I almost laughed. That she thought I could protect her from Nyx herself. That she believed it. But the truth was: I would. I would shield her with everything I had.
“Very well,” I said, stepping behind her, so close that her cloak brushed against me when the wind shifted. “Let’s begin.”
She lifted her palms, light spilling out like liquid fire. Golden streams cascaded into the barrier, searing across its surface, unraveling the silver sigils. The wards screamed. The sound tore through me, every nerve in my body convulsing with memory: a century of chains, a century of silence, a century of watching freedom rot just beyond reach.
My shadows surged in answer, spilling from my hands like black water. They sought hers instinctively, weaving between threads of light, sliding into the fractures she made. Her fire cut, and my shadows slipped inside the cracks, prying, unraveling.
It was like a dance.
Her heat. My cold.
Her brilliance. My darkness.
And the barrier quaking before us.
I had broken many things in my cursed life—bones, wards, the wills of paladins who had come too far into my forest.
But never like this. Never in concert. Elena’s magic did not repel mine; it welcomed it, coaxed it, made room for it. My shadows, which had always devoured light, curled around hers without extinguishing it. They wrapped her fire in velvet dark, sheltering it as much as feeding from it.
“Elena…” Her name left my mouth unbidden, rough with awe.
She didn’t turn, but I saw her shoulders rise and fall as she caught her breath. “Don’t stop. We’re close.”
Close. Gods, she didn’t know what that word did to me, how my body pressed instinctively nearer, how my chest nearly brushed her back as we worked. I could feel the warmth of her power flooding through her, radiating into me each time her light flared.
The wards lashed back. A tendril of silver lightning snapped out, striking at her arm. She cried out, staggering, but before she could falter, my shadows rose like a shield, swallowing the strike. The energy burned me, searing into my flesh, but Iground my teeth and held fast.
“Stay with me,” I growled, shadows surging to protect her flanks.
Her voice shook, but it came steady. “I’m here.”
The deeper we pushed, the more the barrier resisted. Each rune we unraveled spawned two more, each seam we pried open bled raw magic like tar. Sweat dampened her temples, her breath coming harsher with each flare of golden fire.
Finally, a fracture spread across the heart of the barrier, jagged and trembling, a seam ready to split.
“Elena!” I called, my shadows thrashing in anticipation.
“I see it!” she shouted back, her hands blazing brighter than the sun itself. The golden fire roared, tearing into the seam, and my shadows poured after it like a river bursting its banks.
Light and shadow slammed into the fracture with a sound like shattering glass. The runes shrieked, their silver light twisting, unraveling, collapsing inward.
A shockwave ripped outward, blasting through the forest, sending trees bending and roots shuddering.
The wards screamed one last time—and then exploded.
The force knocked us both back. Elena staggered, and I caught her without thought, my hands closing around her waist. She fell against me, her hair brushing my cheek, her breath hot against my throat.
The barrier was gone. I could feel it—like a weight lifted from my chest, like lungs filling with air after drowning. For the first time in a century, the world stretched beyond these cursed trees.
“Elena…” My voice cracked, raw and trembling. I had not wept in a hundred years, but in that moment I nearly did.
Her hand came up, unthinking, brushing the side of my face. Warm, soft. Human.
The wards’ death cry still echoed through the forest, but in that moment, I could hear nothing but her breath, feel nothingbut her body pressed to mine.
For a long, breathless heartbeat, I couldn’t move.
The wards were gone. The silence of their absence roared louder than their endless whisper had ever done. Since Nyx’s curse, they had always been there—woven into my bones, pressing on my skin, leeching my breath. Their presence had been so constant, so omnipresent, that I had stopped noticing the weight, like a chain one forgets until it’s suddenly gone.
