Page 59 of Beyond the Treaty
A cold weight settled in my stomach. The tome trembled in my grasp, the runes flickering erratically. I had given everything, but Kaelen was already lost.
Then, from the darkest corner of the chamber, a slow, deliberate clapping filled the silence. A figure stepped forward, emerging from the abyss with a wicked grin.
“Withers?” My voice barely escaped my lips. But the thing before me was not the Withers I had known.
His once kind eyes were hollow pits of black, his once warm face gaunt and stretched too tightly over his skull. His butler’s uniform remained, but it was frayed and tainted with something vile, as though the darkness had seeped into the fabric. He moved with an unnatural grace, his limbs too fluid, too wrong.
“Oh, my dear Elara,” he drawled, voice eerily smooth. “You always were the sentimental one.”
Terror coiled around my spine like a vice. This was not my friend. This was something else entirely.
Azrael’s grip on his weapon tightened. “That’s not Withers.”
The thing wearing his face let out a chuckle. “No? And yet...” He stepped closer, his gaze locked onto mine, studying me with an almost fascinated curiosity. “I remember you. I remember your voice, how you used to laugh, and how you used to trust me.” His head tilted, his grin stretching wider, unnatural. “Isn’t that enough?”
Darius swore under his breath. “Nope. Absolutely not.”
I swallowed against the knot in my throat, forcing myself to stand firm. “What have you done to him?”
Withers, whatever he had become, sighed, as if my question exhausted him. “Elara, Elara, always asking the wrong things.” He lifted a hand, and the shadows responded instantly, swirling at his fingertips like obedient pets. “I have shown him who hereallyis. The power he can wield, Kaelen is full of darkness. Courtesy of Lord Garth himself, who didn’t give in to his power.”
The darkness coiled, tendrils stretching toward us. The air thickened, suffocating, pressing against my chest. The tome trembled violently in my grasp as if warning me, urging me to flee.
Azrael took a sharp step forward, his free hand lifting as ancient runes ignited along his forearm. “Enough.” His voice was steel, layered with something raw and commanding. “Elara, Darius, hold on.”
“What?” Darius’s eyes widened as Azrael’s magic flared, the sigils around his wrist pulsing with a brilliant, blinding light.
Realisation hit me a second too late. “Azrael, wait, ”
Magic erupted around us. A force like a hurricane tore through the chamber, ripping shadows apart, shattering stone. Withers’ expression twisted in fury, his form flickering, distorting in the chaotic energy.
“You can’t run from this, Azrael,” he snarled, voice layered with something ancient and hungry. “You can’t run from me.” Azrael didn’t answer. His magic surged, wrapping around
me and Darius in bands of golden light. My vision blurred, the world spinning as the fortress dissolved around us in a rush of wind and power.
Then, silence.
I stumbled forward, gasping as solid ground formed beneath my feet. The thick, suffocating air of Ebonshade was gone, replaced by something...calmer.
We were no longer in the fortress.
I blinked, my breath coming in short, uneven bursts as I took in our surroundings: high stone walls, towering bookshelves, and dim candlelight flickering in sconces along the arched ceiling.
Azrael’s keep.
Azrael stood a few paces away, his chest rising and falling heavily, his hand still raised from the spell. His magic flickered out, leaving him visibly drained.
Darius exhaled sharply. “You couldn’t have given us a warning before doing that?”
Azrael barely spared him a glance. “We didn’t have time.”
I pressed a hand to my forehead, my mind still spinning. “Kaelen, Withers, ”
“They’re still there,” Azrael said grimly. “But if we had stayed, we wouldn’t have made it out.”
I clenched my fists, frustration warring with the crushing weight of failure. “We can’t leave them.”
Azrael met my gaze, his expression unreadable. “Then we need to be stronger.”
