Chapter 70 Confess Your Feelings #2
“Enough.” I cut him off, but not before catching the malicious glint in those possessed eyes. “Griffin, I need a containment matrix. The strongest you can create. Layer it with everything you have.”
Griffin nodded rapidly, eager for something to focus on besides the Shadow King’s taunts. “Yes, yes, I can do that. The foundation’s already here, I just need to—” He was already pulling components from his robes, hands shaking slightly.
“Vex,” I continued, “recall the Sky Serpent. Get everyone back to Skyspire immediately.”
She hesitated. “And the ritual?”
“Won’t work without her.” I gestured to Arabella. “She needs to help channel it through the Heirloom, and as you can see…”
“She’s indisposed,” the Shadow King finished cheerfully. “Though I do love what she’s done with her hair. The blood really brings out her eyes.”
Vex’s jaw tightened, but she nodded. “I’ll handle it.”
As she left, Griffin worked frantically, chalking symbols around Arabella while muttering calculations under his breath. The Alchemist observed from the corner, occasionally offering corrections that made Griffin’s eyes widen.
The Shadow King settled onto the floor like someone relaxing into a favorite chair. “Don’t you want to know how I did it?”
I ignored him and fed more power into the shadows binding him.
“Oh, don’t be petulant. I’m about to give you the history lesson you so desperately need.” He settled Arabella’s body more comfortably on the floor, despite the restraints. “Let me tell you a story about prisons, and fragments, and the slow, agonizing death of a god.”
“You’re no god,” I said flatly.
The Shadow King’s smile was terrible on Arabella’s face. “Perhaps not anymore. But I was close enough that it took the First Hero’s blood magic and the power of the First People themselves to bind me in that prison made from the ley lines themselves.”
He paused, and Arabella’s fingers twitched.
“Soriven, that half-breed bastard, made a mistake. Actually, several mistakes, though he never knew about the first one. When he imprisoned me, the trauma of that binding—the agony of being torn from the physical world and wrapped in pure magical essence—it shattered me. Seven pieces broke away during those first moments, fragments of my main consciousness that slipped through the forming weave before it could fully seal. Each one carried pieces of me—my drives, my instincts, my hunger for dominion. Fragments of memory, magical affinity, strategic brilliance. Not enough to be truly conscious, but enough to recognize power when they found it. They couldn’t escape entirely, of course.
They were caught in the spaces between, neither free nor imprisoned. ”
My runes began to ache, but I folded my arms over my chest. “And you’re telling me this because why? You’ve been lonely?”
Arabella’s body hitched in a weird chuckle. “The story’s very interesting, actually. I’ve only just myself pieced everything together since flowing into the ley lines. Before that, I didn’t even know about the fragments, only a vague sense of being incomplete.”
Griffin’s chalk snapped. He fumbled for another piece, not looking up from his work.
“For centuries, those fragments drifted in that liminal space. But prisons decay. Magic weakens. And as your precious heroic bloodlines grew corrupt, siphoning power from my prison for their own petty ambitions, the ley lines around me began to fray.” The Shadow King’s voice took on a quality of satisfaction.
“One strand at a time, the web unraveled. And each time a strand broke, a fragment slipped through.”
“You had no control over it,” the Alchemist observed quietly.
“None whatsoever,” the Shadow King agreed.
“Pure cosmic accident. The fragments sought hosts on their own, drawn to certain conditions. Children with natural darkness, ambition, magical talent. The fragment would integrate during those early, formative years. The child would grow up thinking those impulses—that hunger for power, that strategic brilliance, that need to dominate—were entirely their own.”
Griffin’s hands stilled for a moment before resuming their work with renewed urgency.
“Each one showed such promise,” the Shadow King continued.
“Before being killed by heroes, by their own recklessness, by pure chance. And each time a fragment died, that piece of me died with it.” The Shadow King hurried on, as if even he sensed his time was running out.
“And then along came you, Kazimir. Born under the darkest star in three centuries, to a mother who understood power and a father who embodied brutality. You were perfect.”
“But I didn’t awaken,” I said slowly. “Not naturally.”
“No,” he agreed. “You might have lived your entire life with that fragment dormant, just another brutal warlord in a world full of them. But then dear Amaryska carved those runes into your bones.” He gestured at my scarred arms with Arabella’s hand.
