Page 26 of Infernal Crown (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #3)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
DATHAN
I lie in the darkness of Lysithea’s room, listening to the soft sounds of breathing that prove we’re all alive despite everything that tried to prevent it.
Lysithea sleeps beside me, exhaustion finally claiming her after the cosmic forces she channelled to bring me back from whatever realm claims the dead.
Evren has claimed the chair by the window, newly alive and still marvelling at biological functions that require no conscious effort.
Verik sprawls across the end of the bed, in a deep sleep after his monumental spell that I’m pissed off I missed.
All of us together. All of us breathing. All of us carrying the weight of recent experiences that most beings couldn’t survive.
But I’m different now. Changed in ways that go beyond the physical, marked by passage through death that has introduced variables I’m still learning to process.
The silver scarring that traces across my skin maps pathways through dimensions that exist outside normal reality, but that’s the least significant alteration.
Death, it turns out, is more educational than anyone mentions.
The experience doesn’t match any description I’ve encountered in centuries of studying magic that operates beyond conventional understanding.
No bright lights or peaceful transitions, no judgement by god-like forces or reunion with lost loved ones.
Instead, dissolution into component parts that scatter across spaces between dimensions, consciousness fragmenting into pieces that maintain connection through bonds the grimoire couldn’t categorise or destroy.
I remember the moment the fuckface unmade my physical form with a power that operates on universal scales, reducing flesh and bone to constituent elements.
The sensation should have been agony, but instead it felt like expansion—awareness spreading across distances that have no meaningful measurement, perspective shifting to encompass realities that exist parallel to our own.
It was fucked up, to say the least, and something that will stick with me for a while.
But the most profound revelation came in the spaces between existence, where consciousness maintains coherence through emotional bonds rather than physical structure.
The grimoire was wrong about the nature of truth.
Perfect logic cannot account for connections that choose to persist despite every rational reason to dissolve.
Love, it turns out, is stronger than cosmic law.
Coming back to life felt like someone gathering all the scattered pieces of me and putting them back together.
The Soul Scar acted like a map, showing the way home across impossible distances.
Lysithea’s power built the framework, but what really pulled me back were the bonds between us—connections that even death couldn’t break.
I flex my fingers in the darkness, amazed at how solid they feel. After floating as pure consciousness for what felt like centuries, having a body again is strange. The silver scars on my skin pulse with leftover energy from places beyond our world, marking me as someone who died and came back.
Just like Evren.
But the changes go deeper than visible alterations.
Death taught me things about myself that I couldn’t learn through any other means, revealed capacities for selfless action that I didn’t know I possessed.
The moment I threw myself at the grimoire wasn’t calculated heroism or strategic sacrifice—it was pure instinct driven by the sight of people I love facing destruction.
I’ve spent years crafting an image of charming chaos, the Nightmare Sovereign who makes terrible decisions and relies on luck to survive the consequences. But when everything that mattered hung in the balance, I chose love over self-preservation without hesitation.
The realisation unsettles me more than the memory of my unpleasant dissolution. I’m not supposed to be capable of genuine heroism, not the type who throws himself into certain death to buy others a few precious seconds. That’s Evren’s role, or Lysithea’s.
But apparently, love changes the fundamental nature of who we are.
And let’s face it. My death caused Lysithea to ramp up her power, and the fuckface grimoire met its end. Finally.
“Arsehole,” I mutter.
Lysithea stirs beside me, her violet eyes opening to focus on my face with the particular attention that suggests she’s been monitoring my condition even in sleep. “How do you feel?”
“Different,” I admit. “Not just physically, but fundamentally altered in ways I’m still discovering.”
She sits up slowly, magical exhaustion still evident in her movements. “Are you alive or undead?” she asks cautiously.
I snort. “Alive. I think. Not really sure what undead feels like.”
“Like you’re walking through a dream,” Evren says quietly. “You’d know if you were.”
