Thirty yards away, the defensive line was set in the frost of the Val'dora garden. Ny'all and the Dragon-Oath raised their blades, their eyes solid pools of the Void as they prepared to engage the possessed King.
But the Last Shadow did not attack.
The possessed Va'lerius halted at the entrance of the garden. The jerky movements of the entity ceased. To the shock of the Beh-REET warriors, the ancient shadow lowered Va'lerius's Dragon-Etched blade, letting the steel rest harmlessly against the stone path.
"Lay down your weapons," the Last Shadow pleaded. The voice that spilled from Va'lerius's throat was an echoing amalgamation of the King's deep baritone and a howling wind touched by the Void. "There is no victory in this bloodshed."
Darius tightened his grip on his sword, stepping protectively in front of Mia.
"This vessel is frail," the Last Shadow continued, raising a gauntleted hand to gesture to the King's chest. "His life force is that of an old man who has already lived generations. It is a burning wick that will not last. He did not buy us much time. The shadows will return, and the key to the world's salvation is standing right in front of you."
The obsidian eyes of the possessed King locked onto Mia and the slight swell of her stomach.
"You betray your duty to the Stone," the Last Shadow commanded, the wind in his voice rising in intensity. "You betray the world. Even your father saw the truth. He gave his body willingly to save his son and seal the dark. Will you throw away his sacrifice?"
"LIE!" Darius spat, his voice tearing at his half-healed throat. "You murdered him!"
The Last Shadow did not flinch at the accusation. Instead, the ancient scholar sensed the pulsing, dormant energy of the chipped black crystal tied to Mia's belt. Reaching out with his mind, the possessed King tugged on the fragment's connection to the Stillness.
Mia gasped as the crystal ignited, radiating a purple-black resonance that washed over the garden.
Reality fractured. The physical world was overwritten by the Void.
Every Dragon-Oath, Ny'all, Darius, and Mia were plunged into a projected vision of the ancient Val'dora council chamber. They watched in horror as a warrior—a man who moved with the lethal elegance of a blademaster—fought an impossible battle against a horde of Shadow Sworn and reanimated husks. They watched the First Dragon buy time with his own blood.
"My brother died saving this world," ancient scholar voice echoed from every direction within the vision, heavy with millennia of grief. "And I sold my soul to lock the door behind the darkness. The First Dragon that saved this world lives in my actions."
Before the guards could process the ancient history, the Last Shadow shifted the projection.
The bloody council chamber dissolved, replaced by the ash-choked end of the world. The sky burned a sickly gray. The garden around them was reduced to shattered ruins, where the last remnants of humanity were hunted down and slaughtered by endless packs of Shadow Sworn. The despair of the apocalypse pressed against their minds.
"You risk repeating the horrors of my past for one life. Your king saw the truth," the Last Shadow whispered through the ash.
The projection snapped abruptly, slamming everyone back into the biting winter air of the garden. The Dragon-Oath guards staggered, their breaths coming in ragged gasps as the weight of the apocalypse lingered in their bones, the chill of the season doing nothing to cool the panic in their veins.
The possessed King stood perfectly still, his black eyes sweeping over the elite warriors of Beh-REET.
"Dragon-Oath," the Last Shadow commanded, his voice vibrating with royal authority. "Honor your pledge to the Stone. Bring me the key to saving our world. Bring me Darius's child."
The possessed King's head shifted back to the Prince of the Line. His face showed a flicker of sorrow before he spoke the words of law. "The scripture of the Line is absolute, Darius.
Whoever would let his brother burn for his own gain and names it no sin becomes a partner to the shadows."
The words caused a visceral shift in Darius. "You speak the words of my father, Shadow, but you are no longer that man. You are the traitor here. You have taken my King and now, attempt to turn my men. You will have no more blood. I assume the throne of Beh-REET for my fallen father."
Darius raised his blade, dropping flawlessly into the stance of Guard the Mountain, but the Dragon-Oath behind him wavered. Their eyes darted anxiously between the possessed King, Ny'all, and Darius.
Ny'all snatched a spear from one of the hesitating soldiers. "How dare you stand in contemplation of the words of a Shadow Sworn that has taken our former King's life?"
"He cites the Law of the Line correctly, Oath-Blade," the disarmed Dragon-Oath muttered, taking a half-step back.
Another guard shifted his weight, his grip tightening on his sword hilt. "Are we not bound by our Oaths?"