“She thought she was creating a weapon. She had no idea she was creating a resonance. Those runes vibrated at the same frequency as my prison, because all dominion magic originates with me. Every spell she carved was like striking a tuning fork against my cage.”
The aching in my bones intensified. Everything made horrible sense.
Griffin made a strangled sound. “The runes… unlocked the fragment.”
“Broke the lock keeping it dormant,” the Shadow King confirmed.
“Created a channel between you and my prison. Weak at first, barely a whisper. But it grew stronger as you grew stronger.” He paused, and when he spoke again, there was something almost wistful in his tone.
“I’ve been with you your entire life, Kazimir.
Every strategic insight that came to you like breathing.
Every inexplicable draw toward conquest. Your obsession with Skyspire, with Solandris.
That wasn’t just ambition. That was me, recognizing what was mine. ”
“And the Heirloom?” I asked. If the Shadow King was offering information, I’d let him talk.
“Ah yes, Soriven’s great mistake.” The Shadow King’s glee was palpable.
“He forged it from my own essence, bound with his First People magic. It was meant to control the ley lines, to maintain my prison. But he couldn’t bear to destroy it afterward—the power was too intoxicating.
And when you and your lovely wife activated it with your combined magics, it touched the ley lines directly.
My fragment woke and recognized what it was. ”
The containment circle Griffin was working on flared suddenly, making him yelp and scramble backward.
I forced myself to speak. “Why didn’t you take control before today?”
“Because you were too well defended.” Arabella’s shoulders lifted in a shrug, but her left arm jerked violently mid-motion.
“All that emotional detachment, that cynical armor you built around yourself. You thought it made you strong, made you safe from betrayal. But it also made you a fortress I couldn’t breach.
Your refusal to feel, to connect, to love—it kept me locked away as surely as Soriven’s prison kept my body bound. ”
The Alchemist’s expression shifted to something like understanding. “Lady Blackrose.”
“Arabella Blackrose,” the Shadow King said.
“My fragment watched her for weeks after the activation. Watched every wall you’d built start to crumble.
All those feelings you’d suppressed for decades came flooding back.
And with them came cracks in your mental fortress.
Cracks I could slip through. And then, when Auremar’s meddling allowed me to flow into the ley lines, I saw what the fragment was seeing.
That’s when I truly woke. Not just the fragment in you, but my main consciousness in the prison.
For the first time in seventeen centuries, I was aware.
I could see through the fragment’s eyes, feel through your senses.
And I could sense both you and your wife through the Heirloom. ”
My hands clenched into fists.
“But I wasn’t truly free.” His frustration bled through Arabella’s voice. “I can inhabit the ley lines, yes. Move through them, influence them. But I can’t leave them. I can’t create a physical form from pure magical energy. I’m a consciousness without a body.”
He smiled with Arabella’s cracked lips. “I felt her power every time she touched the Heirloom. This beautiful, powerful creature, bonded to an artifact forged from my own essence. Heroic bloodline strong enough to contain me. Magic potent enough to channel me. And so deliciously connected to you—my last fragment, my final piece. She was perfect, and since you kept rejecting me, I kept looking for an opportunity.”
Arabella’s body convulsed, fighting against his words. I was breathing hard, and needed a moment to control myself. Griffin was working faster now, his movements frantic as he layered symbol over symbol.
Arabella’s lips curved into a cruel smile. “Did you know she’s known the truth since that day you activated the Heirloom? She’s been carrying that knowledge ever since, watching you hide it from her, wondering if you’d ever trust her enough to tell her.”
My blood went cold. “You’re lying.”
“Ask yourself—why do you think she’s been so careful around you lately?” The Shadow King laughed. “She saw everything in that vision, Kazimir. She knows exactly what monster sleeps inside you. Watching. Waiting. Planning her escape routes in case you lost control.”
“No.” The word came out flat, certain. Arabella didn’t plan escape routes. She planned attacks.
“No?” The Shadow King’s eyebrows rose. “You think she stayed out of love? She stayed because—”
“She stayed because she was waiting for me to trust her.” The realization hit like a physical blow. Arabella had known. Had chosen to bear that weight rather than add to mine.
“And here you were,” the Shadow King continued, “trying so desperately to keep the truth from her. All that guilt, all that secrecy, and she already knew.”