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INTO DARKNESS

ELYRIA

Elyria didn’t know how long she fought. Didn’t know how many lives she took.

The world was a haze of chaos, flickering flames, and the metallic tang of blood. Shadows swirled around her—intoxicating, maddening. Her thoughts were muddled, fragmented as they blurred together—the faces of the cultists she continued cutting through on the battlefield, the cries of the dying, the pulse of twisted power thrumming in her veins.

She swung the shadow-forged blade in a wide arc, cleaving through another enemy. They evaporated into mist. Confusion stole Elyria’s breath as the slain bodies and battling soldiers surrounding her dissipated—dust on the wind.

And then Elyria was alone.

Utterly, completely alone.

Darkness descended once more, that endless void curling around her, surrounding her, enveloping her.

This is who you are , the darkness whispered in her ear.

This isn’t real, she tried to say back.

It’s who you’ve always been. A monster. A creature of vengeance. Darkness infinite.

“Get out of my head!” she screamed—in her mind, outside of it, the past bleeding into the present.

Elyria fell to her knees, head clutched in her bloody hands, shadows coiling tight around her torso. The images in her mind warped and melded together. Two hundred years of constant vigilance. Of doing everything—anything—she could to keep the darkness under control, keep it chained, keep it buried. Two centuries of fear over slipping, over what would happen if she ever let it out again.

Two centuries filled with regret and sorrow over the few times she did.

Hardly anyone knew. Not even Kit. There were whispers, to be sure. Rumors of what happened on the battlefield outside Castle Lumin. But that’s all they were. Elyria had kept the truth locked away—entombed so deep inside her that it only surfaced in her darkest moments. No, her weakest ones.

Except for him.

Evander had known. Had been there the first time she slipped. The first time since the Battle of Luminaria that shadows tore out of her, seeking blood and vengeance. It wasn’t a lapse born of malice; she knew that. It had been a reflex. A defense. The outpost where she was stationed was nearly overwhelmed, one of the remaining cells of Malakar’s cultists having infiltrated in the night. The chaos was unbearable—soldiers falling all around her, crystal arrows piercing wings, puncturing armor.

Elyria was already bloodied, weary after fighting to push the enemy back, to force them past the boundaries of the outpost so the wards could be reinforced. She couldn’t get them all out. And she’d been so busy battling another wave of cultists that she hadn’t noticed the single sanguinagi advancing on a trio of young soldiers—barely more than recruits—who were scrambling to hold the line.

They didn’t stand a chance. She could see it in their eyes—could feel their terror as the blood mage stalked toward them, a glowing crystal sword materializing in his hands. Their fear, their desperation, their hopelessness. It cracked something inside her.

She felt the darkness claw its way to the surface. It whispered such sweet promises. She could save them. She could stop this. Stop it all. All she had to do was let go.

So, she did.

And when the darkness finally receded, when the shadows slithered back into the depths of her soul, there was nothing left.

Not of the sanguinagi she meant to stop.

Not of the young soldiers she meant to save.

She’d killed them all.

Evander found her afterward, huddled in a corner of the ruined courtyard. Shaking, frayed, broken.

He hadn’t flinched.

Hadn’t recoiled from the monster she was.

He’d held her close. Told her she wasn’t alone. That he would stay with her, would help her, would fix this.

Elyria knew better. Knew there was no fixing this. There was no going back from what she’d done.

It didn’t stop Evander from trying. And twenty-five years ago, when he declared to Elyria and Kit and his mother and the entirety of the Ravenswing estate that he would be entering the Arcane Crucible to win the Crown of Concord—for glory and country, for their people—she knew.

She knew he was doing it for her.

Elyria’s breath hitched. It was her fault he’d entered the Crucible. Her fault he’d gotten tangled up in this mad quest for an unwinnable prize. Did the Crown of Concord even exist anymore? For all anyone knew, Daephinia could have shattered it into a thousand pieces. The prize at the end of this endless trial could be nothing more than a few fragments of power. Hardly worth dying over.

But that’s what Evander was. Dead.

Because of her .

Guilt weighed Elyria down. It crushed her, flattened her to the ground. The shadows curled closer, chains that tightened around her.

You see your power. You know what you are capable of, said the darkness, almost lovingly. Like what she was capable of was in any way a good thing. Something she should be proud of. Something she should want.

Embrace us, it crooned. Let us make you what you were always meant to be. Our dark weapon. Our queen of shadow.

