Page 10 of Echoes From the Void (Shadow Locke Shifters #3)
Chapter 9
Dorian
Time isn’t supposed to affect me.
Yet here I stand in my vault beneath the library, watching my reflection age decades in the cursed mirror before snapping back to eternal youth. The effect lasts longer each time, like reality itself is tired of my defiance. The cracks in my skin spread further with each fluctuation, matching the spiderweb patterns appearing in every reflective surface of my carefully organized sanctuary. Frost spreads from my fingers across the mirror’s surface—another charming side effect of temporal stasis. Being frozen in time apparently means being literally frozen.
Each fluctuation sends ripples of pain through my carefully maintained form—bones aging and regenerating, skin withering and restoring. The cracks in my skin pulse with each wave, spreading like frost across glass.
How tediously symbolic.
“Still brooding in the dark?” Uncle Everett’s voice carries down the stone stairs, disrupting my precise categorization of temporal anomalies. “You know, most young people your age are out enjoying life, not cataloguing centuries of family curses.”
“Most people my apparent age are actually living their twenties,” I reply, adjusting my perfectly pressed cuffs. Frost patterns follow my fingers across the fabric, another tedious reminder of temporal stasis. “And most don’t have to worry about freezing everything they touch.”
“Ah yes, because surrounding yourself with moldering books and talking to your reflection is the height of scientific inquiry.” He picks up one of my meticulously organized texts, deliberately misaligning it from its fellows. “Though I suppose it’s better than pining after your pack.”
“I do not pine,” I say with all the dignity I can muster while straightening the book. “I maintain appropriate professional distance while conducting necessary research into our unique metaphysical situation.”
“You reorganized the entire archive after Leo brought coffee down here.”
“The archives needed reorganizing. The timing was coincidental.” He grabs a different book off my desk. One I’ve been meaning to ask him about.
Before Uncle can further dissect my organizational habits, my thoughts drift to Lyra’s earlier display of power. The way her music had made shadow essence dance had triggered something in my academic memory—a theory about harmonic resonance between realms that I’d dismissed as improbable. Yet the frequency patterns... My attention snaps to my father’s duplicate portrait, where new cracks spread across the canvas like aging skin.
“Uncle,” I say carefully, recognizing the book from years of searching through family archives. “Mother’s diary. The one you claimed was lost after she...” I can’t finish the sentence. “I’ve been looking for this since I first noticed the connection between Lyra’s music and the realm resonance patterns.”
He nods slowly. “It wasn’t lost. It was waiting. Your mother encoded it to reveal itself only when someone understood enough about harmonic resonance to actually use the information. Rather like you encoding your research notes in seventeen different languages.”
“Reveal itself?” I reach for the book, then hesitate as my reflection ages again. The diary seems to pulse with its own energy, like a heartbeat trapped in paper and ink. “Are you suggesting an inanimate object has been waiting for an appropriately dramatic moment?”
“Says the man who color-codes his grimoires by century and magical resonance.”
“That’s different. That’s proper archival procedure.”
The diary practically falls into my hands, its pages crackling with preserved power. My mother’s elegant script fills every page with observations, calculations, and... theories on shadow manipulation. She wrote about the intersection of shadow and time, about using the energy of the shadow realm to stabilize Father’s curse. And... music? The notations seem to vibrate against my fingers, reminding me of the way Lyra’s violin made shadow essence dance.
“The frequency patterns,” I breathe, academic excitement momentarily overwhelming my composure. “Like Lyra’s violin. The realm resonance?—”
A surge of power from the medical wing interrupts my revelation. The twins must be practicing again, their combined energy making reality itself shudder.
Through the pack bonds I try so hard to ignore—and absolutely do not strengthen when no one is looking—I feel their energy reaching, searching, changing. Even after just four years of watching my peers change while I remain frozen at twenty-two, of maintaining perfect control because I know I’ll have to watch everyone I care for age and die eventually, of trying to prepare myself for centuries of this existence...
