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Lord of Shadows

T he storm had long passed, leaving a world brittle and silent in its wake.

Snow draped the Academy’s rooftops like forgotten prayers, softening the harsh angles of slate and stone.

Icicles hung from eaves, glinting like crystal daggers in the pale light of the moon.

The chill in the air wasn't biting—still sharp enough to remind the living that something colder waited in the world beyond their fire-warmed walls.

Perched high in the shadows of the East Spire, a figure stood utterly still.

A silhouette among the stone gargoyles, faceless and foreboding.

Cloaked in gray so dark it seemed to bleed into the sky itself, they watched the students below with eyes like shards of cut obsidian—impossibly still, catching every flicker of torchlight from the courtyard.

The night swallowed their breath, made them one with the murk and frost. They did not move, a phantom presence.

There she was.

Navigating the courtyard with her satchel slung across one shoulder, her cloak fluttering with every careful step.

Behind her, Lydia. Bethany. Leander, and then—him. The boy marked by shadow and twilight.

Samael Norwood.

The figure tilted their head slightly, like a predator watching unfamiliar prey.

Not out of hunger. Curiosity, perhaps. Or something deeper.

So, the bloodline has remembered itself—They did not move.

Did not breathe. The wind curled around them, whispering secrets into their still and perfect silence. Until at last, the words came.

She is strong, the figure mused. Yet still young. Still learning.

Elvana looked over her shoulder once, as if sensing something. Her eyes skimmed the upper towers, the rooftops. For a single heartbeat, her gaze brushed past the East Spire. And still—they remained unseen.

They turned their gaze from the courtyard to the night sky, where clouds rolled like black waves across the moon’s pale face. A chill mist seeped in from the sea, devouring everything in its path.

“She’s chasing ghosts,” the figure whispered into the frost-laced wind, “but I have the gate.”

They stepped back into the shadows of the spire, boots making no sound upon the ancient stone. A flick of the cloak, a whisper of spell-bound fabric.

With that, they vanished.

I pace the length of the chamber like a tethered storm, each footfall echoing through the hollow dark. Each step a drumbeat of contained fury

The walls here do not echo with song or laughter or even memory. Only with purpose. Only with the promise that this time—I will not fail.

Old stone. Older shadows.

The air thrums with the pulse of distant magic, as if the gate itself—my gate—can feel the girl drawing closer. And I feel her too.

Elvana Vale.

Damn her name. Damn her blood.

I should have ended it that night in the dining hall, damn that boy for jumping to her rescue. I was so close; the Raven’s Echo would have been mine.

I will not miss a third time. I will destroy her.

Now, she walks with confidence. Wears the Raven’s Echo like armor, as if she’s earned the right to hold it. To breathe near it.

She has no idea what it truly is. What it can do.

Worse—for what it was meant.

I stop in front of the obsidian mirror embedded in the wall. My reflection peers back, distorted. The mask covers everything but the eyes—cold, gray, and sharp as broken glass.

“I gave her a chance,” I murmur, “and she wasted it.”

She has the first relic.

Oblivion’s Embrace.

I can feel it pulsing through the leylines like a beacon. A curse wrapped in beautiful design. She doesn’t even understand what she’s holding. She doesn’t know what it will do to her. Though she will, and when she does, she’ll beg to put it down.

Still, she won’t.

Because that’s how power works.

It teaches before it consumes.

She thinks she’s choosing her own path, unraveling clues like some clever little heir, whispering to ghosts for guidance.

Let her.

Let her dig up every relic buried by the Vale sisters’ trembling hands. Let her string them around her neck like trophies.

Because with each step, she comes closer to the truth.

And to me.

She thinks she’s hunting the dark.

But I am the dark.

I twist the ring on my finger. It burns now, faintly, with the rage I no longer try to contain. The red stone gleams with quiet hunger, as if it too is watching her.

If she fails to find the next relic in time—if she wanders too long, or turns the wrong way at the wrong moment—

I will end it.

No more mistakes. No more borrowed cloaks or chance encounters.

I will carve the Raven’s Echo from her throat and take it back.

Take everything back.

I run my hand along the ancient table, the one carved by Nightlock herself, before she became too weak to finish what needed to be done.

I will find them all.

And this time—no one will stand in my way.