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Chapter Thirty-Seven

ELLIE

“Where the known ends, the story begins again.”

Inscription found in Stonehaven’s oldest chamber

“No!”

The word rips from my throat, high pitched and frantic, as the soldiers close in around Sacha and Varam. From our position, the scene below unfolds with horrifying detail. A nightmare playing out in real time, each moment etching itself into my consciousness with brutal precision.

Only days ago, I was still convincing myself he was just a means to an end. My ticket home. Now the sight of him surrounded fills me with terror so complete it eclipses reason. When did his survival become more important than my own?

The forest falls away. There is only this moment.

Only this horror.

Only him .

The ground beneath me feels impossibly solid. Sharp stones dig into my palms, drawing blood. Every sensory detail becomes hyper-real, as if my body is trying to keep me anchored to the ground while the world dissolves into chaos around me .

Birds scatter from nearby trees, their wings beating a frantic rhythm that matches the thundering beat of my heart.

The silver light under my skin, the power that’s been building for weeks now, pulses in time with my terror.

It pushes outward, testing the limits of my skin, trying to reach him.

I taste metal on my tongue, as though the air itself has transformed into something electric and dangerous.

“Stay down!” Mira’s fingers dig into my shoulder, dragging me lower behind the bushes, when I start to stand.

Her grip is painful. Desperate .

The smell of moss and damp earth fills my nose. Wet stone, decaying leaves, the iron-sharp scent of impending violence and death. But I can’t look away. My eyes are locked on the tragedy playing out below, as though by watching I might somehow be able to change the outcome.

I shake her off, trembling with rage and fear so profound it threatens to consume me entirely.

My muscles are vibrating with energy, every nerve ending screaming for release.

The power inside me pulses harder with each passing second, no longer dormant but alive and aware. A living thing desperate to break free.

I feel like I’ve swallowed lightning. Like the storm in my blood has found its matching darkness.

Below, Sacha stands unmoving—a statue of arrogant defiance carved from darkness and fury.

Shoulders squared. Head high. Facing the overwhelming odds with the cool detachment of someone who has fought this war for decades.

His posture speaks of a man who has imagined this moment a thousand times.

The inevitable confrontation with those who caged him .

The man in crimson robes, Sereven, stands opposite him, a study in cold calculation.

Pure, unfeeling power radiates from him in almost visible waves.

But even from this distance, I catch something hidden beneath.

A slight tilt of his chin. A narrowing of his eyes.

He hadn’t expected Sacha to look like this.

Not beaten. Not broken.

The soldiers circle, weapons drawn. They move like a machine designed with only one task in mind.

Destruction.

The fading sunlight glints off their blades, revealing the same blue energy I saw earlier, and with it comes the memory of where I know it from.

The tower’s walls. The silver prison that held Sacha. The same light that held him hostage.

My stomach lurches, acid rising in my throat.

Sacha and Varam are surrounded. Outnumbered. Yet somehow stand tall, defiant even in the shadow of death.

And then he moves.

Darkness erupts from him, not merely an absence of light but a living force that swallows the clearing whole. It coils like smoke, strikes like a beast—an extension of will so absolute it reshapes the very air. This isn’t just magic. It’s defiance made manifest.

The same shadows that held me last night now lash outward like knives.

The soldiers’ shouts carry up to our position.

Terror and confusion mixing in a cacophony of human fear.

Through fleeting gaps in the artificial night, I glimpse Varam running northeast, while Sacha lunges in the opposite direction.

He’s not just distracting. He’s channeling their attention, anticipating their instincts, dictating the chaos. Choosing to protect, even in collapse.

Sereven flinches. A single step backward.

Sacha moves like shadow, terrible and beautiful. The force flows around him in unnatural currents. His blade finds targets with a precision that seems impossible. Bodies fall. Even from here, I can see the chaos, the destruction, the way soldiers collapse.

For one breathless moment, hope surges. My heart leaps painfully, banging against my ribs.

This is the Shadowvein Lord who opposed the Authority.

The Vareth’el the Veinwardens follow. The man who still makes hardened soldiers tremble in fear.

Maybe against all odds, he’ll break through.