“Alive then. Probably.” I reach up to trace the silver scarring on my arm. “Death isn’t an ending so much as a transition to different states of being. Most people don’t get the chance to experience it and return.”
“Most people don’t have bonds that transcend everything,” Evren says.
I nod, knowing he’s right. The Soul Scar connections that bind us together is a love that persists beyond logic, beyond death, beyond every rational force that tried to tear us apart.
“I saw things,” I murmur, memories surfacing through the complexity of resurrection trauma.
“Realities where beings built entire civilisations around concepts that defy rational analysis. Worlds where love operates as fundamental force rather than biological impulse. Dimensions where connection transcends individual existence completely.”
“The grimoire was destroying those realities,” Lysithea says. “Eliminating everything that didn’t conform to its vision of absolute truth.”
“Everything beautiful and flawed and worth preserving. But death taught me something the grimoire never understood. Perfect logic cannot account for choices that transcend rational explanation. Love that operates despite impossible odds. Sacrifice that benefits others rather than the self.”
The conversation feels surreal while lying in the darkness that carries the comfortable weight of shared intimacy. But these are the concepts we’ve been grappling with since this nightmare began, questions about the nature of truth and the value of connections that defy logical analysis.
“What changed?” Evren asks. “Besides the obvious alterations to your magical signature.”
Good question. The internal transformations run deeper than visible alterations. Death stripped away layers of pretence that I’ve maintained for years, revealing capacities for genuine emotion that I’ve spent my lifetime learning to hide.
“I understand now why I made the choice to sacrifice myself,” I say, words carrying weight that surprises me. “Not strategic calculation or heroic posturing, but love that transcends self-preservation. The sight of forces threatening the people who matter more than my own existence.”
Lysithea’s expression softens. “You saved us all with that choice. Bought the opening we needed to escape the grimoire’s influence.”
“I saved myself too,” I realise, speaking the truth aloud for the first time. “All of the emotional barriers dissolved in the moment I chose love over safety. Death showed me who I really am beneath the carefully constructed image of charming chaos.”
The admission hangs in the air between us. But there’s relief in the honesty, liberation that comes from abandoning pretences that no longer serve any useful purpose.
“The Soul Scar is stronger now,” Evren observes. “Your passage through death and return has deepened the bonds that connect all of us.”
The shared experience of loss and recovery has forged pathways through the network that carry greater emotional weight than anything we’ve previously encountered. Not just individual connections, but a web of mutual support that transcends the sum of its component parts.
“We’re different people than we were before this began,” I say. “All of us marked by experiences that most beings couldn’t survive.”
Lysithea has surrendered immeasurable power to preserve what matters most, choosing love over being a god.
Evren has transitioned from undeath to genuine life.
Verik has demonstrated that he has power beyond that of an exiled Hellfire prince.
I know what he’s thinking about that, and I’m here for it.
“What now?” I ask, though part of me already knows the answer.
“Now we heal,” Lysithea says, placing her hand over the silver scarring that marks my passage through death and return. “We process trauma that goes beyond normal understanding. We figure out how to live with changes that will affect us for years to come.”
“Always together,” Verik murmurs, still half asleep.
The Soul Scar glows with a shared emotion that encompasses all four of us, bonds that connect us, operating through principles that cosmic forces couldn’t eliminate, despite their best efforts. Love that persists beyond logic, beyond death, beyond every force that tried to tear us apart.
I close my eyes and feel our connection wash over me. We’re still ourselves, but we’re also something more together. Death showed me that some bonds don’t make sense but exist anyway.
Life taught me something better: love that survives the end of everything comes back stronger.
My silver scars pulse with leftover energy from other worlds. But the real change is inside—I finally understand what true bravery is.
I didn’t sacrifice myself to be a hero. I did it because I saw the people I love about to be destroyed, and my body moved before my mind could think.
Death strips away our masks. It shows who we really are when there’s nothing left to hide behind.
And what it revealed about me takes my breath away.