For a moment, Elyria’s resolve wavered. Part of her—some small, terrified part—wanted to believe the darkness. Wanted to stop fighting, stop trying. The darkness would give her strength. It would take away this fear, this guilt. It would be a buoy in the sea of loneliness constantly threatening to drown her.

Only power would remain.

No, she thought. The word was quiet, just a whisper in her mind. She needed to get out, needed to be free of this. The ground trembled beneath her as her wild magic fought to cut through the darkness, roots bursting forth, thrashing wildly. But the shadows only constricted, and she let out a cry of pain as they cut into her skin.

The darkness laughed. You’ve been hiding for so, so long. Cowering in the light. Weak. Afraid of who you really are.

Elyria shuddered. Her hands shook as the shadows slid through her fingers—ice-cold, unyielding. Her limbs went numb, the cold seeping into her bones. She was weak. She was afraid. And she was so tired of fighting.

Come. Come now and embrace the dark.

The shadows crept up her body, both smothering and sheltering. They offered power. They threatened to consume her.

Her blood pulsed in rhythm with her heartbeat—erratic, frenzied. Her breath hitched as she teetered on the edge of surrender.

And then a voice broke through her mind. A voice filled with warmth, conjuring a memory of black hair and golden eyes.

“You’re the strongest person I know, Elle,” Evander said. “You bend, you bleed, but you always rise. Don’t run from yourself. You don’t have to hide.”

The corners of Elyria’s eyes prickled at the memory. Evander had believed her worth saving. How would it honor his memory—his sacrifice— if she gave up now?

It wouldn’t.

She couldn’t.

But Elyria didn’t know if she had it in her to continue the fight. For years, for centuries , she had struggled to keep the shadow inside her at bay. Rejected it. Denied it. Hid it.

And what had that accomplished? It was still here. She was still drowning in it. Haunted by it.

It would never go away. It was part of her.

Something shifted. Warmth—the smallest spark—ignited in Elyria’s blood, spread through her veins in a slow, deliberate wave. It banished the chill that had taken root in her, replacing it with a new kind of fire.

The constricting bind of the shadows loosened.

Realization bloomed within her—a seedling pushing through cracked stone.

The darkness was not just part of her.

It was her.

It was hers.

Elyria’s heartbeat steadied. She let out a long breath. The thrashing roots surrounding her calmed. The blackness that held her vision hostage dissipated.

“You’re mine,” she whispered. “You’re me.”

The shadows coiled around her, a thick smoke that settled on her shoulders, wisps trailing down her arms. Watching. Waiting.

A flicker of doubt gnawed at the edges of Elyria’s mind. What if she was wrong? What if this would cement her as the very monster she feared becoming?

She shook her head, Evander’s words ringing in her ears. She’d already spent a lifetime fearing her inner darkness. She feared what it would make her do, what it would force her to become. But that was never her truth. She was the one doing the forcing. She never tried to control it, not really. All she ever did was shove it away, locking her power behind a dam that was always bound to crack.

The shadows didn’t define her.

She defined them.

Tell us who you are, demanded the darkness .

Tears blurred her vision. Her voice strengthened. “I am Elyria Lightbreaker. The Revenant. And I may have been left broken, but I am not so easily shattered.”

She flexed her hands. The shadows stilled. Then they flowed back into her, the chaos settling, melding with the wild magic in her blood. Her fingertips tingled. The luminous warmth of her magic mingled with the cool tendrils of shadow...and something new emerged.

New, and yet also, somehow, familiar.

Something balanced.

The darkness wasn’t gone. She could still feel it there, in that pit deep inside her. But it was no longer a suffocating weight. It was no longer some feral, sleeping beast she feared waking. It no longer felt like an enemy.

It felt like power. No longer divided, but whole.

Her power.

Strength flowed through Elyria’s veins like wildfire, raw and unfiltered.

Hers to wield. Hers to shape. Hers to command.

The blood-soaked battlefield around her began to flicker, the illusion unraveling. Elyria stood tall, her wings unfurling in a blaze of shimmering color that matched the aurora dancing overhead. The twisted landscape of smoke and death dissolved into mist. And she was left standing alone in the void once more, whole and steady.

That was the moment she felt it. A pulse of fear. A distant tug .

A voice called to her through the endless nothing.

And then she was falling—through the void, through memories, through illusions.

Her nose stung with the acrid scent of smoke. The crackle of burning wood filled her ears. Elyria stood facing a blazing cottage, the entire front wall collapsed. Amidst the flames, she could make out a small table, some overturned chairs. And there, in the center of the open room, curled up in a ball on the floor as fire danced around him, was Cedric Thorne.