The Obsidian Keep was silent, but it was a screaming silence. In the throne room, the blue-green fungal light seemed dimmer, cowed by the sheer force of its master's fury. Lord Malakor did not sit on his throne. He stood before a vast, star-chart of the Umbral Realm, a projection of swirling nebulae and dark constellations that shifted in the air. His back was to the room, his posture rigid, his hands clasped so tightly behind him that his knuckles were white.
Lyra knelt on the cold floor twenty feet behind him. She had been kneeling for an hour, her head bowed, her two defeated Hunters kneeling beside her. They had not dared to speak.
"Report," Malakor said finally. His voice was unnaturally calm, a placid sea over a bottomless, raging abyss. It was infinitely more terrifying than if he had yelled.
"We failed, my Lord," Lyra said, her own voice, usually so confident, was tight and strained. "The heir… her power is not what we believed. She has been… altered."
"I am aware," Malakor said, his gaze still fixed on the star-chart. "I felt the ripple of it even here. A discordant symphony of light and shadow. An impossibility." He turned slowly, his crimson and black robes sweeping the floor. His face was a placid mask, but his eyes were black holes of cold rage. "Explain to me, Lyra, how my finest Hunter, my most lethal blade, was defeated by an untrained child who should have been crippled by necrotic blight."
Lyra recounted the events at the Exchange, her voice clipped and professional, omitting none of her own failures. She described the shield that had neutralized the poison, the spears of shadow and whips of light, the controlled, non-lethal efficiency of Aria's attacks, and the final, overwhelming blast that had defeated her. She did not make excuses. She stated facts. Excuses would only earn her a more painful death.
When she was finished, Malakor was silent for a long time. He paced before the throne, his long fingers stroking his chin.
"Silas," he mused. "That treacherous little slug. He had an Umbral Core shard. It is the only thing that could have cleansed the blight without killing her. But it should have left her an empty husk. Instead, it seems to have… catalyzed her." He looked at Lyra. "You say she wielded light as well as shadow?"
"Yes, my Lord," Lyra confirmed. "A pure, silver light. It was in perfect balance with her darkness. I have never seen its like."
"The magic of the Blackwood consorts," Malakor whispered, a flicker of something—annoyance, memory, regret?—in his eyes. "Elara's bloodline. Light-Weavers. They were always an sentimental contamination in the Blackwood line. Alistair was a fool to marry one. That 'balance' they so cherished… it is weakness. Compassion. Mercy. It is why they fell." He paused, his gaze becoming distant. "And yet… this child has forged it into a weapon."
He stopped pacing and looked toward a dark corner of the throne room. "Your thoughts, Counselor?"
From the deepest shadows, a figure emerged. It was ancient, its form stooped and wrapped in gray, tattered robes that seemed to be woven from dust and forgetting. Its face was a mass of wrinkles, its eyes pale, milky-white orbs that saw things other than light. This was Xylo, the Council's chief seer and archivist, a being who had served for centuries.
"The prophecies are… mutable," Xylo rasped, his voice like the grinding of stones. "A path foreseen can be diverted. The girl was to be the spark of a rebellion. A nuisance to be extinguished. But her path has shifted. The confluence of the blight and the core, a union of corrupted shadow and pure shadow, with the latent light of her mother's line as the fulcrum… she has become something new. An unplanned variable."
"Can she be beaten?" Malakor asked, his voice sharp.
"All things can be unmade," the seer replied. "But her nature has changed. She is a nexus of opposing forces. To attack her with shadow alone is to feed her light. To attack her with light would be to feed her shadow. She is… balance. And balance is anathema to conquest."
Malakor laughed, a short, sharp, ugly sound. "Balance. The creed of fools and cowards. The universe does not seek balance; it seeks dominance. Fire consumes air. Gravity crushes matter. The strong devour the weak. That is the only true law."
He turned his attention back to the star-chart. His finger traced the edge of their galaxy, pointing to a patch of profound, absolute blackness on the map, a place where the star-projections seemed to be actively consumed. It was a creeping void at the edge of the Umbral Realm's known space.
"They do not see the irony," Malakor said, his voice dropping, speaking more to himself than to the others. "The Blackwoods, in their arrogance, believed they were guardians of the Veil between worlds. But there are more than two worlds. There are endless dimensions. And there are things in the void between them. Ancient, hungry things."
He looked at Lyra, his eyes burning with a zealot's fire. "I did not overthrow Alistair for a mere throne, Lyra. I did it because he was blind. He and his ancestors spent centuries navel-gazing, obsessed with their precious 'balance,' while a cancer grows in the outer dark. A threat that will one day come and swallow us all. A threat that their pathetic defenses and compassionate philosophies could never hope to stop."
His gaze drifted to the empty space where the projection of Sterling City would be. "The power the girl wields… this 'twilight' magic… it is an echo of the creation force itself. It is potent. More potent than I imagined." His expression shifted from fury to cold, hungry calculation. "I had intended to break her, to take the Aegis and extinguish her line forever. A new strategy is required. Her power must not be extinguished. It must be harvested."
He turned to his kneeling Hunter. "Lyra. You are a disappointment. But you are still a useful tool." He gestured, and the invisible pressure that had been crushing her lifted. "Rise."
Lyra rose, her expression unreadable.
"Your mission has changed," Malakor commanded. "You will no longer hunt the girl. You will withdraw your forces from the Gloomwood. Let her build her little kingdom of fools and strays at the Exchange. Let her believe she has won. Let her grow confident. Let her train, let her master this new power."
"My Lord?" Lyra asked, confused. "You want to let her grow stronger?"
"A flower cannot be harvested as a seed," Malakor said, a cruel, predatory smile finally gracing his lips. "I need her at her absolute peak. I need her power to be ripe. While you are watching her, you will also hunt for me. There are texts, artifacts. The Blackwoods hid many things. I need to find the mechanism of transfer. A ritual that can strip her of this power and grant it to another who is strong enough to wield it without sentiment. Without mercy."
His eyes gleamed with absolute conviction. "Alistair's weakness was his love for his family. The girl's weakness will be her compassion for the pathetic creatures she protects. I will let her build a world worth saving, and then I will threaten to burn it all. And in her desperation to protect it, she will give me exactly what I want. She will be the key to forging the ultimate weapon, a power strong enough to fight back the coming dark. I will become the god this realm needs to survive. And she, the last Blackwood, will be the final sacrifice upon the altar of my ascension."
He looked at Lyra, his command absolute. "Do you understand your new purpose?"
Lyra bowed, a new, far more sinister understanding dawning in her eyes. This was no longer a simple hunt. It was a long, patient, and infinitely more cruel game. "Yes, my Lord Regent. I will be her shadow. I will watch her grow. And when she is ready for the harvest, I will let you know."
"Good," Malakor said, turning back to the star-chart, his eyes fixed on the encroaching void. "Let the little Queen have her victory. All rebellions feel hopeful at first. It makes their eventual crushing so much more satisfying."