
The walls bore scorch marks from experiments gone wrong, and if I looked closely, I could see where blood had been scrubbed from the stones but never quite erased.
Arabella’s left hand spasmed so hard her fingernails drew more blood from her palm.
The door opened before I could respond. Vex stepped through first, her expression shifting subtly as she took in the scene. Griffin followed, his gangly frame hunched with curiosity that died the moment he saw Arabella. “My lord?”
“The Shadow King,” I said. “He’s possessing Arabella.”
Griffin’s eyes widened. “But… how?”
“There’s something I haven’t told either of you,” I said, flatly.
“I am the Shadow King. Or rather, I’m his vessel.
I’ve carried a fragment of his consciousness inside me since birth.
When the Heirloom activated, I had a vision of what I was, of him.
…” My failure to protect Arabella made my voice crack.
“I defeated him, but when Arabella killed Auremar to protect me on the battlefield, the Shadow King transferred to Arabella through our connection, possibly because the Heirloom is bound to her. Possibly because of what Auremar was doing with the magic.”
Griffin staggered back a step, his face draining of color. “That’s—that’s not possible. You can’t be—” His eyes darted between me and Arabella, scientific mind clearly struggling to reconcile this revelation with everything he thought he knew.
Vex had gone utterly still. I’d seen her in countless situations, facing every crisis Skyspire could offer, but I’d never seen that look on her face.
What struck me most wasn’t just the fear in her eyes—it was the lack of surprise at my revelation.
As if she’d already known, or at least suspected.
But how? When I myself had only learned the truth weeks ago?
“The Old Keep,” she said slowly. Her gaze swept the chamber—the containment circles, the cursed artifacts stored in shadowed alcoves, the ancient magic thrumming through the stones.
Then her eyes found Arabella’s possessed form, and genuine anguish crossed her features. “You brought us to the Old Keep.”
“Desperate times,” I said.
“Vex!” The Shadow King’s delight was nauseating coming from Arabella’s throat. “Oh, this is delicious. Should I tell him what you really are? The truth might break his little mind.”
Vex’s face twisted into a snarl. “You know nothing about me.”
“Don’t I?” The Shadow King leaned forward as much as the shadow bonds allowed. “Mirror, mirror, on the wall… who’s the most fragmented of them all?”
Griffin looked between them, confused and frightened. “What’s he talking about?”
“Nothing,” Vex said. “He’s trying to divide us.”
The Shadow King turned those dark-pooled eyes on Griffin. “Speaking of divisions, how’s that weather manipulation experiment going? Still having nightmares about the Frost incident? All those frozen corpses because you couldn’t control the thermal dynamics?”
Griffin went white. “That was—how do you—”
“I know everything she knows,” the Shadow King said simply. “Every memory, every secret, every shameful little moment she’s witnessed or been told. For instance, Kazimir, would you like to know what she really thinks when you—”