Mia's gaze swept across the tightening circle of men. She could see the fracture in their loyalty, the way fear and religious duty were twisting them into a threat. "Darius, we need to fall back," she hissed, her voice low and urgent.
But the hesitation of his men, combined with the agony of watching a monster puppet his father's corpse, pushed Darius past the edge of reason.
Darius attacked the Last Shadow, recklessly drawing upon the Void in a manner considered absolute suicide by any master. The energy he wielded caused the winter air to heat. The biting coolness of the garden slowly warming so that the frost clinging to the overgrown blades of grass melted.
What is this? Mia noticed silently. Calling on the Void mutes color and drains the world of warmth, not this... this increase in it.
He unleashed a horizontal swing—a devastating arc of blackened steel meant to cleave the Last Shadow's head entirely from his father's body. But the ancient entity moved back just enough.
The strike failed to decapitate, instead inflicting a wound mirroring the one Darius had just survived himself. The blade laid open the Last Shadow's throat in a spray of dark blood, forcing the possessed King to stagger, his weapon still resting uselessly against the garden stones.
With the creature that wore his father like a cloak exposed and unarmed, Darius pivoted to deliver the executioner's blow, a chance to end this nightmare now and avenge his father.
He brought his sword down for the kill, but the strike never landed. A deafening clash of metal shattered the garden's tension as Darius's blade was abruptly halted, caught in the crossed steel of two Dragon-Oath guards who had stepped in to defend the King's corpse.
The jarring ring of steel against steel stretched into an eternity. For Darius, time ground to a nauseating halt. His blade, inches from severing the monster's head, was locked in the cross guard of his own men. The very warriors sworn to protect the Line had raised their swords against him. The betrayal was incomprehensible.
Before Darius could break the deadlock, a blur of motion shattered the frozen stalemate. Ny'all lunged forward, swinging the spear shaft she had commandeered from one of the Dragon-Oath. She knocked the guards' blades wide, breaking their guard and shoving them back.
"You strike at our Prince!" Ny'all roared, her voice cracking like a whip across the garden. She caught herself, her fury amplifying as she stepped to Darius's side. "No—you strike out at your King!"
A few feet away, Mia watched in horror as the Last Shadow stood perfectly still. The tear in Va'lerius's throat was already knitting itself back together, the torn flesh pulling tight without spilling another drop of blood. The entity turned its gaze back to the other Dragon-Oath, who remained paralyzed in their indecision.
Ny'all leveled her weapon at the two guards who had defended the corpse of the lost King. "You ally with the darkness? There is no greater sin!"
The Last Shadow stepped forward and reached out, placing a cold hand on the shoulder of each of the two Dragon-Oath who had shielded him.
"The right of interposition is mine," the ancient scholar spoke, the ethereal wind in his voice carrying a strange, mournful calm. His pitch-black eyes fixed on Darius. "I will not kill you, Darius. But I cannot let you risk the world for a single child."
With a subtle gesture, the Last Shadow extended his hands. The two entranced guards understood and surrendered their weapons, placing their hilts into the possessed King's palms. Now armed with dual blades, the ancient entity turned to face the new King and his Oath-Blade.
Ny'all and Darius attacked in unison. It was a coordinated—a pincer of spear and sword that should have overwhelmed any single opponent.
It was useless.
The Last Shadow moved with impossible elegance. The jerky, uneven movement that plagued the corpse of Va'lerius was gone. The entity parried Darius's horizontal slash with his left blade, using the momentum to spin and deflect Ny'all's spear thrust with his right. Steel sparked in the cold air. The ancient scholar fought without desperation or effort, reading their movements before they even twitched.
With a flick of his wrist, the Last Shadow caught Darius's blade in a bind, twisting sharply to send a shockwave up the Prince's arm before kicking him squarely in the chest. Darius was launched backward, crashing hard against the frosted stone path.
Before Ny'all could compensate, the Last Shadow was inside her defenses. The entity struck the Oath-Blade's knee, forcing her down.
"No!" Mia's scream tore through the garden. She violently tore open the door to the Void. She reached into the dark for Ny'all.
Ny'all's body surged upward, driven by Mia's panicked adrenaline as their minds collapsed into one space. The two Sister-Wives broke the promise they made in the Red Canyons. They had tethered themselves together through the Void.
For a few breathtaking seconds, the Sister-Wives moved as a single storm. The Last Shadow parried a high strike from Ny'all, only for Mia's dagger to slip through, slicing deep into his abdomen. As he pivoted to answer Mia, Ny'all's spear bit into his thigh.
