Page 48

??The Madness Within

Dorian

The war room stank of old blood, burning sage, and the kind of fear that made men do brave, stupid things.

Maps were spread across the table, enchanted weapons lined the walls, and every ally worth their salt stood waiting, silent, all of them ready to die.

Ember sat at the edge of the table, wrapping her hands in leather like she was born for this. And maybe she was. She glanced at me sideways and said, “You’re thinking too loud.”

I gave her a look. “I was just wondering how I ended up married to the woman most likely to out stab me.”

She smirked. “Funny. I was wondering how I married a vampire who didn’t even buy me a ring.”

I let my lips twitch into the barest ghost of a grin. “It’s in my pocket. Along with a stake. Guess which one I plan to use first.”

“Better use both wisely,” she purred, leaning in just enough to let me know she could still break me in half with a look. “One might save you, the other might get you killed.”

God, I loved her. Even if I haven’t said the words out loud… I do.

I stepped forward, facing the room. My voice dropped low and steady, dark as the storm I was about to unleash.

“Today, we don’t fight for crowns or kingdoms. We fight because we’re the last line before the end of everything.

The Veil is ripping. What’s crawling through doesn’t care about treaties or bloodlines.

But we do. We fight because we must. Because behind us stands the last Watcher, and I will raze hell on Earth before I let her fall. ”

As the war circle ignited and the Hollow Orchard opened like a wound in the world, I turned back once, just once, to look at her. She was fire wrapped in flesh, forged from everything I'd ever feared and everything I’d ever loved. Then I stepped into the shadows and led them all into hell.

The moment we stepped into the Hollow Orchard, the air turned wrong. Thick. Breathing like a dying thing. The old ward I’d sealed the Veil with, etched in blood, bound with Ember’s name, was fractured. Cracked like bone under pressure.

Faint golden sigils blinked in and out of existence, fading like a heartbeat stuttering its last. I stepped forward, jaw tight, and touched the edge of the split. Cold rushed up my arm. Something had clawed through. Something powerful enough to ignore my warnings.

And now?

Now it wanted out.

The walls split like paper torn at the seams, the floor crumbled but we didn’t fall.

And from the wound in the Veil, the first creature spilled through, a shrieking, smoke bodied thing with antlers carved from bone and eyes like burning coals. It landed in front of me, snarling.

I didn’t hesitate.

My blade found its throat in one swing. Magic crackled from my fingers, fire laced with blood, carving sigils midair that seared through its cursed flesh. Ember fought beside me, a wild rhythm to her movements, her power no longer uncertain, no longer fledgling.

She was the storm.

More creatures followed.

Crawling. Slithering. Winged nightmares and horned things. We fought as one, the bond between us pulsing like a second heartbeat.

The ground trembled under the weight of magic. Vaelith’s warhammer rang against bone. Thalia’s ice bloomed in deadly flowers across spines. Noxen’s shadow beasts tore into enemy lines with precision. Mirek’s fangs and elongated nails ripped through flesh and bone.

But still… more came.

And then, silence.

A ripping noise, unnatural and vile, tore across the battlefield as two figures stepped through the thinning Veil.

Cassian.

Kreed.

But it wasn’t Cassian. Not anymore. The demon wearing his skin had peeled away most of the mask, revealing blackened veins crawling beneath his flesh, eyes too wide, too wrong.

And Kreed… Kreed looked like rot dressed in a man’s smile. Power radiated off him in waves that turned the air rancid.

The Gate pulsed behind them, alive, and waking.

“You didn’t think sealing the Veil would be enough, did you?” Kreed laughed, voice slick with venom. “You forget, Dorian... the Gate doesn’t close without blood. Her blood.”

“No,” I growled, stepping in front of Ember. “You’ll touch her over my dead body.”

“That can be arranged.”

Cassian, the thing pretending to be him, lifted a talon-tipped hand and Ember fell to her knees, choking on air that had turned to iron.

“No, no no no!” I dropped beside her, catching her before her head hit the stone. Her skin glowed faintly, the Gate responding to her very breath.

“She is the Watcher of the Veil. She keeps things locked inside,” Kreed said with glee. “And to open it... she must die.”

I lunged, but too late.

She screamed.

Light ripped from her chest in violent strands, lashing out and connecting with the crumbling edges of the Gate. Her body arched, hovering off the blood-slicked battlefield as the Gate reacted, like it knew her.

Claimed her.

And she kept screaming.

“No!” My throat tore with the word. I rushed to her, catching her as her body went limp, seizing, eyes rolled back, light still pouring from her skin.

Our allies charged the remaining monsters, but the Gate had opened.

Reinforcements spewed through like pus from a wound.

A winged beast tore through Thalia’s ice, clipping her shoulder.

Mireth grunted as he was tackled by three twisted hounds.

Noxen vanished beneath a swarm of spiders the size of wolves.

I felt the bond with Ember falter.

Something snapped inside me. It wasn’t a scream. It was silence . Cold. Ancient. Final.

The Madness took hold.

I turned to Kreed, my vision tinted red, my magic laced with something else. Something older than the Gate.

He didn’t run. He smiled.

“You’re too late,” he whispered.

Placing Ember very carefully on the ground, I crossed the battlefield in a blur. My hand found his throat. And I dragged him toward the Gate.

It screamed at him.

It recognized him.

I snapped.

Not with fury, but with something older. Wilder. The thing beneath my skin that I’d kept chained, buried behind law books and silk suits.

The Madness.

Mine. Ancient and rotting. It surged up my spine like a scream.

Kreed tried to run. Pathetic. I called the shadows home.

They answered with a hiss.

