I left the chamber, my heart heavy with the weight of their lies. I knew that I had only one path left.
I would return to Dario, and together, we would tear down the walls of deceit, uncover the darkness that lay hidden within the heart of Solaris.
The journey ahead was fraught with danger, but as I stepped into the cool night air, a fierce, unbreakable resolve settled over me.
This was a fight I would see through to the end.
Chapter 10: Dario
The darkness in the heart of the Forest of Night’s Bane was absolute. It closed in around me, thick and heavy, wrapping each tree, each stone, each breath I took.
But tonight, something was different.
She was back.
Until I felt Elena’s presence cross the wards of my forest once more, I did not realize how little I had believed she would truly return.
As soon as she had left me the previous day, I had fallen into a dazed slumber, my incorporeal form dissolving into mist and regenerating itself in the heart of the forest, where the darkness was thickest.
It was only when the sun had set and the moon had risen again that I was back in my own body and able to think clearly again.I had spent the hours until dawn pacing my forest, never feeling as confined as I had that night. I spoke aloud to Meryn, cautioning myself each time not to get my hopes up that Elena would return.
When dawn came—a mercy, for once—it had put a thought to the maddening cycle of my circular thought—hope, then despair, then caution, then hope again. With the rising of the sun, it had all faded away again, until now.
Tonight, I feltherpresence cutting through the endless dark like a blade of light. Elena. She was back, walking through the shadows with a confidence that bordered on reckless, though she was as silent as a whisper.
Every instinct told me to remain hidden, to pull back into the familiar, isolating comfort of shadow. But instead, I found myself stepping forward, watching as she wove through thetrees, her dark cloak—a deep velvet maroon, this time—flowing around her. Her face was half-obscured by the hood, but the determination that burned in her golden gaze was unmistakable.
And though I had prepared myself for her betrayal—for her not returning at all—here she was. She had kept her word.
It was the first time in a hundred years that I’d trusted someone—and that trust hadn’t been betrayed.
A laugh, strangled and hoarse, threatened to claw its way up my throat. I swallowed it down, forcing composure, but inside something foreign and terrible swelled. Relief. Gratitude. Worse still, hope.
I had promised myself never to feel these things again.
I moved toward her, letting the shadows fall away, feeling a sudden urge to confirm that she was real, that she had truly come back. The way my heart tightened, the strange, quiet ache that followed—I crushed them both with a steely resolve, pushing the feelings aside.
No sense in revealing the effect her presence had on me. She’d have enough leverage over me as it was, without me adding more.
“Elena,” I said, my voice rougher than intended as it cut through the quiet.
She turned sharply, and the relief that flickered across her face did something strange to my chest. She took a few steps closer, her eyes tracing over my form, lingering on the edges of shadow that still clung to me.
“Dario,” she murmured. Her lips quirked in a slight smile.
“Do you know what you’ve done, priestess?” I murmured, my voice unsteady, pitched lower than I intended. “You came back.”
Her golden eyes met mine, steady as fire, and the faintest smile curved her lips. “I told you I would.”
Simple words. Unremarkable. And yet they cracked open the iron shell I had forged around my heart.
I looked away, afraid she might see it all too clearly—the weakness, the rawness, the aching loneliness I had buried beneath centuries of shadow. I had been a prisoner of Nyx’s curse, yes, but solitude had been its cruellest shackle. That solitude had been safer when no one tried to touch it. When no one could keep promises to me.
And yet… she had.
I tilted my head, studying her, memorizing the tilt of her mouth, the set of her jaw, the strange mix of exhaustion and determination etched into her features. She had every reason to hate me, to fear me, to leave me behind. Instead, she had walked back into the Forest of Night’s Bane, into the jaws of shadow, and found me.
“You’re braver than your stories,” I said at last.