Feeling the tether guiding their strikes, the Last Shadow adjusted his attack. He took a deliberate, controlled step backward.
To maintain the pressure the Sister-Wives pressed the attack, however the Last Shadow had the skills of Dak'nor and Va'lerius. He used their aggression as a moment to counterattack.
He stepped inside Mia's guard, his blade blurring in an arc aimed directly at her stomach. Mia froze, the terror of the night the Red Dunes burned, paralyzing her. But a fraction of an inch before the steel pierced her womb, the Last Shadow wrenched his own wrists backward, stopping the blade.
He needed the child alive.
That second of hesitation was all Ny'all needed. Capitalizing on the dropped guard, the Oath-Blade drove her spear deep into the Last Shadow's shoulder.
Instead of pulling away from the pain, the Last Shadow stepped into Ny'all's strike, using his own impaled shoulder to lock her weapon in place. Stripped of her leverage and trapped in his range, Ny'all could only watch as he brought the cross guard of Va'lerius' Dragon-Etched sword crashing down in an overhead blow directly between her eyes.
Ny'all hit the stone. In Mia's mind, the tether snapped, plunging her back into the isolation of her own skull.
The Last Shadow wrenched Ny'all's spear free from his shoulder and let it clatter to the stones. Unfazed, he slowly turned his hollow gaze toward Mia.
As Mia attempted to recenter herself from the sudden removal of the tether, the Last Shadow drove one of his blades into Mia's right thigh.
She collapsed with a choked cry, her hands instinctively flying down to grip the cold steel protruding from her flesh. Hot blood rushed over her trembling fingers, soaking into the frost. The possessed King stepped over the now-kneeling Mia, looking down at her ruined leg.
"You weep for one life?" his voice echoed over the courtyard. "I am trying to save all life."
Tears of agony pricked at Mia's eyes. Her knuckles turned white as she clung to the blade in her leg, refusing to bow her head completely. She looked up through the blur of her tears, her voice a venomous hiss.
"Not all life."
The Last Shadow froze.
A wet crunch sounded from behind him as a blade severed the head of the former king from his body. The stolen swords slipped from his fingers, clattering harmlessly against the stone next to Mia.
Behind the possessed King stood Alcim. Mia's breath hitched. It was the young boy from the Red Dunes—the same boy she thought had been slaughtered the night her world shattered. Yet here he stood, wearing the intricate insignia of the Dragon Line stamped into his leather chest plate. How could he be here? The same Dragon-Oath she believed had murdered him in the sands had somehow recruited him into their ranks.
"How is this possible?" she whispered, her mind reeling from the impossible sight.
Alcim's eyes were wide with resolve, entirely consumed by the unmistakable obsidian pits of a man drawing upon the Void.
The puppeted corpse collapsed backwards into a heap at Ny'all's feet.
Darius staggered upright, heavily using his sword as a crutch to keep his footing. Mia pulled the sword protruding from her thigh and tried to surge forward to Ny'all's side, but her ruined right leg buckled. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she dragged her weight forward, forcing herself into a limp across the bloodstained frost. Collapsing beside her Sister-Wife.
Mia froze in terror.
Thick, inky black tendrils of smoke began to ooze from Va'lerius's collapsed torso. The unnatural shadows slithered slowly across the frost, reaching out to grasp the severed head, dragging it backward toward the bleeding stump of the neck.
Alcim lowered his blade, the Void flickering in his eyes as shock set in.
"Nothing..." Mia breathed aloud, her voice trembling as the shadow-flesh began to bind the head back to the body. "Nothing can survive that."
Darius watched his father's corpse begin to reassemble itself. Reality crushed the last of his rage. In that moment, the new King of Beh-REET realized that to stay was suicide.
"Alcim," Darius gasped, his chest heaving. "Get my wives. We must retreat. We can't..."
He choked on the command. They were words that had never been spoken by a royal of the Dragon Line, tasting like ash on his tongue.
"...We—we can't win."
The Shattering of the Line
Alcim moved. He pulled Ny'all by the shoulder and dragged her upright, then stepped deliberately towards Mia.
Then came a wet, grinding crack.
Mia turned. Black tendrils had wrapped themselves around Va'lerius's severed head, pulling it violently down against the ragged stump of his neck. Bone snapped into place. The corpse straightened. For one awful second, the thing wearing the King's body simply stood there, its coat stirring in the winter wind.
