But I shook my head, clinging to the last threads of defiance. “Seeing does not mean yielding. Words cannot wash away graves.”
“No,” he agreed quietly. “But perhaps they can stop new ones from being dug.”
The simplicity of it disarmed me. He was not begging for absolution. He was pleading for the chance to end the cycle.
“I never wanted to harm your people. Do you think I wanted this war? A hundred years of endless pursuit? I hate it. I hate it.”
Silence followed, heavy as a tomb. I stared at him, my breath shallow. He looked like a man torn open, not gloating in his strength but drowning in it.
I had thought myself alone, cursed by my own immortality to watch generations of Solaris rise and fall while I remained. But hearing him speak, the echo of my own sorrow in his voice, left me unsteady.
We were mirrors, in some twisted way—two immortals bound to powers greater than ourselves, condemned to endure what others could not. Light and dark, phoenix and shadow.
I lowered my eyes. “If what you say is true… then you are as bound as I am. Prisoner of something greater than yourself.”
“Yes.” His voice cracked, quieter now.
I turned my face away, heart racing. The shadows at my wrists pulsed once more, looser still, and I wondered if I could break free now. But part of me feared freedom more than chains.
Because freedom meant choice. And choice meant admitting that the enemy before me was not the monster of legend, but a man—cursed, scarred, dangerous, yes, but a man nonetheless.
The silence stretched out between us. An owl rustled herwings above us, breaking the stillness with a low, curious hoot.
He followed my gaze upward, his expression softening at the sight of the snowy white owl above us. It was disconcerting—that glimpse of humanity, the simple appreciation of a man looking at something beautiful. A reminder that he was not all shadow.
When his eyes returned to me, they were quieter now, stripped of fury. “You will not believe me tonight,” he said softly. “But the seed is planted. And seeds, priestess, do not stay buried forever.”
My chest tightened. “Do not speak of seeds as though you are planting faith in me. My faith belongs to the Sun.”
He tilted his head, and there was almost a smile on his lips. Almost. “Then let your Sun judge me. If I lie, let it burn me to ash. But if I speak truth… perhaps even light must bend to see it.”
The challenge in his tone left me trembling. Not with fear, but with the dawning realization that my world—the one I had defended so fiercely—might not be the unbroken truth I thought it was.
I clenched my fists, swallowing hard. “You may speak of truth, but until I see proof, I remain your enemy.”
His eyes glimmered faintly, unreadable. “Then remain. Even enemies can speak.”
And with that, he turned, cloak of shadows billowing as he stepped back into the darkness. The chains around my wrists loosened further, no longer biting but lingering, as though he could not yet bring himself to release me fully.
I sat in silence long after he vanished, staring into the empty air where he had stood. My pulse thundered. My mind spun.
The Shadow King—Nyx’s cursed servant, the terror of Solaris—was no monster. No mindless beast. He was a man, carrying grief like a wound, speaking truths I did not want to hear.
And I… I could no longer deny that I had seen his humanity.
It unsettled me more than his shadows ever could.
Chapter 6: The Shadow King
Night had always belonged to me. For a hundred years the forest bent to my will after sunset, shadows weaving around me like obedient hounds, silence cradling me like a mother’s arms.
I had grown accustomed to the solitude, to the endless rhythm of darkness.
Yet as I moved through the blackened trees tonight, I was not content. Something unsettled me. Something pulled me back where I should not return.
Her.
Elena, High Priestess of Solaris. Golden flame wrapped in mortal form. She should have been my sworn enemy, another zealot wielding the Sun God’s fire, eager to pierce my shadowed heart. But she was not like the others. The memory of her face—defiant, exhausted, her fury burning even when her strength faltered—had burrowed into my heart like a thorn I could not extract.
