Darius looked at Mia and Ny'all, a silent conversation passing between the three of them before he turned back to Zekena'nor. "We need time alone," Darius said. "The three of us require isolation to formulate a strategy against the impending shadows before we march back to Beh-REET."
Zekena'nor nodded and granted them a secluded, windowless meditation hut at the edge of the village, positioning Zalla'nor and Yaffa'nor outside the door with orders that no one was to enter.
Inside the dim structure, the air was warm and thick.
Mia paced the short length of the woven mats, her hands resting thoughtfully over her stomach. Darius and Ny'all watched her in silence, the atmosphere of the hut amplifying the tension.
"We need to enter the Void," Mia said finally, turning to face them. "Together. The three of us."
Darius stood up instantly, shaking his head. "Absolutely not, Mia. The Void is actively trying to consume those who draw from it."
"He is right," Ny'all agreed, her dark eyes flashing with unease. "The Stillness is now a current pulling us directly toward the Shadow Sworn. To open our minds to it now is to invite the darkness in."
"And what is the alternative?" Mia countered, her mind refusing to back down from the logic of their situation. "Zekena'nor gave us history, not a strategy. She doesn't know how the first seal was forged. The only entity in existence who knows of that seal is the Last Shadow."
"You want to interrogate a monster in the dark?" Darius asked, his tone exasperated.
"I want answers," Mia insisted. "He spoke to you, Darius. He interacted with Ny'all and me. If we link our minds—if we anchor each other—we might be able to demand the truth from him without the threat of him consuming our minds."
Darius rubbed his jaw, the protective instinct of a husband warring against the tactical burden of a prince. "We are marching back to a city that might already be falling," Darius muttered, pacing a few steps. "If we arrive without knowing how to close the door, we are just delivering our people to the slaughter."
Ny'all crossed her arms over her leather breastplate, her posture rigid with resistance. "Entering enemy territory without a plan of attack is reckless, even for you two. We do not know the true limits of his power."
Mia stepped closer to the Oath Blade, her gaze unwavering. "Waiting for that enemy to knock at our doors without a plan is no less foolish, sister."
Ny'all held Mia's stare for a long moment. The Oath Blade's jaw clenched, but the truth in Mia's words finally broke her resistance. Slowly, Ny'all uncrossed her arms and let out a breath, giving a stiff nod.
"Sit," Mia instructed, her voice tight with a nervous authority.
Darius and Ny'all obeyed, lowering themselves to the woven floor mats. They formed a tight triangle, their knees nearly touching.
"I'll be the anchor," Mia said, looking between her husband and her Sister-Wife. "Ny'all, you let the current take you when you fight like in the Red Canyons." Ny'all's gaze grew hard, but she said nothing. "Darius, your connection to the Void is stronger than anyone. We can't get pulled in too deep."
She reached out, taking Darius's massive left hand, while Ny'all grasped her right. Darius completed the circuit, gripping Ny'all's remaining hand.
"I have the least amount of time in the Stillness," Mia continued, securing her grip on both of them. "I am the best choice to pull us out of the darkness."
"Do not let go," Ny'all warned him, a bit of fear in her voice.
Darius's grip tightened. "I will never let you go, either of you," he vowed, his eyes moving from Ny'all to Mia.
"Close your eyes," Mia whispered. "Find the Stillness. And then... push past it."
Darius closed his eyes. He regulated his breathing, reaching for the familiar, focused calm he used in the sparring ring of Beh-REET.
The smell of the lush greenery and the warmth of the hut vanished in a slow blurring, replaced by the darkness of the Void. The cold was piercing, cutting straight through his armor and into his bones. The sensation was like the first time he had entered the Void as a child.
When Darius opened his eyes, he was no longer in the hut.
He stood in an endless expanse of dark. His feet seemed to stand on water, and each step he took created ripples on its surface. The sky above was a swirling canopy of black mist. To his right stood Ny'all, her silhouette glowing with a faint energy. To his left stood Mia, radiating a weak warmth.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The sound echoed from deep beneath the surface of the water, accompanied by a chorus of overlapping whispers. Darius felt a sickening pull in his gut.
Hold the truth of the flesh, he reminded himself, gripping Mia's hand tighter. Both his wives' weak silhouettes began to solidify as he focused his mind.
"Ah, you have reconsidered, child?" a voice rumbled, vibrating directly through the liquid and up into their teeth.
The mist parted. The Last Shadow simply manifested. His form fluctuated, shifting between a royal figure with long, dreaded hair and a column of pitch-black smoke. It seemed as if the black smoke anchored him to the sky even as he appeared to stand on the black waters of the Void.
"We came for answers," Darius called out, his voice sounding thin and hollow in the infinite expanse. "The seal is failing. The Anai elder claims it was forged at the capital. How do we close the door?"
The Last Shadow let out a sound that made no sense to them. Was it a laugh? Mia's thoughts rippled between the three.
"You do not close a door you did not build, boy," the Last Shadow mocked. "My blood was the key. My brother was the first to wield it. He was the blade that broke the Anai lines, the weapon that shattered the world. But a sword cannot cut the dark."
The entity stepped closer, but the water beneath him did not ripple, as if he wasn't truly there.
"The architect..." the Last Shadow murmured, as if speaking to a memory. "...bled ink into the world long before I bled into this seal." The Last Shadow seemed to refocus his mind. "I am the only one who can hold this door."
Mia's mind began to align the historical text from the Archives. The First of the Dragon-Oath.
Tan-AH-ee... hero of the ash... traitor to the stone... he became the cage... atonement for the... knife... cut... dark...
He used the knife to open the Void, Mia realized with a jolt of clarity.