Then its eyes found Mia. They passed over Darius. Passed over Alcim. Stopped on her, and on her stomach.
"Move!" Darius shouted.
She stumbled after him as the garden erupted into chaos.
"The Law of the Line!" one of the Dragon-Oath guards cried, his sword flashing as he stepped to block the exit. "For the Stone! Stop the Prince!"
"Traitor!" another guard roared, slamming his body into the Last Shadow's loyalist.
Steel rang out across the frost. Men who had stood shoulder to shoulder a heartbeat before were suddenly tearing each other apart in the pale moonlight. A sword punched through a gap in armor, sending a Dragon-Oath to his knees to stare blankly at the blood spreading across his hands before a second blade ended his life.
"Keep moving!" Darius commanded, shoving Mia forward through the melee.
A spear thrust toward them from the fray, but Alcim knocked the wooden shaft aside. His blade slid beneath the spearman's jaw. He pulled it free, only to be met by a small contingent of Dragon-Oath blocking their escape.
Suddenly, a whistling barrage of black-fletched arrows rained down from the high walls of the courtyard. The shafts slammed into the possessed King's chest, shoulders, and thighs with devastating force. The entity stumbled. The dark tendrils abandoning the neck to rush toward the new wounds, violently pushing the arrowheads out as the flesh hastily stitched itself back together.
The relentless rain of arrows forced the Last Shadow into a grotesque, paralyzing loop of continuous healing, pinning the monster in place as his body tore and mended simultaneously.
A second volley fell on the Dragon-Oath blocking Alcim and the royal family's escape, forcing them to reposition to attack the Anai and abandon their blockade.
Through the chaos, Zalla'nor and Yaffa'nor dropped into the courtyard. Yaffa'nor dragged the reins of a startled cavalry horse, pulling the massive beast toward the wounded royals. As they reached the Prince, a heavy sword swung directly at Darius's exposed back.
Twin flashes of steel intercepted the blow. Zalla'nor and Yaffa'nor's curved blades caught the Dragon-Oath soldier's weapon in a rigid bind.
The Dragon-Oath's eyes darted from the distinct armor of the Anai warriors to the former Prince he had once sworn to protect. His face twisted in disgust, his loyalty shattering on the spot. Zalla'nor broke the bind and drove her blade through the soldier's shoulder.
Yaffa'nor shoved the leather reins of the horse directly into Darius's chest, the Anai champion's eyes darting back to the twitching, regenerating mass of the Last Shadow.
Simultaneously, Alcim freed a second horse near the garden gates. He had already mounted the beast in one fluid motion before moving to retrieve his King.
"Get Ny'all up!" Darius ordered Mia, handing the reins over before vaulting up behind Alcim.
Mia scrambled to grab the reins, turning to the dazed Oath-Blade. Ny'all was staggering, her eyes unfocused and her hand pressed tightly to the bleeding, swollen bruise on her temple. The concussion had stripped away her balance.
Mia threw her shoulder under Ny'all's arm and forced her Sister-Wife's foot into the stirrup. Ignoring the blinding agony shooting up her own ruined thigh, Mia scrambled up behind her, wrapping both arms tightly around the Oath-Blade's waist to lock her in place. She pressed her chest firmly against Ny'all's back just as the beast surged forward.
They rode hard, leaving the stone walls of Beh-REET to disappear behind the crested dunes. Sand whipped and clawed at Mia's face, catching in her clothes, but the thunder of hooves drowned out the fading shouts of the dying garden. Alcim led the frantic charge, navigating the treacherous, snow-dusted terrain without ever slowing their pace.
When the last of the scattered ponderosa pine gave way to a small clearing, the ruins of an old stone watch-post half buried beneath the snow and sand were revealed. Alcim pulled his mount to a halt, signaling for them to dismount.
They slid from the exhausted horses in the heavy silence of the winter night. Darius caught the crumbling stone wall and sagged against it, pressing a trembling hand to his throat where warm blood seeped between his fingers; the wound had opened again during the ride. Ny'all slid down the opposite wall, resting her head back as she pressed a handful of snow to her bruised temple, struggling to clear her vision.
Alcim took up a position beside the broken doorway, his eyes scanning the dark horizon. He stood watch for several long minutes, the only sound the heavy, ragged breathing of the survivors and the snorting of their mounts.
Finally, Alcim turned his gaze back to the Prince. His eyes had changed back; the obsidian darkness of the Void was gone, leaving only cold human eyes.
