“Oh, I do,” she teased, licking honey from her thumb. “But this suits you too. Both sides belong to you.”
We lingered long after the food was gone, stretched out on the grass. She lay with her head pillowed on my chest, silver eyes closed, sun warming her face. I traced idle patterns on her arm, marveling at the fact that I could. That she let me. That I wasn’t a monster in her eyes, but a man.
It was tranquil. It was ordinary. And for someone like me, it was everything.
After a moment, she looked over at me, her silver eyes bright with something I couldn’t quite place—a mixture of curiosity, mischief, and perhaps something more.
“Tell me something,” she said, her voice soft, barely more than a whisper, as if she didn’t want to disturb the serenity of the moment.
“Anything,” I replied, feeling a sudden, overwhelming urge to share every part of myself with her, to lay bare every truth, every secret I had kept locked away for so long.
“What was it like?” she asked, her gaze searching mine. “Living in the shadows, before all of this?”
Her question took me by surprise, and for a moment, I was silent, the weight of the memories filling the space between us.
“Isolating,” I said slowly. “The shadows were both a prison and a refuge. They held me captive, yet they were all I had. The silence, the darkness… after a while, they became part of me, apart I couldn’t escape.”
She listened, her gaze unwavering, a quiet strength in her expression that gave me the courage to continue.
“It was like being trapped in a world without color, without warmth,” I murmured. “I could see the world around me, but I couldn’t touch it, couldn’t feel it. I was there, but… not really. And I told myself it didn’t matter, that I didn’t need the light, that I could live without warmth. But now…”
I trailed off, my gaze drifting to the sunlight that dappled the grass at our feet, its warmth seeping into my skin, grounding me in a way I had never thought possible.
“Now, I realize how much I missed,” I continued. “And here I am, sitting in the sun with you, and it feels like a miracle.”
She pressed close again, closing her eyes, but her question lingered, heavier than the sun on my skin.What was it like, living in the shadows?
I had given her the polite answer. Isolating. Colorless. But that wasn’t the truth. Not the whole truth.
“Elena,” I said slowly, “do you really want to know?”
She propped herself up on one elbow, silver eyes clear, unwavering. “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t want the truth.”
So I told her.
Of the first days after Nyx cursed me, when I had clawed at my own skin trying to peel the shadows away. Of the first time I tried to step into sunlight and felt myself unravel, my body disintegrating into smoke. The terror of it. The despair.
“I thought death would take me quickly,” I admitted. “But it didn’t. The shadows stitched me back together. Again and again. A mockery of life.”
Elena’s hand tightened around mine, but she didn’t speak.
“I tried to fight it. Tried to drown myself in rivers, bury myself beneath stone. Nothing worked. The shadows always won. And so I stopped fighting. I let them consume me. I became what theworld whispered I was—the Shadow King.”
My throat closed, but I forced the words out. “I told myself I preferred it. Better to be feared than pitied. But inside? I was rotting.”
Finally, I met her gaze. My voice was raw, stripped bare. “For a hundred years, Elena, no one touched me. No one looked at me without fear. Until you.”
The forest was hushed, as though it, too, waited for her answer. She reached up, cupping my cheek. Her thumb brushed along my jaw, gentle, steady.
“You’re not rotting, Dario,” she said softly. “You’re alive. You’ve always been alive. And you’re not alone anymore. Not ever again. You don’t have to carry that darkness by yourself.”
I pressed my forehead to hers, breathing her in, clinging to the truth she offered like a lifeline.
I had never spoken those memories aloud. But now they weren’t festering in the dark—they belonged to both of us. And the weight was lighter for it.
Without thinking, I reached up, brushing a strand of silver hair from her face, my fingers lingering against her cheek, her skin warm beneath my touch. She looked up at me, her eyes wide, her breath catching as I leaned in, the world narrowing down to the space between us, the electric tension that pulsed in the air.
“Elena,” I murmured, my voice barely more than a whisper, my heart pounding as I held her gaze. “You’re… everything.”
