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"This is the shadow realm." Her voice was barely audible yet somehow echoing. "We've been pulled across."

I shifted to shield her instinctively, scanning our surroundings. Archer and Rowen were nowhere to be seen. We were alone in this lightless void. The absence of my brother and our shared mate left a physical ache, as though part of myself had been torn away.

"Welcome, welcome." The voice slithered around us, seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere. "How kind of you to join us."

The darkness coalesced before us, forming a vaguely humanoid shape that towered overhead, its edges constantly shifting and reforming. Where a face might be, only deeper darkness swirled.

"The Fae king and the necromancer witch," it continued, the words oily and wrong. "Such a delightful pairing. we've waited so long for a taste of pure Fae essence. The power of the throne runs strong in your veins, Callum Darkbane."

I pushed Sierra behind me, drawing on my power. "Show yourself properly, creature. If you know who I am, you know what I'm capable of."

Laughter rippled through the darkness, a sound like stones grinding together. "Oh, I know precisely what you're capable of. Why do you think we've brought you here? Your shadow abilities are useless in our domain. They're merely echoes of what we truly are."

The creature's arrogance ignited my anger. With a thought, I summoned Lightsbane to my hand, the sword materializing from shadow as it had countless times before. The blade had been my father's gift when I reached fifty, the age of maturity for Fae. I remembered his solemn expression as he presented it to me, explaining its legacy and power.

"A king must be both light and shadow," he'd told me. "This blade understands both."

Lightsbane gleamed even in this lightless place, its edge hungry for battle. The runes etched along its length pulsed with power, drawing on my connection to the shadows.

"A pretty toy," the Shadow Beast mocked, tendrils of darkness reaching toward us. "But you bring a knife to a storm,Fae king. Your weapon cannot harm what has existed since before your realm was dreamed into being."

I shifted my stance, centuries of battle training taking over. "We'll see about that."

I lunged forward, Lightsbane cutting an arc through the darkness. The blade passed through the creature's form, meeting no resistance. The Shadow Beast's laughter intensified, maniacal and disturbing.

"Did we not tell you? Your weapons are meaningless here."

Tendrils of darkness whipped toward me, faster than thought. I blocked the first with Lightsbane, but three more wrapped around my legs, immobilizing me. Cold seeped into my bones where the darkness touched me, a bone-deep chill that seemed to drain my very essence.

"Yes," the creature purred. "Feed us with your struggle. Your power is exquisite. The concentrated magic of generations of Fae royalty. We have hungered for you since our first taste of your realm."

I fought against the tendrils, but more appeared, wrapping around my torso, my arms. Lightsbane grew heavy in my hand, its power seeming to dim as the darkness pressed in.

"Callum!" Sierra's voice cut through my growing despair. She hadn't fled as I'd hoped. Instead, she stepped forward, her eyes beginning to glow with an unearthly white light.

"You made a mistake bringing both of us." Her voice resonating with power I'd never heard from her before. "You should have separated us completely."

The Shadow Beast's form rippled, perhaps in surprise. "The witch thinks she has power here? How amusing."

Sierra ignored the taunt, placing her hand on Lightsbane's hilt alongside mine. Where our skin touched, warmth bloomed, pushing back against the cold darkness trying to devour me.

"I see the dead." Calmness spread through me from where our flesh touched. "I speak with them, channel them, command them. And do you know what I've learned about death, Shadow Beast?"

The creature's form contracted slightly, its tendrils loosening their grip on me.

"Death is not darkness," Sierra continued. "Death is transformation. Death is passage. Death is, in its own unique way, light."

As she spoke, her power flowed into Lightsbane through our joined hands. The sword's runes shifted, changing from their usual deep blue to a brilliant white that illuminated the void around us. But the shadows didn't disappear. Instead, they merged with the light, creating a blade that seemed to exist in two states simultaneously.

"Impossible," the Shadow Beast hissed, withdrawing slightly.

"You exist in shadow," Sierra said, her eyes now blazing so brightly I could barely look at her. "But I exist in the space between life and death. And Callum?" she squeezed my hand, "he exists in both light and shadow. Together, with our other mates, we will be your ending."

The power surging through Lightsbane intensified, the blade now wreathed in both shadow and light, neither canceling the other but existing in perfect balance. The weight of the sword lessened in my grip, becoming an extension of my arm once more.

"This cannot be," the Shadow Beast growled, its form losing cohesion as it backed away. "You cannot wield both! That is only possible for…”

But we could. With Sierra's hand still covering mine, I swung Lightsbane in a wide arc, interrupting the beast. This time, when the blade connected with the Shadow Beast's form, it metresistance. The creature screamed, a sound like the void itself being torn open, as light and shadow cut through its essence.