“You have none,” I said simply. “And I have none from you. That is the nature of truce.”
Her brows furrowed. “Convenient.”
“No,” I murmured, “dangerous. But what is life without danger?”
For a long while, she did not move. I began to think she would turn and walk away, damn the wards, damn me, damn herself. But then she lifted her chin, pride as sharp as any blade.
“Swear by your true name,” she said.
The shadows in me stilled. My name. It had been so long since I dared speak it, let alone offer it to another. The curse had buried the man beneath a century of darkness, leaving only the Shadow King. To give her my name was to strip bare what little remained of my humanity.
And yet… her gaze demanded it.
My true name.
Once, long ago, I had clutched it like a banner, a reminder that I was still human. That I was once Dario: genius mage, young, arrogant, untouchable. That man had died the night Nyx cursed me. I had buried him beneath ash and shadow, never daring to exhume him, for fear of remembering what I had lost.
And yet here Elena stood, fire in her eyes, demanding I peel back that darkness and offer her what no Paladin, no priest, no enemy had ever heard.
I ought to have refused. But something in her gaze, those unflinching golden eyes, loosened the iron grip of silence that had bound me for a century.
“I…” My voice cracked, startling me. Shadows stirred uneasily, betraying my turmoil. I forced the words out before I lost my nerve. “I, Dario Morelli, swear that I shall not harm you, Elena, High Priestess of Solaris, nor any under your protection, for as long as this truce endures.”
She inhaled sharply. Her lips parted.
“Dario,” she whispered, almost testing the shape of it, as if she were rolling the syllables across her tongue. Then, firmer: “Dario Morelli.”
I swayed as though struck. No shadow, no blade, no curse had pierced me so. Hearing my name in another’s voice—not spat in hatred, not cursed in rage, but spoken with quiet certainty—undid me in ways I could not have foreseen.
I had not realized how starved I was for it. For acknowledgment that I had once been more than the Shadow King, more than a myth to terrify children. That I had once been a man.
Her eyes lingered on me, and in them I saw not only suspicion, but also a flicker of something else. Compassion. Recognition. And that was more dangerous than any sword.
I wanted to turn away, to cloak myself in shadow again and hide the rawness of my heart that threatened to show on my face. But I could not. I was frozen, caught in the golden net of her gaze.
Slowly, deliberately, she extended her hand. Her palm was warm, lit faintly with the residue of her power. My fingers, pale and half-formed in moonlight, closed around hers with a care I hadn’t shown in decades. I half-expected her to recoil, to flinch at the chill of me—but she did not.
Her grip was firm. Steady.
“And I, Elena Serrano, swear that I shall not harm you, Dario Morelli, so long as you keep this vow.”
Hearing her name in tandem with mine—Elena Serrano andDario Morelli—felt like something fated, as though the forest itself paused to bear witness. The shadows hushed. Even Meryn, watching from above, gave a low, approving trill.
The silence between us deepened, thick with tension.
I forced myself to break it. “We are bound now by more than vow,” I said, voice low. “Names are power. You know this.”
Her chin lifted. “Then let that power bind you to your promise. You swore by Dario Morelli—not by the Shadow King. Remember that.”
The truth of it struck deep. She had not sworn truce with the monster. She had sworn it withme.
I inclined my head. “I will remember.”
She hesitated, then extended her hand again, not as demand but as offering. Shadows curled around my wrist as I reached for her, but I did not fight them. Her fingers closed over mine, warm, human, solid. I had forgotten how it felt to touch another without malice.
It was a simple thing, this handshake. Two hands joined, shadow and light locked together. Yet it felt like more than a gesture. It felt like a fault line splitting the world I had known, the world of endless night, endless solitude, endless war.
Her gaze did not falter. “Your name suits you,” she said quietly.