The diary grows warm in my hands, responding to the power surge like it’s been waiting for this exact moment.
My dearest son, the first entry reads, if you’re reading this, the realms are failing. The curse that preserves our line was never meant to be permanent. Time must flow, even for those it cannot keep.
“She knew,” I whisper, hating how my voice catches. Emotions are so tediously disruptive to proper research. I feel a pang of something—something I can’t quite name, something that gnaws at the edges of my carefully constructed detachment. Was it fear? Grief? “All this time?—”
“Of course she knew.” Uncle Everett picks up a grimoire, his movements deliberately casual in a way that immediately raises my suspicion. He only feigns nonchalance when something is truly significant. “She’s the one who modified the curse in the first place.”
The diary nearly slips from my suddenly numb fingers. Unacceptable. “She what?”
“Your father’s original immortality curse was killing him—consuming his soul to preserve his body. Your mother, a shadow shifter, tried to save him by anchoring his immortality to the shadow realm, hoping it would preserve his mind as well as his body. She believed that the shadow realm’s essence could stabilize his sanity where time alone had failed. But despite her efforts, she couldn’t stop his descent into madness. Ultimately, she failed, and the shadows were not enough to keep him whole.” He pauses, watching my reflection age and reset. “Rather like what you’re doing with those pack bonds you pretend not to strengthen.”
“I do no such—” The pack bonds pulse with concern, betraying my agitation. They can feel my distress, damn them. Even now, Matteo is probably heading this way with his insufferable protective instincts, Leo planning something cheerfully irritating, Bishop analyzing strategy, Frankie...
Frankie.
“The twins,” I realize, scanning faster through the diary. Mother’s elegant script blurs with mathematical precision and mystical theory. “Mother mentions a prophecy about balanced powers. Light and shadow, life and death, time and—” I stop, staring at a diagram that makes my academic soul weep with joy. “Oh, that’s brilliant.”
“Care to share with the class?” Uncle drawls.
“The curse preserves our lives, but it is separate from the barrier between realms. The barrier is failing, and we are meant to help stabilize it. My mother’s attempt to tie immortality to the shadow realm revealed a connection—one that goes beyond just us. The shadow realm holds an energy that resonates with the realms, but our immortality is not the anchor. The barrier needs something else—something more stable, more connected. The barrier requires a different kind of energy—one that comes from harmony and connection, not just temporal stasis.”
“That sounds exhausting,” Leo says from the stairs, his presence announced by the faint sound of footsteps I had been too distracted to notice. He always has a way of showing up at just the right—or wrong—moment, depending on your perspective. Can’t have an emotional revelation without sunshine personified appearing to disrupt my perfectly organized crisis. “Also, you missed lunch. Again.”
“It is rather taxing,” I admit before I can stop myself. These pack bonds are making me distressingly honest. The truth, unfiltered, slips out more easily in their presence. “The constant maintenance of temporal stability while managing interdimensional energetic barriers requires significant?—”
“You’re lonely,” Leo interrupts, with that infuriating ability to see past my carefully constructed walls. “And tired. And scared your walls are cracking like that portrait. Also, your tie is crooked.”
I open my mouth to deliver a scathing reply about his complete lack of sartorial standards, but my reflection chooses that moment to age again. This time, the effect ripples through the room like a temporal earthquake. Uncle Everett grimaces as his own immortality wavers.
Power surges again from the medical wing. The diary burns in my hands, its pages turning themselves to a complicated series of musical notations.
“The twins,” I say, realization striking with all the subtlety of Leo’s personality. “Their power could either reinforce the barriers or shatter them completely. That’s why Blackwood wanted them. Why he has the missing page?—”
The curse mirror cracks. My carefully maintained composure cracks with it. How embarrassingly metaphorical.
Leo moves faster than I thought possible, catching me as temporal backlash makes my immortal knees buckle. How inconvenient. How necessary.
