"Fear, anger, desperation… they grip the heart like a claw sinking deep into flesh. But these are only emotions—simple shadows compared to this darkness. This darkness was alive. It breathed. It watched. It knew.
Maybe it was meant to be faced alone.
Maybe we stood no chance together, and that was why it tore us apart—an act of twisted mercy.
Or perhaps it wanted us to feel the pain of separation as its own form of torture.
I found myself in the forest again, with Mother and Edmund beside me. Fortunately.
We were together.
But not for long. Unfortunately.
We were all afraid, all disoriented. In truth, this part of the tale differs little from Mother's—until the moment our paths diverged.
Then I was alone.
And I knew, with a hollow certainty, that Mother and Edmund were suffering their own horrors somewhere within that nightmare.
But what stood before me… what towered over me…
were legions—legions—of shadows and lost souls.
Their wails were louder than the screams of a thousand dying men.
I tried to escape. I tried.
I ran until my lungs burned, until my legs trembled… but the ground stretched endlessly beneath me.
Every desperate step swallowed itself.
I was moving—but going nowhere.
Still, I kept running. I was ready to run forever, if I had to.
But eventually my strength failed.
My body betrayed me, and I collapsed at the feet of the darkness itself—begging silently for mercy I already knew I would not receive.
They did not strike immediately.
They waited.
They watched.
Mocking me with their stillness, as if urging me to rise and try again, just so they could break me twice.
But when they realized I had nothing left—
when they sensed I was at my weakest—
they attacked.
Thousands of hands—cold, merciless—grabbed and pulled at me. They lifted me only to let me fall, ensuring my body collapsed slowly, painfully. My bones pressed inward, stabbing into my organs; my own body became the weapon delivering me closer to death. And when they could no longer imagine crueler ways to break me, they submerged me beneath them.
A thousand shadows, heavy and unyielding, pinned me to the ground until I felt the earth itself begin to give way beneath my weight. I couldn't think—there was no room for thought. I only wanted the agony to end. Breath fled from me, stolen by the darkness swallowing me whole.
I succumbed to it.
In my final, desperate cry—one I hadn't even meant to voice—I called out for Mother. I don't know why. Perhaps because, in that suffocating blackness, I saw a single light fighting to remain. A fragile glow refusing to be consumed. And when I called out, that light shaped itself into Mother.
She looked exhausted. Fragile. Weak in a way I had never seen her. And even as I lay dying, I worried for her.
Then the void claimed me completely. Peaceful. Quiet. Soothing. Every broken bone mended, every wound faded, every pain dissolved into nothingness. I wanted to stay there—forever—far from everything that haunted me.
And then I heard..."
Say it. Say it, I dare you.
The voice came—sharp, clear, and merciless, cutting him short right before he told them what he had heard. He paused momentarily. Just like a mocking whisper, he heard the voice again saying:
Who is going to believe you? They'll say you're mad.
They'll fear you… just like she did then.
Alaric squeezed his eyes shut, the dream from the previous night replaying itself in a relentless loop. He wished he could break free from it, wished he could breathe without feeling its grip tightening around him… but he was trapped in its echo.
"Alaric, what did you hear?" Rowenne asked.
He opened his eyes slowly, and just like before, every pair of eyes rested on him—waiting, searching.
"…and then I heard Mother's voice. And Draven's. Then I woke up. That's all that happened."
The ending made sense to all of them.
The meaning did not.
Did he lose?
What exactly were the shadows—and the souls?
Why were they after him?
Their minds swirled with questions—questions with no answers. Perhaps if they knew the full story, things would be clearer… but that story was out of their reach. Only one person knew it in full.
Veyra.
Zyrelle glanced her way.
Veyra held her gaze for a moment before giving a small, quiet shake of her head.
"That is not the whole story," Zyrelle said to Rowenne.
"And how do you know that?" Rowenne asked.
Zyrelle didn't reply.
Instead, she turned back toward Veyra—and Rowenne understood and so she asked no further.
She studied Alaric's face, searching for even the faintest clue. Something was troubling him—something he had not said, something heavy enough to draw him into silence. She could sense its weight, but not its shape. Whatever he was hiding, it mattered. Deeply. Yet his expression remained unreadable.
"I see it now," Edmund said quietly.
All eyes turned to him at once.
"What do you see, Ed?" Rowenne asked, her voice soft but edged with concern.
"Our paths," he murmured, gaze drifting as though he were looking at something far beyond the present. "They began together… then split apart… crossed again. And in the end, they didn't end the same."
Rowenne tilted her head slightly. "Really? Then tell us your story."