"I think we put enough distance between us and the others," Alcim said quietly, his voice flat and tactical. He glanced down at the blood drying on his blade, his brow furrowing slightly. "I've never seen anyone... or anything... heal from a decapitation."
"Don't tap into the Void, just in case they can sense the current," the order came out strained from Darius's lips.
Darius swallowed hard, opening his mouth to continue his grim assessment, but the words were cut short.
"How?"
The words overflowed from Mia as if she had been holding them back for a hundred years. She stared at Darius with a look not seen since the burning of the Red Dunes.
Her voice barely carried.
Darius closed his eyes.
"Mia—"
"I thought he died."
Darius said nothing.
"I watched them kill everyone." Her voice cracked. "I remember the smell."
She swallowed.
"I mourned him."
Darius opened his eyes.
"How is he here?"
His gaze moved toward Alcim.
"Because I spared him."
Mia stared at him.
For a moment, the words meant nothing.
Then they did.
"You knew?"
Darius said nothing.
"You knew he was alive? How long? Since the Red Dunes?"
A tiny twitch passed across Darius's face.
Her face went cold.
"You knew!"
Darius looked down.
"I couldn't let them kill him."
"Then where did you send him?"
His jaw tightened.
"The marsh camps."
Mia's breath caught.
"The outer camps?"
"I had to hide him somewhere you wouldn't look."
"And you let me believe he was dead?"
"I had to."
"Why?"
Darius looked at her.
"So, you wouldn't go after him."
Mia stared.
"You thought I would?"
"I knew you would."
"You knew I would go back for him."
"Yes."
"And you decided for me?"
Darius's silence was answer enough.
Mia's hands shook.
"You sent him to the people who murdered his family."
"I sent him somewhere he could survive."
"You gave him to them."
"I gave him a chance."
"A chance?"
Darius pushed himself away from the wall. His legs nearly buckled, but he stayed standing.
"The Law demanded every survivor be put to death or enslaved."
"So, you hid him among the Dragon-Oath."
"I had no other place."
"You had me."
Darius froze.
Mia's voice broke.
"You had me."
"I couldn't risk you."
"Risk me? What does that mean?"
"I knew what you'd do. You would have gone back. You would have tried to save him. And if the Line found you—"
"They would have killed me."
"Yes."
"And you decided his life was worth lying to me."
"I decided your life was worth lying to you."
Mia stared at him.
Darius's voice dropped.
"I told myself it was the only way. I told myself he would survive. That the camps would make him strong enough to survive what was coming."
Mia looked toward Alcim.
He stood motionless at the doorway.
"You made him one of them."
Darius swallowed. "I kept him alive, and that choice is why we are alive tonight."
Mia turned back to him. "And what did it cost him?"
Darius had no answer.
She laughed once. The sound broke apart in her throat.
"You lied to me."
Darius flinched.
"For months."
"I was trying to protect you."
"You held me while I cried for them." Her voice rose. "You listened to me talk about him. You listened to me blame myself for surviving. And all that time, you knew he was alive."
"I was a coward—"
"You let me mourn him."
Tears spilled down her cheeks.
"You let me think there was nobody left, that I was the last of the Red Dunes."
Darius took a step toward her.
She stepped back.
The distance between them was only a few feet, but it felt enormous.
Mia looked at Alcim again. "Alcim?"
He said nothing.
"It's me."
His head turned, eyes settling on her. For the briefest moment, something moved behind his eyes.
"Do you remember me?"
His gaze lingered on her face.
"I remember being alone."
Mia covered her mouth.
Ny'all pushed herself away from the wall.
"Mia?"
Mia shook her head.
Ny'all crossed the frosted ground and pulled her into her arms. Mia resisted, but the warmth of her Sister-Wife melted her defenses, and she collapsed into Ny'all's embrace.
"Breathe," Ny'all whispered.
Mia's hands clenched the back of Ny'all's armor.
"He was just a boy."
"I know."
"They took him."
"I know."
Ny'all looked over Mia's shoulder at Darius, her jaw tightened, forcing the freshly named King to look away. For once, neither of them had anything to say. Ny'all rested her cheek against Mia's hair. "We're alive," she whispered. "That's enough tonight." Mia cried into her shoulder.
Across the ruined watch-post, Alcim moved his eyes towards the dark horizon. Darius stood with his back against the stone, staring at the blood on his hands. The wind moved through the pines. Somewhere beyond the trees and the sand, the Last Shadow was still searching.
Darius closed his eyes and sat,
Alone.