The hero... the man who had stood against armies, the man who had built a kingdom on the foundation of being better than the monsters... surged to the surface.
It was a sharp, sudden break in the fog. Caelen saw himself. He saw his hand gripping her neck like a captor. He saw the dark, pulsating ring. He saw the horror in the eyes of the woman he claimed to cherish.
No, his soul roared. This is wrong. I am becoming the monster.
The "good" man, the one who had truly loved Eris in his own flawed way, kicked back against the darkness. He stopped. His mouth closed, the final word of the spell dying in his throat. The spell remained incomplete, the dark energy flickering but failing to latch onto its final anchor.
It was in that precise second of agonizing stillness, Caelen holding her with a grip that had just begun to slacken, Eris gasping for air with fire still flickering in her eyes, that the garden gates didn't just open. They shattered.
