With a furious snarl, he raised both hands, summoning a barrier of green light that blazed with an intensity that forced us back, the air thick with the sickly, acrid scent of his magic.
“You are nothing,” he spat, his voice echoing through the chamber. “Nothing but fools clinging to powers you can’t control.”
And with a final, furious surge of magic, he unleashed a torrent of light that slammed into me, the force of it knocking me to my knees.
A magical array flared to life around me, locking me in place, bringing me to my knees. Pain seared through me, raw and relentless, as the shadows around me flickered, fading under the weight of his magic.
The moment Rindais’s spell struck, I knew I was undone.
The air ignited with a sickly green flare, coils of light snaking around my limbs, burrowing into the hollows of my ribs, my spine, my skull. The bands of green magic constricted, searing through my chest, dragging me to my knees.
The pressure was unbearable, a crushing weight that pinned me to the stone floor and seeped into my very marrow. I clawed at the shadows out of instinct, calling them like I always had—but they came sluggishly, stuttering, then guttered like candles in a gale.
This was not mere light. This was corrosion, designed to consume the very essence of shadow.
I could feel myself unraveling, my form slipping, my strength draining as he bound me with a spell so powerful, so ancient, that it felt like the weight of a thousand suns pressing down on me.
A guttural sound tore from my throat as I fought to hold myself together. My left hand dissolved to smoke before my eyes, only to reform weakly, trembling like a dying flame.
The bastard was dismantling me.
“Ah,” Rindais crooned, voice silken with malice. “So the great Shadow King does bleed after all.” His mismatched eyes gleamed as he tightened his grip. “Not blood, of course. But weakness, all the same.” He grinned, his teeth sharp. “Don’t worry, after I siphon off all your power, I’ll use it as it wasmeantto be used.”
My shadows…feeding his power?
I bit back a roar, every fiber of my being straining against the spell. My shadows writhed across the floor like wounded serpents, twitching, retreating, failing me.
For the first time in a hundred years, I felt fear. Real fear.
“Dario!” Elena’s voice cut through the haze. Golden light flared at the edge of my vision, but I couldn’t lift my head. My strength was bleeding out too fast.
I tried to answer her, to tell her to stay back, but my voice cracked, barely a whisper: “Don’t… come closer. He’ll bind you too.”
The green coils burrowed deeper, wrapping around my throat, squeezing. My thoughts stuttered, fragments slipping away into dark static. I clung to the memory of her voice, her warmth, like a drowning man clinging to driftwood.
“You see?” Rindais mocked. “This is the fate of all relics. Snuffed out when their time has passed. Shadows cannot stand against progress, Morelli.” He spat my name like poison. “You should have stayed in your grave.”
Rage sparked in me, hot enough to sear through the pain. He thought me weak—thought me finished.
Not like this. I would not fade here. Not before I tore this smug wretch apart.
I gathered the last of my shadows and hurled them upward in a desperate strike. For a heartbeat, they surged, thick and jagged, wrapping around Rindais’s wrist. But then his eyes narrowed, his lips curled, and his spell burned brighter. My shadows shrieked and disintegrated, vanishing into nothing.
The backlash ripped through me like fire. I doubled over, choking on smoke and agony.
“Dario!”
“Elena,” I gasped out.
“I will not let you go,” she said, her voice trembling but steady, iron beneath the flame.
And then her light erupted.
I felt it before I saw it—the rush of warmth against my fraying form, the pulse of life threading into the cracks where Rindais’s poison had taken hold. It didn’t erase the pain, but it steadied me, anchored me.
Rindais hissed, snapping his gaze toward her. “Foolish creature. Do you truly think you can save him?”
“I don’t think,” Elena said, stepping forward, her skin blazing as if fire ran beneath it. “I know.”