“I don’t need—” I start, though my temporal form begs to differ.
“Yeah, you do.” Leo’s presence wraps around me, his natural warmth fighting against my temporal frost. The ice that usually spreads from my touch recedes slightly, responding to his energy like winter giving way to spring. His optimism melts more than just my carefully maintained walls.
“I am doing no such thing. This is merely... strategic proximity for temporal stabilization.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re not at all enjoying my amazing cologne.”
“Your cologne is offensive to proper sensibilities.”
“But you still know exactly which one I’m wearing.”
“The curse preserves more than just your life, nephew,” Uncle Everett says softly, interrupting our... whatever this is. I look at him, and for the first time, the weight behind his eyes is fully visible. He’s been carrying this burden for far too long, I realize. Just like I have. “But perhaps it was never meant to preserve you alone. Your mother understood that connection makes us stronger, not weaker.”
My mother’s diary pulses one more time, then settles. The next page shows a series of musical patterns—frequencies that could realign shadow essence with its natural resonance. Not by forcing stasis like our curse attempts, but by restoring proper harmony between light and shadow. One pattern catches my eye—the exact notes Lyra played earlier, the ones that made shadow essence dance in tune with reality. My mother had been studying this long before the realms began to fail, looking for ways to restore natural balance rather than force artificial stability.
“Well,” I say, straightening my cuffs again and definitely not leaning into Leo’s warmth, “this is all terribly inconvenient.”
“You love it,” Leo grins, not moving away. “Admit it. We’re growing on you.”
“Like particularly persistent fungus.” I adjust my collar, ignoring how his shadows dance with my temporal energy. “An infestation of chaos and inappropriate humor.”
“Don’t forget the amazing cologne.”
“I’m actively trying to.”
The curse marks on my skin shift, adapting to accommodate pack magic. Time marks us all, it seems. Even those it cannot keep.
“This is no longer just about preserving myself,” I say, finally letting go of the last bit of resistance. And maybe, letting go feels almost like relief . “We need to stabilize the realms. The twins’ unique abilities are crucial for reinforcing the barrier, not through the curse, but through their resonance with the energy between realms. Blackwood knows this, and he wants to use that resonance for his own ends. We have to act quickly before he gains control of their power.”
Leo nods, his expression softening, shadows mingling with mine. “We’re with you,
“All of us are,” he says, squeezing my shoulder. “You’re not doing this alone anymore, Dorian. That’s what pack means.”
I straighten up, pulling away slightly to regain my composure, but I don’t shrug off his touch completely. There’s comfort in his presence, warmth in his ridiculous optimism that I’ve come to need more than I’d ever admit. “Then let’s not waste time,” I say, the urgency reasserting itself. “We need to gather everyone. The diary’s instructions on harmonic resonance could be crucial in stabilizing the barriers. If the twins can amplify it?—”
Leo grins, his eyes bright. “Then we’ve got a fighting chance, right? Let’s go save the realms, Mr. Eternal Youth.”
I snort. “Your enthusiasm will be the death of me.”
“And yet, it’s the only reason you’re still standing,” Leo retorts cheerfully, already turning towards the stairs. He glances back, offering a hand. “Ready to go be brilliant and save the world?”
I hesitate for just a heartbeat before I take his hand. His grip is warm, solid, and, to my begrudging acceptance, reassuring. We climb the stairs together, the lingering weight of the diary a reminder that time might not be my friend—but at least, for now, I’m not facing it alone.
Uncle Everett’s voice follows us as we ascend, his tone a mix of pride and amusement. “Don’t forget, Dorian. You’re more than a guardian of time. You’re part of something bigger now. Maybe it’s time you stopped trying to hold all the pieces alone.”
The sentiment lingers, stubbornly making itself comfortable as Leo and I head toward the medical wing—toward the chaos, the potential, and the family I never quite realized I had. As inconvenient as it may be, the truth is undeniable.
And maybe, just maybe, that’s exactly what I need.