Page 51 of Wicked Vows (Cursed Darkness (DarkHallow Academy) #1)

Evren

T he dead whisper warnings in languages I don’t recognise.

They’ve been calling to me since we descended the steps, but here in this vast chamber, their voices become a chorus of urgent caution.

Spirits older than memory drift through the silver-veined walls, their forms barely visible even to my death-touched sight.

They speak of hunger, of waiting, of something that should not be disturbed.

But the Tenebris Vinculum’s call drowns out their warnings, demanding we descend.

I study the chamber from our ledge, mapping the threats.

The elongated creatures below move with purpose, tending to the crystalline network like priests maintaining a temple.

Their forms shimmer between corporeal and something not quite alive, not quite dead, but existing in the space between that my magic recognises.

The massive presence beneath the suspended grimoire shifts again, and the temperature drops several degrees. Death magic responds to proximity to endings, and whatever lies in those shadows carries the weight of millennia of conclusion.

I form my skeletal raven from shadow and bone, its hollow eye sockets glowing with pale fire. When it speaks, my voice emerges hollow and echoing.

“The dead say this place hungers,” the raven announces to the others. “They warn of the Keeper below. It guards more than just the grimoire.”

Verik’s hellfire flickers as he processes this. “Keeper of what?”

The spirits whisper fragments of old magics, forgotten names, the first death that taught the world what ending meant. I piece together what I can from their broken memories.

“The first grave,” my raven explains. “Where death learned its own nature.”

Lysithea’s golden shadow snake coils tighter at her feet, its luminescence brightening in response to the gathering darkness below. Whatever test awaits us down there, she’s ready to face it.

We all are to end this.

The chamber’s architecture shifts as we watch, silver veins pulsing with increased intensity. The crystalline network is responding to our presence, awakening systems that have slumbered for ages. The elongated creatures move faster now, their attention becoming urgent.

From the shadows beneath the grimoire, something rises.

It unfolds like a nightmare given form with too many joints, too many angles, a shape that hurts to look at directly.

The Keeper, if that’s what it truly is, stands easily thirty feet tall when fully extended.

Its form shifts between states of being, sometimes solid, sometimes translucent, always wrong in ways that make my death magic flare instinctively.

When it speaks, the voice emerges from everywhere at once, carried through the crystalline network like sound through bones.

“Who disturbs the first rest?”

The elongated creatures fall prostrate as the words echo through the chamber. Even the spirits that whisper to me retreat, unwilling to draw the attention of whatever this thing represents.

Dathan steps forward, his chaos magic crackling with nervous energy. “We seek the Tenebris Vinculum. We’re bound to it, and it calls us.”

The Keeper’s impossible gaze fixes on each of us in turn, and when those eyes—however many it truly has—settle on me, I feel my own fragile mortality examined like a specimen under glass.

Every death I’ve witnessed, every ending I’ve seen, every omen I’ve spoken, every moment my magic has touched the boundary between life and what comes after, all of it is catalogued and weighed.

“Bound,” it repeats, and there’s something like amusement in the resonance. “As were the first who came seeking. As were the second, and the third, and all who followed. The Vinculum binds many things to its purpose.”

The Keeper moves quickly despite its size, descending from the shadows like spilt mercury. Where its feet touch the floor, the light dies, leaving patches of absolute darkness that feel hungry against my senses.

I step forward, death magic swirling around me in a corona of ice and bone. If this thing is truly the guardian of the first grave, then it’s something I need to face with everything I am.

The attack comes without warning. The Keeper reaches out with power that makes my abilities feel like candleflames before a bonfire, grasping at the connections that bind my soul to the world of the living.

It’s trying to add me to its collection.

But I’ve spent the last two years learning to walk the line between life and death, to exist in the spaces where most would be consumed by it. When its power tries to drag me across that threshold permanently, I resist with techniques learned from necessity rather than training.

Death magic isn’t about controlling endings, it’s about understanding them.

Every life has its moment of conclusion, but that moment can be delayed, negotiated with, sometimes even redirected.

I wrap myself in the knowledge of my mortality, using it as armour against the Keeper’s attempts to force an early conclusion.

The spirits that fled earlier return, drawn by the familiar resonance of someone fighting for the right to remain among the living. They whisper secrets, weaknesses in the Keeper’s defences, gaps in its ancient armour, places where time has worn thin the bindings that hold it together.

Verik’s hellfire joins my defence, his demonic nature allowing him to stand against the otherworldly assault.

Dathan’s nightmare magic crackles through the air, disrupting the network’s attempts to channel power to their guardian.

Lysithea’s voice rises in a note that makes the chamber itself recoil, her Nox Siren abilities finding frequencies that resonate with the Keeper’s pain.

But it’s not enough to defeat it, only to hold it at bay while I work.

The spirits grow bolder, showing me pathways through the chamber that avoid the worst of the Keeper’s influence. Ancient ghosts who remember when this place was something else entirely, before it became a prison disguised as a sanctuary.

I follow their guidance, death magic flowing ahead of me to clear a path through the transformed seekers that try to block our way. They’re not truly hostile, just desperate to share their fate with anyone who might understand their suffering.

The underground fights against my progress, silver veins flaring with power that tries to root me in place like the others. But death magic excels at severing connections, and I cut through the bindings as fast as they form.

The architecture around us shifts and flows, becoming increasingly alien as we approach the chamber’s heart. What started as organic walls has become something that predates human understanding of construction entirely.

This isn’t just older than DarkHallow Academy, it’s older than the concept of building itself. We’re moving through something that grew rather than being constructed, that evolved purpose over aeons of patient development.

