The door to Corbin's study clicked shut, leaving a silence as heavy as lead. He stood with his back to the room, staring out the window, his knuckles white where they gripped the windowsill. The impeccably tailored lines of his jacket seemed to strain with the tension in his shoulders.
Davina, seated at a small, elegant desk in the corner, kept her eyes fixed on a ledger. She was dressed in a simple but well-made grey dress, her hair neatly braided. The appointment as his secretary had been a surprise, a gesture she knew was born of his loneliness and her insistence on the truth. She had learned to be a ghost in the room, silent and observant.
The silence was broken by the door opening without a knock. Celeste Livian glided in, a vision of cool authority.
"The rumors are true, I see," she said, her voice smooth as polished ice. She came to stand beside him, not looking at him, but at their reflection in the glass. "General of the Shadow Hunters. A brute-force position. A thug with a title. This was not the plan, Corbin."
Corbin didn't turn. "The Council believes my… direct experience with the rebellion's leadership makes me uniquely qualified." His voice was dangerously flat.
"The Council believes a Livian in a military uniform projects strength," Celeste corrected. "But our strength has always been in diplomacy, in the quiet rooms where power is truly wielded. You were meant to be a statesman, like your father. Like me."
This finally made him look at her, a flash of raw pain in his eyes. "It is what I wanted."
"What you want is secondary to what the family needs," she stated, her gaze unwavering. "Our name needs to be associated with decisive victory, not negotiation. You will accept the post. In two days, at the ceremony, your appointment will be announced." She reached out and adjusted the collar of his jacket, a gesture that was more inspection than affection. "Do this for the good of the family, Corbin. It is your duty."
She left as silently as she arrived, the scent of her perfume lingering like a threat.
The moment the door closed, Corbin's controlled composure shattered. He swept a hand across his desk, sending a crystal inkwell and a stack of parchments crashing to the floor. He braced his hands on the empty desk, head bowed, breathing heavily.
It was then that Davina spoke, her voice soft but clear in the aftermath.
"The candle in the basement," she began. "It's still lit."
Corbin froze.
"If it's a memorial candle," she continued, cautiously, "and it's still burning… does that mean… is it possible he isn't truly gone? That he could come back?"
He spun around, his face a mask of fury and anguish. All the frustration from his mother, the weight of the unwanted generalship, and the constant, gnawing grief erupted at her question.
"Just because you know my biggest secret," he snarled, his voice trembling with rage, "does not mean you are another voice in my head, whispering things I cannot bear to hear! Now, leave me."
Davina flinched, but held his gaze for a moment, seeing the torment beneath the anger. Without a word, she stood and quietly left the room, leaving Corbin alone with the ghost of his brother and the crushing weight of a future he never desired.
---
The false sun of the Ancestry was setting, casting long, exaggerated shadows. Silas sat amidst the half-cleared weeds, the echo of the woman's voice—son of night and darkness—a haunting tremor in his soul. The punishment felt trivial compared to the mystery gnawing at him.
"Shadow." he thought, the call a reluctant admission of need.
A long, theatrical silence stretched out. Then, a haughty mental sniff. I'm not sure I'm here. After such a dismissive performance, my presence feels… non-obligatory.
Silas scowled at the empty air. "Stop it. Who was she?"
"Ah, " the Shadow replied, its tone shifting to one of genuine, if amused, constraint. "That touches upon the primary Rule. I cannot interfere directly with your path, Silas. I cannot hand you answers or steer your fate. To tell you who she is would be a significant intervention. Some doors you must open yourself."
"A Rule? From who?" Silas demanded, frustration rising.
"From the universe, . It's terribly inconvenient, the Shadow sighed. However… the Rule says nothing about me suggesting that a change of scenery might be beneficial for one's mental state. This patch of dirt is dreadfully dull. A mind preoccupied with weeds is unlikely to ponder cosmic mysteries."
"I'm on punishment," Silas hissed, glancing toward the main house.
Punishment implies a moral failing, the Shadow countered. Is curiosity a sin? Perhaps you're just… expanding your horizons. Stretching your legs. Entirely your own initiative.
