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Ellie.

Her name surfaces without command. Silver-flecked eyes watching me with that mixture of wariness and wonder. Hands tracing patterns across my skin, hesitant at first, then growing bolder. The unexpected warmth that filled me when she smiled. The way she sees me—not theVareth’el,not the Shadowvein Lord.Me.

The memory of her body pressed against mine surges forward. Her light meeting my darkness.

Something prophecy hints at, but can’t fully capture.

Something I will guard with my last breath.

The distraction costs me.

A soldier breaks through my guard, his blade grazing my shoulder. Pain rises, sharp and immediate. The wound burns with unnatural intensity. Where the blade struck, my shadows pull away, leaving me exposed. A sickly blue glow spreads through the injury, searing into muscle and bone.

“Capture him!” Sereven’s voice cuts through the chaos, a composed command. “Now! Use the nets!”

Thunder crashes overhead, the storm intensifying, as if responding to the violence playing out beneath it.

Something launches toward me from my right flank. Not a weapon, but a net woven with glittering blue threads, each strand pulsing with wrongness. I twist aside, shadow rising to shield, butthe moment it makes contact, the weave unravels my power. The shield disintegrates.

My body goes cold. The disruption creeps inward like a limb gone numb. For a breath, I am back in the tower, the final seal falling into place, my connection to the Vein severed. Sereven’s voice reciting my sentence. My own silent fury, caged and helpless.

No. Not again.Neveragain.

I reach deeper, past the ordered layers I usually access, into the core I was taught to bind. Power answers, untamed and ancient. It surges through me, resisting the suppression, lending strength to limbs that had begun to falter.

Three soldiers rush me together, coordinating their attack to limit my options. My blade rises to meet theirs, formed from focus sharpened to a killing edge.

“Tharen var.”The words leave my mouth low and steady.Bind and collapse.

The first soldier drops, his limbs folding inward in an unnatural contortion, bones snapping beneath his armor. The second falters at the sight, and I drive the blade cleanly through his shoulder as he pivots, severing what balance he had left. The third hesitates, just long enough for my blade to find his throat.

Their expressions remain grim even as they fall. Men prepared to die, and still fighting.

Another net flies. This one catches the hem of my cloak. The fabric sags, impossibly heavy, dragging me earthward. Light snakes through the weave, creeping across my skin, seeking deeper purchase. I tear the cloak off before it finds more than fabric and cast it aside.

“He’s weakening!” Sereven’s voice carries above the clash of steel and the rising wind. “Tighten the circle. Don’t give him space to recover.”

He’s right. The continuous exposure to whatever they have is draining my power faster than I can replenish it. Each shadow manipulation requires more effort, each extension of darkness slower to respond.

My hand brushes the ring in my pocket. I know what it would bring. Immediate strength. Complete connection. But to use it now, mid-combat, would mean vulnerability. Sereven would see it. He would recognize exactly what I’ve done. And he would use that moment to his advantage.

Time for a more dramatic approach. Something to buy me space and time.

I hesitate—for the span of a single breath.

Voidcraft will drain me faster than combat. Shadow is being pulled apart the moment it touches their weapons. I can hold back, conserve what remains, but the circle is closing. No options. No time.

I choose force. Even if it breaks me.

I abandon restraint, letting go of the control I honed over years of confinement. Shadow erupts from every part of me. Not a shaped extension, but an explosive surge, primal and wild. The release burns through me. Power unbound. Too much. Too fast.

Darkness floods the clearing like a dam shattered, a tidal wave that swallows light whole. Soldiers stagger backward, despite their training, some crying out as the void flows around them with hungry intention.

My familiar breaks free entirely, no longer content to remain beneath the surface. Its form coalesces above me, feathers of seamless black forming from compressed shadow. Its wings span wide, blotting out the last thin traces of sky. Its eyes reflect nothing, absolute voids that consume light rather than return it.

It shrieks. The sound doesn’t move through air. It tears through substance. A vibration that resonates through bone and thought alike. Then it dives, talons extended.

Men scream. Armor splits. Flesh yields. Blood sprays black, life essence feeding the shadow that claims it. With each kill, the raven grows more solid, more real.