The Keeper pursues us, its form becoming more desperate as we near the suspended grimoire, desperate to stop us, desperate for whatever power the grimoire will unleash, remains chained.

Then the fight really begins as the ghosts turn against us.

The spirits that once whispered warnings now shriek accusations.

Their forms solidify into grasping hands and clawing fingers, ancient dead who’ve been trapped in this place for so long they’ve forgotten the difference between help and harm.

They tear at my death magic, trying to drain it for themselves, desperate to taste the power that keeps me anchored to life.

I stumble as spectral claws rake across my chest, their touch burning like ice. The raven construct dissolves under their assault, my connection to it severed by their hungry need.

“Evren!” Lysithea’s voice cuts through the chaos, her shadow snake lashing out at the attacking spirits. But physical manifestations can’t touch what’s already dead, only death magic can fight the dead, and mine is being consumed faster than I can replenish it.

The Keeper laughs, a sound like tombstones grinding together.

I press forward, death magic bleeding from me in streams that the hungry spirits devour like starving beasts.

Each step toward the suspended grimoire costs me more than I can afford to lose.

The boundary between life and death that I’ve walked so carefully for two years is dissolving under the assault.

But I can see something the others cannot. The grimoire is being drained. Its power flows through the silver veins into the Keeper, feeding whatever ancient hunger drives this place.

The chains holding the grimoire are syphons.

I understand now why the Tenebris Vinculum called to us so desperately.

It’s being used as a battery; its accumulated power feeds the Keeper and maintains this entire underground ecosystem.

The silver veins are a network designed to harvest and distribute the grimoire’s essence throughout this ancient place.

The attacking spirits sense my realisation and swarm me.

Their spectral forms blur together into a writhing mass of desperate hunger, each one trying to tear away pieces of the death magic that keeps me tethered to existence.

I stagger under their assault, feeling my carefully maintained balance between life and death beginning to slip.

But understanding the system gives me options.

I stop fighting the spirits and start feeding them the corrupted power flowing through the silver veins. I reach out with abilities I’ve never fully tested, redirecting the stolen energy from the grimoire into the hungry dead that surround me.

The effect is immediate and catastrophic.

The spirits shriek as alien power floods their forms, energy they’re not equipped to process or contain. They convulse, their shapes becoming more solid as the grimoire’s magic forces them back toward a mockery of life they’ve been denied for centuries.

The Keeper roars in fury as its carefully maintained system destabilises. The silver veins flicker and dim as power is diverted from their intended flow. The elongated creatures throughout the chamber stumble as their connection to the network falters.

I press my advantage, drawing more power from the syphon network and feeding it into the spectral army around me. The ancient dead grow more solid with each pulse of stolen energy, their forms gaining weight and substance they haven’t possessed in millennia.

Some of them remember what they once were. Warriors, scholars, seekers who came before us and were trapped by the Keeper’s hunger. As the grimoire’s power fills them, their memories return in fragments.

“The chains,” one of them whispers, her voice gaining clarity as she solidifies. “Break the chains and the prison fails.”

The Keeper lunges toward me, its impossible form stretching across the chamber. But the newly empowered spirits intercept it, their spectral forms now solid enough to grapple with their ancient captor.

“Move!” Verik bellows as his hands lash out, creating a bridge of pure hellfire that reaches the grimoire.

I don’t even hesitate at the burn from the exact opposite element that I wield.

I reach the base of the suspended grimoire, silver chains thick as my torso stretching up into the darkness above.

The metal burns cold against my touch, designed to channel and contain power far beyond normal comprehension.

Death magic flows through me as I place both hands on the nearest chain. These bindings were forged to last eternities, but they weren’t designed to resist direct assault from someone who understands the nature of endings.

Every chain has a final link. Every prison has a key. Every binding has a moment when it fails.

I find that moment and pour everything I have into it.

Lysithea’s presence fills my senses, and she grips the chain with me, adding her voice to the chaos surrounding us. The song, beautiful and haunting, makes the chains tremble and crack.

The chain we have hold of shatters with a sound like breaking thunder. The grimoire’s eye snaps open, blazing with fury and relief. Power erupts from its pages as another chain breaks, then another.

The Keeper’s roar shakes the foundations of the chamber. Its form destabilises as the network that’s fed it for centuries collapses. The silver veins throughout the walls flicker and die, plunging sections of the vast space into darkness.

I grab the grimoire as the final chain shatters. The book burns against my palms, its accumulated power flooding back into itself after being drained. The eye fixes on me with something that might be gratitude, or might be hunger. With this thing, it’s impossible to tell the difference.

Dathan and Verik’s shouts from behind us as they battle the Keeper, grow more urgent. We need to get out of here.

But the Keeper isn’t finished. Even weakened, it lunges toward us with desperate fury. It reaches for the grimoire with appendages that shift between solid and spectral.

Lysithea steps forward and opens her mouth again. The piercing note that escapes hurts my ears, but I take the opportunity to grab her hand, the grimoire in my other and run as the Keeper wails in agony.

Then the world tilts.

The floor beneath us gives way, sending all four of us tumbling into darkness. I wrap myself around the grimoire as we fall, protecting it with my body even as rocks and debris rain down around us. Lysithea’s scream echoes off the walls.

We hit water. Black, freezing water that tastes of copper and old death. I surface, gasping, the grimoire still clutched against my chest. The others splash nearby, Verik’s hellfire sputtering out in the dampness.

Above us, the Keeper’s roars grow fainter as tons of rubble seal off the chamber we just escaped. We’re in some kind of underground river, the current swift and unforgiving.

“Where does this lead?” Dathan shouts over the rushing water.

I hold up the grimoire above the water as I kick to stay afloat. Its pages flip to the map. It is complete.