Ny'all, hearing her sister's thoughts, spoke. "How can you alone seal the Void if you were the one to open it? Have you not done this before and that failure has led us here?"
The shadow tilted its head, the black mist swirling around its face. "Failure? Yes, I have failed. I must learn from it, expand the seal."
The entity drifted away from the triad as if in thought. The temperature plummeted, and frost began to form as ice crystals on the water's surface wherever the Last Shadow ventured.
"But there is an empty vessel here," the entity whispered.
Mia froze.
The Last Shadow turned as if realizing something profound.
"A child not yet born," the Last Shadow mumbled, the idea taking shape. "A mind unformed, blood of my blood, untouched by the world. Offer the child to the dark. I will pour myself into the vessel as it grows. With him, I can march upon the canyon. I can slaughter the horde and seal the tear from both sides."
"No," Mia said instantly. Her words left no room for negotiation. "Never."
"It is the only certainty for your survival," the entity pressed, leaning closer. "Sacrifice the one that does not yet exist, to save the millions that do."
The Last Shadow extended its pitch-black fingers, stopping short of touching the triad, and tugged.
Mia gasped in agony, her knees hitting the surface of the black water. Her hands flew to her womb to protect the child. The Void rippled violently around them, waves crashing across the dark expanse as the entity—despite standing paces away—somehow reached inside her. But the Last Shadow hit a wall.
Darius and Ny'all staggered, their silhouettes vibrating under the shared strain of the entity as it tugged at Mia.
"You would doom the world and your child?" the Last Shadow hissed, the abyssal sky churning with his frustration. "Give the vessel to me so I may finish what I started."
Mia slowly pushed herself up from the blackened water.
"No," Mia said, her tone firm and absolute.
She anchored her mind to the warmth of the physical world and violently yanked the tether.
The dark water dissolved. The abyssal gravity vanished.
Darius, Mia, and Ny'all woke on the woven mats of the ironwood hut, gasping for air as if they had been drowning. The stifling warmth of the canyon felt blistering against their frost-chilled skin. The physical link between them broke as they collapsed onto the floor.
"We pushed him back," Ny'all gasped, her wide eyes darting between her husband and Sister-Wife.
Darius dragged a heavy hand down his face, the weight of the crown settling upon his shoulders. "Yes, but he is a cracked shield trying to protect the world."
A silence fell over the hut. Ny'all looked down at her hands. Her entire life had been defined by the sacrificial dogma of the Dragon-Oath. Give the arm to save the body. Give the life to save the line.
"Mia..." Ny'all's voice was a whisper, trembling with a horrific calculation. "If we fail... if the Shadow Sworn break the line, Beh-REET falls. We die. The Anai die. And the child dies in the dark anyway."
Darius snapped his head toward the Oath Blade, appalled. "Ny'all, don't."
A single tear of agony spilled over Ny'all's cheeks, but the military conditioning of her upbringing refused to let her look away. "It's the math, Darius. This... giving him a vessel... this gives the world a chance."
"He is not a tactical asset!" Mia snarled, turning on her Sister-Wife. She wrapped her arms protectively around her stomach. "It is my child! It is our child! I will not let a ghost wear its skin!"
Ny'all flinched, the shame of what she was suggesting warring with the reality of what they faced.
Darius stepped forward, physically placing himself between the two women. He looked down at Ny'all, understanding the trauma and the training that forced her to make that deduction. He felt the logic of the entity's bargain himself.
"The bargain is flawed, Ny'all," Darius stated, his voice ringing with kingly defiance. He reached down, pulling the Oath Blade to her feet, before wrapping his other arm around her. "Victory without life is just a different kind of death. If we sacrifice our children to win the war, then the darkness has already taken the world."
Ny'all buried her face against Darius's chestplate, the shame of her own logic breaking her military composure. Darius reached out for Mia's hand, pulling her into the embrace.
Darius reached out for Mia's hand, pulling her into the embrace. Mia's brow found the metal of his chestplate. Ny'all's breath was warm against her shoulder.
"The Red Dunes were someone's math, too," Mia said quietly. "Su'dell, Alcim, my family. All lines in a ledger—the cost of progress."
Ny'all did not lift her face. "I was raised to read that ledger, Mia." Her voice cracked on the last word. "I never asked whose names were written in it."
"I know."
Darius's hand lay between Mia's shoulder blades. It had been moving in slow circles, the way he soothed her when she would wake beside him in their bed. It stopped.
She waited for him to speak. The silence stretched until the Anai guards shifted their weight outside.
He pressed his lips to her hair and said nothing.
She held him tighter for it.
Mia stared over Darius's shoulder into the empty corners of the room. Her mind, unable to completely shut down, continued to process the encounter, turning the pieces of history over until the truth clicked into place.
"The Architect," Mia whispered into the quiet room.
Darius pulled back slightly, looking down at her in confusion. "What?"
"He spoke of sacrifice with so much certainty," Mia said, her voice hollowing out. "He didn't just lock himself in the dark, Darius."
Mia looked at Ny'all, the anger from moments ago fading into empathy.
"To forge the first seal, the Architect bled ink into the world ..." Mia breathed, her mind racing back to the fragmented text she had deciphered in the Archives. ...he became the cage... atonement for the... knife... the cut in the dark...
Darius frowned, the ancient history slipping through his grasp. "The knife? The First Dragon?"
Mia slowly shook her head. "The First Dragon was the knife that cut the tear in the dark. He broke the world to win the war. But the Last Shadow... was the brother labeled as the traitor. "He knew of this Architect. He knew what it did for the world. How does he know that? And why is it important?"