Aveline pressed the token tightly against her chest, as though she could anchor herself to the warmth flowing through it. It was still there—faint now, but real. His warmth. His presence.

She wasn’t alone.

She lifted her head slowly, her breath uneven, and looked around.

The corridor had brightened. The suffocating darkness that had swallowed it before was gone, chased away by the light that had burst from the rune. The walls stood still, unchanged, the distant murmur of classrooms faintly echoing somewhere beyond.

And yet...

Something was wrong.

That invisible barrier still lingered.

It pressed against her senses as a thin veil stretched between worlds. No one came. No one noticed. No one heard her.

She swallowed and instinctively glanced down.

Her shadow was still there.

A strange, almost desperate relief loosened something in her chest. At least she still existed here... at least she hadn’t been erased completely.

But the light... It had faded.

The lightning that had once curled around her fingers was gone, leaving behind only the quiet pulse of the wooden token in her hand.

And through it...

She felt something else.

Warmth, yes, but beneath it, deeper, more unsettling... there was pain; sharp, crushing, and suffocating pain.

Her breath caught.

"Theron...?" she whispered, her fingers tightening around the token as if she could pull the answer out of it.

The sensation grew stronger, not clearer, but heavier like an emotion too vast to understand, yet impossible to ignore. It pressed into her chest, into her lungs, until breathing itself felt wrong.

Was that his pain?

Where was he?

What was happening to him?

She didn’t have time to search for answers.

The shadows returned.

Not the thin, creeping darkness from before... but something thicker now. Heavier. They dragged themselves forward like living sludge, clinging to the floor, the walls, the very air itself. The stench reached her before they did, the stench of rotting flesh, damp decay, something that made her stomach twist violently.

The light dimmed again.

Life seemed to shrink away from it.

Aveline’s heart faltered for a moment as she stared.

It was massive.

She could only see fragments of it—a shifting, grotesque body slipping through walls and ceilings as though they were nothing, its form too large to be contained by the space it occupied. It did not belong here.

And then... She saw it.

A missing limb.

Recognition struck.

Ah.

For a brief, fragile second, something almost like relief flickered across her face.

This was the same creature...The one from the forest. The one who had killed Helena. The one who had tried to attack Theron. The one she had faced before. The one she had survived.

But how?

Her mind scrambled for the answer, trying to grasp at something—anything—that explained how she had driven it back then.

But her focus shattered again.

The token burned.

Pain surged through it, flooding into her palm, into her chest, into her very bones. Fear. Strain. Helplessness so raw it made her knees weaken.

Theron.

Aveline’s breath hitched as she brought the token closer, almost pressing it to her lips.

"Theron..." she murmured, softer this time, as if afraid the sound might break something fragile between them. "Can you hear me...?"

Even as she said it, she knew how foolish it sounded.

This was just wood. A carved rune. Nothing more. And yet...

Something inside her twisted, as though her soul had reached out and brushed against his, as though the distance between them had thinned... just enough for pain to pass through.

Her fingers curled around the token, cupping it gently, protectively, like she could shield him from whatever was hurting him.

Like she could hold him.

"I’m here..." she whispered, her voice trembling. "I’m here..."

She blew softly against the rune, a small, instinctive gesture—childish, almost—but filled with a quiet desperation.

As if warmth could travel through breath. As if comfort could cross whatever distance separated them. As if he might feel it.

The token brushed against her cheek... And the world shifted.

Shapes formed at the edges of her vision—faint, blurred, like reflections in disturbed water.

Two towering figures.

Looming.

And beneath them... Shadows rising. Thick. Devouring... drinking.

Her breath caught as dread seeped into her chest, cold and absolute.

She could feel the helplessness, the strain...the slow, brutal draining of strength.

Her fingers trembled.

Am I... seeing what he’s seeing?

She didn’t understand it.

She didn’t know how.

But she knew one thing with a certainty that burned through her fear.

He was suffering.

And she was not going to let that continue.

Her gaze snapped back to the creature before her—the writhing mass of decay inching closer, its presence poisoning the very air.

But now... Her fear had changed. It wasn’t just for herself anymore. Her grip on the token tightened, her knuckles paling.

"First..." she whispered, her voice steadier than she felt, "this thing..."

The shadows feed on him.... She had to break them.

If he could just stand—just once—if he could gather enough strength to rise again, he could fight. He could break through whatever held him and tear apart anything that stood between him and her.

That single thought became Aveline’s anchor.

She closed her eyes out of resolve.

In that moment, she forgot the creature inching closer, forgot the suffocating corridor, forgot even the fragile line between life and death that she stood upon. None of it mattered.

Only him.

Slowly, she sank to her knees and pressed her palm against the cold stone floor, the token still clutched tightly in her hand. Her other hand followed, fingers splayed as if she were trying to feel something beneath the surface of the world itself.

If the token was a bridge between them...

If he could reach her through it...

Then...

Maybe she could reach him too.

Her breath steadied, not because she was unafraid, but because she chose not to be ruled by it.

"Just once..." she whispered, barely audible even to herself.

The world seemed to hold its breath.

—

The King’s brows drew together, his gaze fixed on his son.

Theron knelt within the circle, his body bowed under the relentless drain of power, yet his eyes still burned—bright, defiant, unyielding. Even now, even at the edge of collapse, his consciousness refused to dim.

Still, something had changed.

The token he had clung to so fiercely slipped from his weakening grasp.

It hit the ground with a soft, hollow sound.

Edric Vantaris faltered.

For the first time since he began channeling the draining rune, his hands trembled. Sweat gathered at his temples, his breathing uneven as the strain of sustaining the spell began to show. He was reaching his limit.

His eyes flickered toward the King who was silent still.

Should they continue?

If something went wrong... If they pushed too far... The Crown Prince might not survive this.

But the King did not move.

Did not speak.

Did not waver.

Then...

The ground trembled.

At first, it was subtle. A faint vibration beneath their feet, easy to dismiss.

But it did not stop.

Edric’s focus broke for a fraction of a second as he felt it—a disturbance, not from above, but from below. From within the very structure of the spell itself.

His shadows flickered as if someone more powerful had made their entry.

And then... Something else appeared; not the heavy, devouring darkness he controlled.

These were different.

They rose from the fallen token like drifting ribbons—soft, flowing, almost delicate in their movement, like sheer organza caught in an unseen current. They shimmered faintly, their edges blurring into light and shadow all at once, neither wholly one nor the other.

And yet... They were stronger.

They did not lash out.

They consumed.

One by one, those flowing strands wrapped around the shadows Edric had summoned, swallowing them whole without resistance, without struggle, as though they had always been meant to reclaim them.

Edric’s breath hitched.

"What... is this...?"

His control slipped.

The draining shadows recoiled, unraveling under something he could neither command nor understand.

The King’s expression hardened.

Then... A sharp crack split the air.

The floor beneath Theron fractured. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Light burst through the fissures, jagged and blinding, as if something beneath the surface had finally broken free.

The circle broke.