The shadows of Khorath's domain press in like a living thing—cold, suffocating, sentient. I stand in the void, surrounded by a silence so thick it feels like the air itself is rotting. Chains of darkness snake around my wrists and ankles, dragging me deeper into the abyss, a physical manifestation of the oath I can never outrun.
Every breath is a battle. The air here isn't meant for lungs—it tastes of ash and blood, thick with ancient malice. The bond to Seraphina pulses faintly in the back of my mind, warm and alive, a cruel contrast to this place. A thread of light in a world made of nothing but black.
She's still out there. Alive. Breathing.
She has no idea where I am.
No idea what she's becoming.
A voice slithers through the dark.
"Vaelen."
Khorath.
His name scrapes against my spine like a knife. He emerges from the shadows as if carved from them, not so much a man as a void wearing the shape of one. His eyes gleam with malice, ancient and endless.
"How long do you think you can resist?" he muses, his voice more chill than the air itself. "Your soul belongs to me. The chains binding you are older than time. And yet…" He leans closer, as if inspecting a curiosity. "You defy me still. Because of her."
The mention of Seraphina is a dagger to the chest.
Our bond hums—tightening.
Strangling.
"She has become your weakness," Khorath says, circling me like a vulture. "And your prison."
"You don't get to speak her name," I growl, the words ripped from between clenched teeth.
He only smiles. Cold. Patient. Triumphant.
"Did you truly think tethering your soul to hers would free you? That love could sever the chains I forged? No, Vaelen. The bond only deepens your servitude. Her power feeds it."
My heart stutters.
Her power.
It's growing. I felt it before I was pulled here—wild, unstable. Terrifying.
And now the word slips from his lips, a whisper and a prophecy all at once.
"Thanatokinesis."
It echoes through my skull like a death knell.
"What is that?" I ask, even though I'm afraid to know. The desperation claws up my throat. "What's happening to her?"
Khorath smiles, and I know before he speaks that I won't like the answer.
"She is becoming what she was always meant to be," he says. "Death incarnate."
The shadows swell with the weight of his words. I stagger back, the soul tie between Seraphina and me throbbing violently, like a heartbeat out of rhythm.
"She doesn't just wield death," he continues, stepping closer, voice dripping with triumph. "She commands it. Her every breath wakes the dead. Her every heartbeat bends the veil. Soon, she will not just bring death—she will be it."
I can't breathe. I feel her, faint but rising—like a storm building in the distance. And she has no idea. No idea what she's capable of. No idea what he intends for her.
"Why her?" My voice cracks. "Why Seraphina? What do you want from her?"
Khorath's expression hardens, his eyes glinting like shards of obsidian.
"She is the key to my dominion," he says. "Through her, I will tear down the veil between life and death. Restore balance—my balance. Or…" He shrugs, mockingly. "She loses control. And everything burns."
My knees nearly buckle. The darkness coils tighter around my limbs, feeding on my doubt, my fear. It knows. It always knows.
"She's stronger than you think," I whisper, but it feels hollow. Weak. A prayer shouted into a void that doesn't care.
Khorath steps closer, the shadows around him pulsing like a heartbeat.
"And you," he says, voice low and deadly, "are her greatest weakness. Your love. Your soul. The bond you forged will be your undoing. The more she grows, the more tightly you are bound to me."
"No," I breathe. "I won't let you use her."
He laughs. Cold and cruel.
"You don't have a choice."
The soul tie pulses again—sharper this time. A flare of her energy rips through me. I feel her. Afraid. Confused. Drenched in guilt. She doesn't know what she is.
And I don't know how to save her.
"You think you can protect her from her own nature?" Khorath's voice turns mocking. "You think love can keep death at bay?"
I clench my fists, fury burning through the fog of dread. The tether between us—Seraphina and me—it's not just a chain. It's a lifeline. And maybe it's fragile. Maybe it's damned.
But it's real.
"She is not yours to control," I say. "And neither am I."
He leans in, breath like frost against my cheek.
"Try to fight me," he whispers. "Try to save her. And when she slips beyond your reach, when she becomes something even you can't recognize—remember that you brought her to me."
The chains tighten.
The shadows press in.
But I hold to that single thread of warmth—the soul tie. Her heart. Her strength.
And the one truth Khorath can never take:
I will burn in this darkness before I let it claim her.