Against his better judgment, Silas stood. The Shadow fell silent, offering no further direction. It was up to him. He moved away from the garden, not with purpose, but with a restless energy, venturing into the grove of smoke-like trees where the meadow's illusion began to fray.
Minutes later, the grandmother appeared. "Silas? Dear, it's time to come in…" Her voice faltered at the sight of the empty garden. Panicked, she hurried back to the pavilion where the grandfather was lecturing the others.
"He's gone!" she whispered, her form flickering with anxiety.
The grandfather's benevolent mask melted away. "What? Where?"
"I don't know! He just left!"
A raw, fearful rage contorted the old ancestor's face. "We cannot keep him! We offer peace, structure, but it is useless! Death, anger, misery… such primordial forces cannot be contained! They defy every barrier!"
The venom in his shout was a truth bomb. Dove, Macy, and Keith stared, the words Death, anger, misery redefining their friend before their eyes.
Meanwhile, Silas wandered aimlessly, the Shadow remaining pointedly silent. He wasn't being led; he was just… walking. His foot kicked against something hard. He looked down. Half-buried in the grey soil was a rock and a litt dig it got bigger hinting to a cave being under there.
"Well, now, " the Shadow's voice murmured, careful to sound merely observational. "What an interesting thing to stumble upon. Entirely by accident, of course. It would be a shame to ignore such a… self-discovered opportunity maybe we could possibly explore the possibilities that are down there"
Letting curiosity taking the best of him Silas runs deep into the cave unaware that entry into this cave has triggered the second grandmother's instinct of an infiltration to the forbidden.
---
The grandfather ancestor's furious shout—"Death and misery cannot be contained!"—hung in the air, shattering the last illusion of this place being a sanctuary.
Macy stepped forward, arms crossed. "Start talking. What can't you contain? And don't give us another lecture on elemental theory."
The grandfather's form flickered, his benevolent mask slipping to reveal pure panic. He looked to the other ancestors, who gave grim nods. The truth, or a twisted version of it, was coming out.
"It is the prophecy," he said, his voice trembling. "A warning from the old times." He spoke the words like a curse:
"One soul, two bodies,
A choice the heavens never made.
Destruction and creation,
The foundations they will remake.
The King of Endings,
The Gardener of Life's Start.
If they ever join their purpose,
They'll tear the immortal and mortals apart."
A heavy silence followed. Keith, ever practical, broke it. "The 'King of Endings.' That's Silas. You're saying his magic can destroy everything."
"Precisely!" the grandfather said, latching onto Keith's conclusion. "His goals are not just rebellion; they are annihilation. He is the key to the prophecy's fulfillment! He must be stopped!"
Dove frowned, his head tilting. "Hold on. That first bit… 'One soul, two bodies.' That sounds like it's about both of them. Corbin and Silas. What's the 'Gardener of Life's Start' part? What does Corbin have to do with it?"
The ancestors shifted uncomfortably. The grandmother waved a dismissive hand. "Its all about how even twins can have everything alike except their intentions The 'Gardener' is a metaphor for order, for the status quo that Corbin upholds. The point is that Silas's power is the direct threat. He is the one who seeks to 'remake the foundations' through violence!"
Macy's eyes narrowed, sensing the evasion. "You're not telling us the whole thing. You're scared it's Silas. Why?"
Before the ancestors could craft another half-truth, Macy pushed further. "And why is it just us? If this is such a huge threat, where are the other witch families? The ones on Earth? Why aren't they here helping you contain this?"
The question struck a nerve deeper than the prophecy. The ancestors fell into a dead, horrified silence. The kind grandmother floated forward, her face etched with a grief so profound it seemed to age her centuries in an instant.
"Children," she whispered, the words barely audible. "There are no other witches. There is no more magic on Earth."
The statement was so colossal, so absolute, it took a moment to land.
"What?" Keith breathed, his soldier's confidence crumbling.
"The connection… was severed. Long ago. The magic faded. The world you knew… it's gone." She stopped, unable or unwilling to explain further, as if the truth itself was too terrible to speak aloud.
The shock was a physical force. Dove stumbled back. "No. That's… that's not possible."
"Gods," Macy swore, her hand flying to her mouth as the full weight of their isolation crashed down upon them.
