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Daimon

There was a time when Daimon could stave off the darkness with the taste of Evelina’s smile, with a breath of her lily scent. Her soft eyes and fierce mind could chase away the demons that threatened to pull him down, to fight off Vidaris’s influence that surrounded him daily.

Evelina was always the thing that kept him going—kept him sane. But he didn’t have that anymore. Not even in the dream realm, a place he always thought he would have her. The memories of her weren’t enough to stave off the pit growing inside of him. There was nothing to fill the pain anymore. Nothing to make him feel worthy.

Could the purest of souls stay clean when surrounded by blood? He knew he was far from pure, his soul already tainted with the lives he had ended and the hate brewing in his heart. He harbored rage for what Vidaris had done to him and his people, and that rage could only stay buried for so long.

Now that he’d cut off his connection with Evelina, he questioned how long the memories of her would keep him from drowning. But as the darkness whispered into the depths of his soul, he knew it wouldn’t be long now.

Never again would he see how Evelina’s nose would crinkle in the middle when her joy was at its highest, and the feeling of pure ecstasy that flowed through his body following that look. He wouldn’t feel her in his arms again or taste her lips against his.

But Evelina was safe. Their child was safe. That was all that mattered. As long as Daimon stayed away from them, Vidaris would never know the child was his. When Nyx told him Evelina was having their child, he felt overwhelming joy, but it lasted only a split second before turning into dread. He knew he would never see her again—never see their child.

Daimon paced his empty castle. The black stone was cold and dark, so shiny that it reflected his frown back to him. He could feel his pain, wanting to welcome the vile shadows calling out to him from the Vale. They were different from his own, wilder and more untamed. His father had warned him about going into the Vale. Once he did, he would never be the same again.

But Daimon’s soul, and everything bound to it, was already Vidaris’s. If Vidaris were to ever learn he fathered a child beneath their deal, it would mean the child belonged to her. He couldn’t have that—wouldn’t let her take that too. Now that he had something to protect, he felt the call more than ever: to remove all connections and bindings and succumb his soul to utter darkness. It would keep them safe if none of his true soul was left, nothing calling out to them.

Selfishly, he hoped the magic would lessen his pain of never seeing Evelina again. Of never seeing his child. Would the baby have Evelina’s smile and nose? Would it have anything of his? He clenched his jaw, knowing he would never see the life they had created together. He would never know the answers to his questions.

There was nothing left in this world for him.

Daimon could feel Vidaris in the back of his mind, waiting for the day he fully bent the knee to her. He had never had much hope in his father’s plans, but what hope was left? Perhaps there would come a day when he really did take the Vale, and Daimon could be free.

“ The Vale will erase your pain, son of Nyx. ” Vidaris’s gritty voice floated into the castle.

Over the years since the split of the empire, she had grown weaker. With the war over, people began to heal, to move on, and it left her weak, no longer able to hold a physical form in the living realm. If the living weren’t giving in to their darker desires, her power dwindled. The Goddess of Vengeance was fueled by death, lust, anger, and pain. War was a breeding ground for these things, but that battle had long been lost.

Just like Daimon, she was shackled to the Shadow Realm.

“ I’ve seen your pain for centuries, ” she hissed. “ Why torture yourself? You have the power of a god. ”

He thought of Evelina, of how she would be having their child any day now, if she hadn’t already. He hoped the child would grow up knowing the love he never had. That his child would never learn of him and his dark bloodline, would never experience the shame he fought his entire life.

Perhaps it was better this way. Evelina and Leda would be the only family the child ever needed. Leda was fierce, and he knew she would protect her younger sibling with everything she had. While Evelina would offer the child safe arms to always come home to… What more could a child need?

Even if he could be there, how could the son of a dark god ever be a worthy father?

With his heart bleeding memories of what he had lost, he fell to his knees.

They would be okay—better—without him. They had each other.

He had the darkness.

With his knees pressed against the icy stone, he closed his eyes. A single tear trailed down his cheek, dripping off his chin and landing on the ground beneath him. He opened his Essence to the one place he hadn’t gone. To the shadows of the Vale that had been banging on the door of his soul to be let in.

He used to try to hold on—to Maliena and Neve’s soft presence in his life, the kindness of something like a home. To Keir’s laughter over the fire as they tried to forget about the loves they left behind, the battle always a breath away. To the feeling of protection when his fleet surrounded him, or the soaring delight that filled his spirit when Zephyr spun above the clouds.

And then there was Evelina. His love. His soulbonded. A soul to which he was never good enough to be tied, but somehow was blessed enough to be loved by—even if their time together passed in the blink of an eye. She loved him when he didn’t love himself, believed in him when he had no room in his heart to believe in himself. Her smile was brighter than the sun, her touch like every good feeling he’d ever had, all held in one person.

Every moment he spent with her in the camp was the happiest he had ever been. The afternoon he stole away to take her to the cave of glowing creatures, riding atop Zephyr together, holding her beneath the moonlight.

It all felt…so far from him now. Gone.

With one last flash of Evelina’s smile in his mind, he finally let the darkness in.

“ Welcome home, Lord of the Shadows, ” Vidaris whispered, her voice bouncing off the walls and landing somewhere between the emptiness in his chest and his fading memories.

His pain was quickly replaced with delicious hunger. All he could feel was the need to find those cursed to Vidaris’s realm, to seek them out and make them pay for their sins.

A slow smile spread across his face.

He felt nothing.