Page 82

“And my situation? Finding a way home?” I hate the vulnerability that creeps into my question. I hate that I have to ask.

“That remains the goal.” His eyes lock with mine. “The more we understand about what allowed you to break the binding, the closer we may get to finding you a way back.”

I study his face, looking for deception, but finding nothing. Just the same calm stillness it always holds.

“You still haven’t even explained how I got here in the first place. Or why it was me.”

His eyes move away, looking at a point over my shoulder, a tell I’m beginning to recognize.

“There is much about your arrival that remains unclear. Whatmatters is that you’re here, and you were able to do what no one else could. Understanding that connection is our best hope.”

It’s not the first time he’s said something like this. But each time, the wording changes … just enough to make me wonder what he’snotsaying.

I could push, demand answers, but experience has taught me his walls only build higher under pressure. I need patience. Something I’m running short on.

“Okay, so what happens now?”

“We continue gathering intelligence. The network will rebuild. Meanwhile, I’ll work with you on understanding more about what happened at the tower, and why the binding responded to you in the manner it did.”

The tower. The raven. The dream that didn’t feel like a dream.

I think of that moment again. Its wings slicing through the air, its gaze fixed on me with eyes too knowing to be an animal. It looked at me like Sacha does sometimes.

I nod without argument. I have no choice but to accept his word for now. At least we’re working toward something, another step on a path that might eventually lead me home. But his evasions haven’t gone unnoticed, nor has the way everyone treats him here. I’m not stupid. I know power when I see it … and his is growing by the hour in this place.

He’s becoming less the desperate prisoner I freed, and more someone with agendas I can’t even begin to work out. He’s becoming something I’m not sure is safe to be standing beside.

I stand, and walk forward, brushing past him in the close space.Static jumps between us, catching skin. It shocks me, a sharp pulse up my arm that makes me hiss.

He stills, head tilting, but he doesn’t say anything.

Neither do I. But the feeling remains, a weird tingling under my skin.

He knows more than he’s telling me. About this world, about why I’m here, and about what connects us, and somehow, I have to discover what that is before those secrets cost me everything.

Chapter Eighteen

SACHA

“Restraint is a form of power. Absence, a form of presence.”

Reflections on Captivity—Sacha Torran’s Journals

The shadowblade whispersthrough the chamber, slicing the still air in elegant arcs. My grip is firm, but relaxed, the hilt settling into my palm as though it never left. The weapon is formed from pure darkness, given edge and weight by my will. Years of imprisonment dissolve in this moment. Muscle memory awakening. Old rhythms resurface.

Yet the harmony between body and blade is not yet seamless.

I shift my stance, rolling onto the balls of my feet, and the sword flows with me, trailing darkness along its edge.

A step forward. Thrust. Pivot. Parry.

The blade sings as I carve through the silence, each strike weaving into the next, a lethal dance against unseen adversaries who took everything from me. Shadows trail from the blade’s arc, not smoke or mist, but absence of light itself. Where steel must work against resistance, my weapon cuts through the nothing between things.

The sword’s weight changes with my need. Light for swiftcombinations, heavy with voidcraft for cleaving strokes. This is not blade-work as soldiers know it. This is shadow given killing purpose.

Momentum builds. My body remembers, and adapts. This sword demands different forms than steel. When I thrust, the blade elongates subtly, reaching further than metal ever could. Defensive sweeps trail curtains of darkness that linger, forming temporary barriers my opponent would need to penetrate before reaching me.

It’s not merely technique I’m relearning, but my shadows language of violence.