Maybe the force of his long-contained power will overwhelm even these numbers.

The air itself seems electrified with possibility. No one on the hill moves. No one breathes.

Then Sereven lifts his hand.

Whatever he’s holding glints—cold, impossible, pulsing with a blue light that feels wrong.

A crystal, no larger than a fist, but radiating power that makes the air itself recoil.

Magic snaps through like a whip made of frozen lightning.

The sound carries even to our position. Not just heard, but felt .

A vibration that passes through bone, through thought.

It rattles my teeth. My vision doubles. The silver power inside me jolts.

Sacha stumbles. His darkness falls apart, devoured by the energy pouring from the crystal. Each tendril of shadow dies a violent death, disintegrating into the air like smoke caught in a gale. His power, the essence of who he is, being systemically destroyed in front of my eyes.

His raven screams above his head, a sound of pure agony that rips through me. Its wings flail, caught in invisible hands, its form breaking apart.

“No.” The word is more breath than sound. My voice breaks.

A net launches from one side. It glitters with the same terrible blue energy that emanates from Sereven’s crystal, wrapping around Sacha as it lands, flaring on contact with a flash so bright it’s visible even here.

His body contorts in a way that speaks of unimaginable pain.

A sound carries across the distance—half-snarl, half-choked breath that speaks of agony beyond anything a human should be able to endure.

The pressure behind my eyes sharpens. The power flowing through me convulses. It crackles through my fingertips, and burns the back of my throat.

It doesn’t wait for permission. It knows what’s coming.

I blink back tears, the world swimming in and out of focus. The forest darkens, tunneling my vision to a single point.

Sacha. Fighting for his life.

And deep inside me, something answers.

The net’s energy pulses visibly, each wave driving Sacha further into the ground. He struggles to rise, but the power slams him down with devastating force.

Something inside me snaps.

The silver light rises, no longer content to remain hidden beneath the surface.

It surges upward, fierce and unrelenting, as though it has its own intent.

My breath turns shallow, gasping pulls that won’t fill my lungs.

Razor-sharp pain spears my chest, and radiates outward through every nerve, every limb.

I dig my nails into my palms, until blood beads and runs down my wrists, anchoring me to the present while something inside me begins to stir.

I try to hold it. To steady it. To keep the line between control and surrender intact. But this power isn’t meant to be contained. It doesn’t want calm. It doesn’t want to witness. It wants to answer.

Cracks form inside me. Not visible ones, but splintering along the fault lines of restraint and helplessness, spreading like fractures in glass. Each second deepens them. I can feel myself coming apart.

“Varam’s clear,” someone whispers beside me.

A hand comes into my vision, pointing to where a shape is disappearing into the trees. A shadow melting into shadows, as the Veinwarden leader escapes whatever slaughter is about to follow. But the movement doesn’t register beyond a flicker in the corner of my vision.

Because I can’t look away from Sacha.

My entire world has narrowed to the clearing below, where he’s kneeling, surrounded by enemies who hunted him. Who imprisoned him. Who have spent a lifetime trying to destroy everything he is.

And now they want to do it again.

The force building inside me answers my fury, growing stronger with every breath I take. It’s elemental, ancient. It carries grief and rage and something I don’t have words for. Something that feels like prophecy cracking my chest open wide.

Sacha forces himself upright again, despite the net still binding him.

Darkness coils around him, denser than before.

The air itself buckles, reality twisting around him, as though it’s answering his refusal to fall, to submit, to die.

Above him, his raven stutters and flickers, wings losing shape with every beat, its form collapsing in on itself.

And above it all Sereven’s voice rises. His incantation grows louder, gaining weight and force with each released word. Words that echo across the clearing. Words I shouldn’t be able to hear or understand, but somehow do.

Return to darkness what darkness has claimed.

The crystal flares in his hand. Not with light now, but with something that devours it. Energy pulses outward, tearing through the last of Sacha’s shadows.

Sereven steps forward, face etched with triumph, his arm lifted high.

Then a crack like shattering glass pierces the air.

The darkness implodes. Folds inward instead of expanding and my soul knows what’s coming the moment before it happens.

In the space of a breath, Sacha is gone.

No body. No shadow. No trace.