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The shadows within me respond to her presence, differently than anything I’ve ever known. Not mere acknowledgement of a complimentary power. But recognition.

But recognition ofwhatexactly?

I turn to look at her, and find her asleep, curled on top of the bed, one hand fisted loosely in the worn blanket.

I move to the window, drawing the thin curtains to block out the remaining light.

Tomorrow I will retrieve my ring, the final fragment of the power I sundered before my imprisonment. Tomorrow I will be whole again.

But what follows is no longer certain.

Particularly with Ellie, and with what she’s becoming.

For now, I let these thoughts remain unanswered, though they've taken root too deeply to ignore. The shadows within me stir restlessly when I look at her sleeping form, curled on my bed like she belongs there.

Ellie Bennett, from a world I have never seen, has become more than an unwilling participant in the war older than her lifetime.

Even in sleep, the silver beneath her closed eyes betrays the truth. She is no longer foreign to this world, nor to me. Whether she wishes it or not. Whether I planned it or not.

Completion once meant reclaiming the power I lost. Now, watching her breathe in the twilight of Ashenvale, I accept a truth I can no longer deny. There is no completing myself without her. And whatever follows, there will be no undoing what has begun.

Chapter Thirty-Three

ELLIE

“Obedience is proven not in public, but in the absence of witness.”

Authority Codex

I wakewith a gasp that tears through my throat, heart thrashing against my ribs as the dream splinters into pieces I can't quite hold onto. My skin burns with phantom heat, the afterimage of power still crackling through my veins.

Images slip through my fingers like smoke. Ashenvale's imposing walls, Sacha's hand outstretched toward his ring. Then darkness. Not ordinary shadow but something alive, ravenous, swallowing everything in its path. A vortex of writhing black tendrils reaching toward me, towardhim, hungry and endless. Punctuated by screams and silver bleeding into blue, bleeding into something darker that sears my vision even in memory. And beneath it all … a sense of fury, of despair, of fear.

The narrow bed beneath me is damp with sweat, sheets twisted around my legs like restraints. My mouth feels like sand, tongue sticking to the roof as I try to swallow.

This wasn't an ordinary dream. It was something deeper. A warning, maybe.

Pushing myself upright, I’m confused to find myself back in the room I share with Mira. Early evening light slants through the window. The last thing I remember is collapsing on the bed in Sacha’s room after the incident in the storage closet, exhausted from the adrenaline crash and trying to suppress the power inside me.

I stand up and cross to the wash basin on the shelf, splashing water on my face. Finding my pack, I take out one of the Firebloom Resin beads, pop it into my mouth, and chew. It helps take away the dryness in my mouth.

The water's reflection shows my face—the same features but subtly altered. For a moment, my breath snags, a quick hitch in my throat. Silver flecks in my eyes catch the light, brighter than before, no longer confined to tiny specks but threading through the iris. I lean closer, despite the unease, studying this evidence of my changing nature. The face looking back is both mine and …not. Familiar in its outline but increasingly foreign in its details.

How much more will I change before this is over? How much of the woman from Chicago will remain?

The memory of Sacha's hands wrapped around mine in the storage closet floods back without warning, his fingers cool against my feverish skin as he drew the excess energy away.

But the unexpected warmth that spreads through me now isn't just from remembering his touch. It's deeper, the connection that formed between us as our powers met. Like a circuit closing, completing something I hadn't known was broken. Energy hadflowed between us in patterns that felt startlingly, frighteninglyright. As though our magics recognized each other while we were still fumbling in the dark.

The door opens behind me, intruding on my thoughts, and I turn around as Mira walks in. The servant’s clothes she’s wearing look dusty and rumpled, making me think that she’s been in places clothes like that aren’t meant to go.

I dig through my mind to find the right words to greet her. “Vashna tem.”

“Vashna tem, Ellie.”She nods, then points at the door. “Tashak.”

“Tashak?”I think it means come, or come with me.

“Tashak, Shadowverin … Tashak et.”She opens the door wider.“Tashak.”