They were it. The last line of defense.
---
The study was shrouded in shadow, save for a single lamp illuminating Corbin Livian, Future General of the Shadow Hunters, slumped in a high-backed chair. An empty crystal glass dangled from his fingers. He was impeccably dressed, but his eyes were unfocused, the sharp planes of his face softened by drink. He held himself together, but it was a precarious balance.
A soft knock preceded Davina's entrance. She hesitated in the doorway, her gaze taking in the scene. "Lord Corbin? Sub-General Ciro is here. He wishes to meet you in person before the ceremony and discuss the—"
"Not tonight, little shadow," Corbin interrupted, his voice a low, smooth slur. He offered a ghost of a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Tell the good Sub-General that some things… some things can blessedly be left for another day." He fumbled in a drawer, producing a few heavy gold coins. He pressed them into her hand. "For your trouble. Now, shoo. The world is too loud."
Before Davina could protest, he closed his eyes, a faint shimmer of cosmic energy flickering unsteadily around him. He was trying to teleport to his bedchamber.
The world twisted, lurched, and solidified with a nauseating jolt.
Instead of his opulent room, he stood swaying in the center of the cold, dusty foyer of the Blackwood Estate. The air was thick with silence and memories. He had unintentionally arrived at the one place his inebriated mind was fixated on . As he was staring into the darkness of the manor he'd sworn to forget. The drunken levity vanished, replaced by a raw, weary despair. "It seems I can't even get that right anymore."
After a long drunken stroll he found himself underground. The hidden chamber beneath the Blackwood Estate were cold, the air tasting of old stone and older magic. Corbin stood before the simple, ancient altar of Circe, the patron goddess of the Livian line. The place felt like a tomb—a tomb for the brother he'd lost twice over.
"This was it!" he yelled, his voice echoing off the walls, raw and wine-loosened. "This manor was the only place I knew him! For three pitiful years! And you would base an eternal war on that?"
He was screaming at the stone, at the heavens, at the silence. He expected nothing. But the goddess, it seemed, was listening.
A script of fiery, silver-blue light ignited on the altar's surface, words burning into his vision:
You mourn three years you remember. What of the ten you choose to have forgotten? You were brothers for three years. But his Adversary was destiny.
The message was a psychic blast. It wasn't just words; it carried a sensory flood—a ghost of a childish laugh, the feeling of small fingers clutching his, a whispered promise in the dark. Memories, real and visceral, slammed into the wall Corbin had built in his mind. The grief was no longer for a stranger he'd briefly known; it was for a part of himself he had violently excised.
The divine assurance was a condemnation. It wasn't a role he was given; it was his birthright.
"NO!"
The scream was one of pure, unadulterated agony. He hurled the wine bottle in his hand. It exploded against the far wall in a shower of glass and red wine, like a wound opening. The cosmic power within him, rejecting the truth, surged and short-circuited. The world tilted, went black, and Corbin collapsed into the darkness, the goddess's words seared onto his soul.
At the precise moment Corbin lost consciousness, Silas was stepping into a cavern deep within the Ancestry's false reality. The air was chill and humming with a power far older than the ancestors'.
There, bound by chains that seemed woven from solidified night, was a dragon. Her scales were the colour of a starless midnight, and her eyes, great orbs of molten gold, snapped open as he entered.
You, her voice echoed directly in his mind, a sound like grinding continents. "You are not one of the chattering ghosts. How do you walk here, little one?"
"I walked," Silas said, his own chaotic energy stirring in recognition of a kindred force of primordial power. "Why are you locked away? What did you do to them?"
The dragon let out a low rumble that was both a laugh and a sigh. I refused to choose a side in a war of lesser beings. A tedious crime. Her massive head tilted.
"But you… I smell the void on you. The true void. Not the pale imitation these dead things worship."
Before Silas could form a question, she leaned forward, the chains groaning. "A better question is: how are you the one? I was promised a savior. The one who is swayed not by the gods who look down, but by the people who are trampled below." Her gaze felt like it was scouring his past, seeing Davina, the orphans, the rebels.
"The one whose heart beats for the forgotten. Tell me, child of Night….is that you?"