They erupted from the ground like black serpents laced with blood rot. They weren’t just shadows anymore, no, they had form . Antlers curled from the void like a beast crawling out of a cathedral crypt. Red hot veins pulsed through the barked crown. My fingers flexed and the shadows obeyed.

Kreed choked on his breath as they speared into his thighs, into his gut, lifting him into the air like a marionette.

“Dorian, Dorian wait!” he screamed, his mouth foaming with terror. “We can talk—”

“You talked enough,” I snarled, eyes blazing red, pupils slit, my fangs bare and gleaming. “Now listen .”

The vines answered for me. Red and wet, threaded with sentient muscle, they burst from the orchard floor and slithered up his legs, splitting flesh from bone like peeling fruit. His skin came off in ribbons. His teeth cracked one by one.

And I kept walking forward.

“You killed Ember’s mother,” I said coldly. “You mocked the Watchers. You hunted Ember like meat. You thought the Gate would serve you.”

It didn’t.

The Gate fed .

One shadow coiled around his jaw and ripped it downward until the bone snapped with a sound that echoed. Another plunged into his throat, tearing through muscle, flooding his lungs with blood.

His eyes boiled, one at a time. His screams turned to gurgles. His body shook violently as the madness reached for the final thread of his soul.

I could feel it, his horror, his regret, his crumbling mind trying to bargain with the darkness.

But I didn’t look away.

I watched .

I let him feel every cell unravel, every ligament pop. His bones cracked and collapsed inward, crushed by the weight of the Gate’s sentient hate. My shadows yanked him apart, slowly, until the only thing left was a twitching heart, suspended in air.

I walked past it. Let it drop.

The ground swallowed the rest.

And Kreed… ceased.

Cassian lunged.

His mouth tore wide open, jaw unhinged, spiraling rows of teeth gnashing like a worm wearing a man’s skin. Not human. Not demon. Just rot in disguise.

I didn’t flinch.

I stepped into him like a shadow into flame, shoved my hand past his ribs, past the hollow lungs and slick meat. What I gripped wasn’t a heart.

It was his tether , a writhing knot of ancient corruption anchoring the creature wearing Cassian’s stolen face to this plane.

And I ripped .

He screamed.

Not in pain.

In fear .

Because he knew what came next.

Black ichor exploded from his chest, splattering in thick, bubbling arcs. His limbs convulsed as I lifted him with one hand, body suspended like a crucified puppet.

The Gate pulsed behind me, shrieking with hunger. It remembered Kreed. And it wanted more.

“You’re not Cassian,” I growled, my voice warped, layered with the howls of the dead. “You killed my friend.”

His eyes flickered, flashing void white, his mouth spitting curses in languages long extinct. I summoned the shadows.

They obeyed.

They came down like a storm, antlers of pure night, dripping with blood light. They impaled his shoulders, his thighs, his hands, holding him spread and suspended in the air like a grotesque offering.

He howled as the antlers twisted, corkscrewing into him, splitting him open from the inside . Not just flesh. Memory . Identity. The false human mask burned away in strips, revealing who he truly was.

What was left underneath wasn’t Cassian, it was a demon named Saze, ancient rot wearing stolen skin.

“Beg,” I whispered, stepping closer.

He spat blood and bile, trying to form words. But the shadows were inside his mouth now. Peeling back his jaw. Tearing his tongue down the middle like a scroll.

“You took his face,” I said, fangs exposed. “Now I take yours.”

The antlers shattered him.

No explosion. No fire.

Just the unbearable crunch of bones being rearranged into art. The Gate opened wide and drank what was left of him, soul first.

It screamed as it fed, the ground cracking beneath us, the shadows laughing as they licked the last of his essence clean.

As the last of the shadows devoured the creature's twisted form, a flicker of true Cassian, bloody, spectral, and half-smiling, whispered through the void, “Thank you for setting me free, brother... until we meet again.”

I slammed him against the Gate.

And let it see him.

It peeled him slowly, layer by layer, starting with the stolen skin. Every lie unraveled, every shred of illusion torn away until the demon stood exposed and raw.

The Gate’s vines didn’t drag him in.

They burrowed through him.

Ripped him apart from the inside .

It devoured him while he was still alive, still screaming.

Then the Gate began to close.

I turned to Ember… She was barely breathing.

I rushed and dropped to my knees beside her. Her body was cold, light still leaking faintly from the sigils burned into her skin. Her chest barely moved. Her pulse… gone.

“No,” I whispered, voice shattered.

The bond flickered.

I laid her down, brushed the blood-matted hair from her face, and pressed my forehead to hers.

“I love you,” I breathed. “I always have. Before the Gate. Before the prophecy. Even before I knew what this was. I love you. I choose you.”

Magic pulsed from me, wild, unrestrained.

I dropped to my knees, her lifeless body in my arms, her blood still warm against my chest. My heart shattered, and from its ruins, something ancient and violent erupted.

The Madness within me, no longer chained, rose like a storm. Shadows burst from my skin, antlers of night twisting behind me like a crown of damnation.

My magic bled from my hands, raw and red, glowing with the fury of a thousand broken promises. The mark that bound us flared, searing through my skin, and I poured every ounce of myself into it.

Keeper. Monster. Lover. I was all of it now.

The Gate pulsed, a heartbeat out of sync with the world, but I defied it. I defied death itself.

My blood curled around hers, our veins igniting in tandem, silver wrapped in crimson, tethering fate to fury. “Come back to me, Ember,” I whispered, not as a command, but as a prayer, dark, desperate, divine.

The ground shook. The magic cracked. Light erupted between us, violent and holy, exploding into a scream of finality as the Gate slammed shut behind us with one last banshee howl.

And in the silence that followed… she breathed.

Alive.