I crossed the threshold.
The spires swallowed the light.
Not abruptly—no single snap, no sudden plunge—but slowly, like a mouth closing around a whisper. The dawn dimmed behind me until it was nothing more than a memory pressed against my spine. The air thickened, warm despite the lack of sun, humming with a pulse I could feel in my teeth.
Kael's domain.
His Gate was not a door. It was a gradient, a seam in the world where one reality eroded into another. And as I stepped deeper, the earth grew soft underfoot—not muddy, not mossy, but pliant, like walking on packed velvet shadows.
A ribbon of fog curled around my ankles, stroking skin like fingers.
"Not yet," I muttered, shaking it off.
My shadows obeyed. They tightened close, wary. The air here was different—alive in a way that made every instinct bristle.
Ahead, the dusk-world stretched in long, endless grey-blue layers. Hills folded into themselves, horizons curved in abnormal arcs, and the sky… the sky was a living bruise, pulsing faintly with dark lavender veins.
Nothing here felt dead.
Everything felt waiting.
A voice drifted through the dim.
"Still dramatic as ever."
I spun toward it.
Kael leaned against a twisted stone pillar, one ankle crossed over the other, arms folded loosely. His posture was relaxed, but the shadows behind him rippled like a storm pinned under his heel.
He studied me with quiet amusement—the kind that made my chest tighten with heat and hate in equal measure.
"You made it sooner than I expected," he said calmly.
"You sent the Raven-mark."
A half-smile. "Did I? Perhaps it simply knew the way back to me."
"You're not going to play coy," I warned, stepping closer. "Not after dragging me across half the continent."
Kael's eyes flicked over my face like he was cataloging small fractures in my will. "Aria. I didn't drag you. You walked. And you're still walking toward me."
My throat tightened. "Because I need answers."
"And I need honesty," he said lightly. "That will be much harder for both of us."
He pushed off the pillar and approached. Each footstep stitched the shadows tighter around us, like the dusk itself wanted to fold into him. When he stopped in front of me, he reached out—not touching, simply hovering a breath from my cheek.
"You feel thinner," he murmured. "Frayed at the edges."
I clenched my jaw. "I've been using portals."
"Yes," he said softly. "Far too often."
"That's my choice."
"And yet," Kael murmured, "my magic is in you. My mark. My design. You tamper with it when you force doors into places they don't belong. The void eats the weakest thread first."
"Meaning me."
"Meaning what's left of your humanity," he corrected. "The part you pretend you still don't grieve."
His honesty hit like a physical shove. I stepped back, out of reach.
"Where is your Court?" I asked. "You brought me here to teach me. Start teaching."
Something softened in his expression. "Straight to business. You never did savor anticipation."
"I don't have time to savor anything."
Kael nodded once in acknowledgment. Then he turned and gestured for me to follow.
I hesitated. Only for a breath. Then I walked after him.
The landscape shifted as we moved. The dusk bled into deeper purples; the hills smoothed into wide plains of rippling shadow. The world was quiet except for a distant thrumming—steady, rhythmic, like the heartbeat of something colossal just beneath the surface.
Kael moved with unfathomable grace, not gliding, not floating, simply being in each place he stepped, as if distance rearranged itself for him.
"This place wasn't always like this," he said without looking back.
"What was it before?"
"A kingdom."
His voice held no pride. Only memory.
"Fields, rivers, cities carved into stone. Mortals worshipped freely, and the dusk was gentle. Then war came. Then blood. Then the gods abandoned us."
"And you?"
"I did not abandon them."
A pause.
"They abandoned me."
There was something ancient in that admission. Something painful and unarguably real. The kind of truth Kael rarely allowed to touch open air.
"You were a king?" I asked quietly.
"A shepherd," he said. "Then a guardian. Then a weapon." His smile was cold. "Roles are chains, Aria. Even now, you haven't learned that."
"I'm not wearing any chains."
"You're wearing mine."
I froze for half a heartbeat.
He didn't.
Kael simply kept walking, letting the words hang like a blade suspended above my neck.
A cluster of monoliths rose from the ground ahead—tall, thin stones arranged in a circle. Each stone was carved with runes that pulsed faintly, like the dying embers of a star.
Kael stepped into the circle. The moment he did, the air thickened in my lungs.
"Your Court?" I whispered.
"Not all of it." His gaze flicked to the horizon. "But the loyal ones remain."
"Loyal because they want to be?" I asked. "Or because you bound them?"
Kael looked at me fully then—steady, unreadable.
"There's no difference here."
Before I could argue, a shape materialized between the monoliths.
First a haze. Then a silhouette. Then a person.
A woman.
Or what had once been one.
Her body was formed of shadow and memory, her features soft and indistinct, like a face seen through rippling water. But her eyes burned bright—white, hollow flames trapped in sockets.
She bowed her head to Kael.
"My lord," she said. Her voice was thin, airy, stretched across distance.
"Aria," Kael said, "this is Rhys. One of my first."
The shadow-woman tilted her head. "You smell like him."
I stiffened. "I'm not him."
"No," she said, stepping closer. "But you carry his echo. And echoes are dangerous when they forget which voice they belong to."
"She belongs to herself," Kael corrected mildly.
Selene's gaze slid between us. "Does she?"
My pulse hammered.
Kael's hand rose without warning and cupped my jaw—not forcefully, not tenderly, but possessively. His thumb rested against my cheekbone as he spoke to Selene, though his eyes never left mine.
"She is here by choice. And she will become what she chooses. Not what I make."
Rhys bowed. "As you will, my lord."
When she dissolved back into mist, my knees nearly gave out.
He still hadn't removed his hand.
"You're scaring them," I whispered.
"They're remembering," he said quietly. "Memories can frighten even the dead."
"Let go of me."
Slowly, Kael lowered his hand—but not out of obedience. Out of… consideration. And something colder.
"Your training begins now," he said.
"No lies. No masks. No pretending you're weaker than you are."
He stepped back into the center of the circle.
"Show me your shadows."
I swallowed. "Kael, the portals—"
"I didn't say 'show me a door.' I said 'show me your shadows.' The part you refuse to claim."
My heart pounded painfully. "Why?"
Kael's voice softened into something terrifyingly gentle.
"Because my mercy isn't kindness, Aria."
His eyes darkened.
"It's restraint. And I won't restrain myself again."
A wind rose, spiraling around us, pulling the dusk into a vortex. The monoliths vibrated. The shadow ground rippled.
Kael held out a hand.
"Come," he commanded softly. "Let me see what I made… and what you've twisted it into."
A chill ran down my spine.
Because for the first time—not with Marcus, not even with Lucian—I felt it:
If I stepped forward,
and if I let myself unravel even a fraction,
Kael would not put me back together the same.
And I would want him to.