Chapter 50
Chapter
Fifty
The light had turned against him.
Dawn arrived as pale silver light trickled through the canopy, pooling over the forest floor.
It was not the sun of the plains—a clean, open thing—but a diffused, ghostly shimmer that crept in through gaps in the leaves.
Even that thin illumination made his skin crawl.
Every time it touched him, the black veins beneath the surface stirred: alive and hungry.
He rose before the others, moving quietly to the edge of the clearing. His body ached with the wrongness of it—light on flesh that no longer belonged entirely to flesh. The air felt thick, charged. Beneath his ribs, a pulse that wasn't quite his own answered the dawn with a low, hungry beat.
He flexed his hands. Dark tendrils oozed between his fingers, slow but persistent. Their hunger never ceased.
He curled his fists until claws pricked skin and drew blood. The sting steadied him, dimming his hunger to a waiting tremor.
Azfar's voice whispered out of memory: The shadow doesn't drink the light, Rakhal. It drinks what the light touches.
And the light was everywhere now—sinking into bark, gleaming off the thin stream nearby, touching the sleeping forms in the camp.
Touching her.
He looked toward Eliza, still asleep on the pelt. Her braid was loose, dark hair glinting faintly where the light found it. The curve of her neck showed pale against the shadows. Her breathing was soft, even. A pulse throbbed at her throat, visible in the delicate hollow just above her collarbone.
His body reacted before thought could intervene—a tightening low in his gut, a rush of heat that mingled with the ache behind his teeth. The shadows shivered eagerly, tasting her warmth.
He turned away hard, digging his claws into the dirt until the urge dulled. The smell of loam and blood grounded him.
Pain is a leash.
He forced himself to breathe. To count. To remember the sound of her voice cutting through the dungeon's echoes.
It wasn't enough.
The whisper came again—not Azfar's this time, but a chorus of tones he recognized in bone rather than ear.
Voices layered upon each other, some deep and guttural, others sharp and whisper-thin.
The dead. The ones he'd led into battle.
The ones he'd killed. The ones buried under this cursed forest centuries before him.
Feed us, they said. Give us warmth. We can make you whole again.
He bared his teeth. "I don't need you."
We are you.
The ground beneath him darkened where his blood had fallen. It pulsed faintly, like a mouth swallowing. The air turned metallic.
Rakhal slammed his fist into the earth. "Enough."
The voices hissed, then receded, sulking like smoke denied flame. The shadows in his veins quieted—but only because they were listening for another sound.
Footsteps. Soft. Human.
"Rakhal?"
Her voice. Low, uncertain.
He closed his eyes. "Go back to sleep."
She came closer anyway. The air changed with her presence—the shadows recoiled slightly, like animals uncertain of a new scent.
"I woke and you were gone." She took another step toward him. "Then I saw you—like this."
"Like what?" He kept his gaze on the ground.
"Like you're hurting."
"I'm not." He tried to stand, failed, settled back on one knee. The effort cost him a sharp, involuntary sound.
She knelt beside him without hesitation, one hand braced against his shoulder. Her touch burned, not with pain but like a brand pressed against ice. The reaction was immediate. The whispers fell completely silent.
"You're cold," she murmured.
He gave a short, rough laugh. "You're wrong. I'm burning."
Her hand slid down his arm, finding his wrist. "Then let me help."
He should have told her no. Should have moved away, hidden the truth of what writhed beneath his skin. But the need to resist drained out of him with the same steady rhythm as her voice.
"Breathe," she said.
He didn't answer.
She shifted, kneeling opposite him, their knees almost touching. Her palm pressed flat against his chest, over the heart that refused to keep to a single rhythm. "Here. Follow me."
Her eyes held his. Blue-gray, steady. The kind of color that had no name in his language—something between storm and steel.
"Breathe," she said again. "With me."
He obeyed. In, hold, release.
Her hand rose and fell with the movement. Her warmth spread beneath his ribs, slow and invasive, until his body found her rhythm.
"The shadows listen to you," she said quietly.
"They listen for weakness."
"Then let them hear strength instead."
Her tone left no room for argument. Each breath drew the black hum in his veins quieter, slower. The ache in his head eased. The shadows coiled inward, docile, not gone but resting.
He realized his hand had come to rest over hers. He hadn't meant to. Her fingers were small against his, but their touch held steady even when his claws grazed her skin.
"Say it," she whispered. "Tell me you're still here."
He wanted to say her name. But something older rose first—a word from long ago, spoken to him when his bones were still soft with youth. Azfar's voice again, from some distant training ground of blood and silence.
Endure.
He said it aloud. "Endure."
Her expression softened. "Then that's the word."
He frowned. "For what?"
"For when you forget who you are. When you lose yourself in it again. I'll say it, and you'll come back."
He studied her face—the fierce certainty, the calm at the center of it. "And what will you say?"
Her lips curved faintly. "I'll say, 'I am here.'"
A silence stretched between them, deep and fragile as the space before a storm.
Then he spoke, voice low: "Endure."
She answered without hesitation. "I am here."
The world seemed to breathe with them.
He didn't know how long they stayed like that. Time had lost its shape. When the tremor in his limbs finally stilled, he let his head drop forward, forehead brushing hers. The contact was electric and unbearable all at once.
"You shouldn't come near me when I'm like this," he said.
"Then stop trying to hide it."
He huffed a quiet laugh that might have been something close to relief. "You give orders like an orc."
"And you follow them like one," she replied.
Her breath ghosted across his mouth. He could have kissed her. He wanted to—every part of him ached for it—but he turned his head instead and pressed his lips to her temple. The warmth there grounded him more than desire ever could.
"Thank you," he murmured.
Her answer was a whisper: "Don't thank me. Just stay."