I didn't sleep. Not because I didn't try of course I did, curling under my threadbare blanket, staring at the cracked ceiling of my room while the city groaned and whispered outside my window. But every time I shut my eyes, I saw them again. Those molten golden eyes. The shadows that weren't mine. And him Damian burning against the storm like he belonged to it.
By dawn, I knew Id at Ember Hall by midnight, no matter what promises I made to myself about staying away. Curiosity was a crueler leash than fear.
The day dragged. I kept replaying his words in my head. Shadowbinder. Marked. Last. Every one of them sounded like a chain being slipped around my throat. And yet... somewhere deep inside, part me ached with recognition, like the words weren't new at all, just forgotten.
By the time the city's bells tolled midnight, I was already standing outside Ember Hall.
It was nothing like the name suggested. I'd pictured fire-lit chandeliers, red velvet curtains, the warmth of a nobleman's hearth. Instead, it was abandoned stone - a ruin crouched on the city's edge, it's arches cracked, its windows nothing but hollow sockets where glass used to be.
Then I saw the glow.
Faint, flickering, bleeding through the cracks in the old oak doors.
I pushed them open.
Inside, the hall was cavernous and cold, but at its center, fire burned - not wood, not coal, just fire, rising from nothing, a circle of shifting flame that gave off heat without smoke.
And there he was.
Damian's stood within the fire circle, coat discarded, his shirt sleeves rolled back to reveal the markings on his forearms - jagged line that glowed faintly, as if molten metal had been poured beneath his skin. His eyes lifted when I entered, and for a heartbeat, it felt like the whole hall turned to look at me.
"You came." His voice wasn't surprised. Just certain, like he'd known I would, even when I hadn't.
"Not because of you," I said, even though we both knew it was a lie. "I want answers. Then I'm gone."
He smiled faintly, but it wasn't amusement. More like pity. "That's not how this works."
I stepped closer, keeping my arms crossed, as if that could shield me from the heat of the flames. "Then tell me. What am I?"
He studied me for a long moment before answering. "You are the last Shadowbinder - bloodline of night, wielder of the dark that lives between worlds. Your kind kept balance once. Until they were hunted down."
"Hunted?" My throat tightened.
He nodded. "The soul-hunters you saw last night? They were made for one purpose - to end you. And they almost succeeded."
"Then why am I still here?"
His eyes flickered, heat sparking in the embers. "Because fate is cruel. And because I swore an oath to stand between your bloodline and extinction. Even if it kills me."
The firelight painted his face in shifting gold and red. He looked older than I'd thought the night before, not in years but in weight, like each word had been dragged across centuries before reaching me.
I should have laughed. Should have told him he was mad. But instead, I heard myself whisper: "What does the oath cost you?"
He didn't look away. "Everything."
The flames shivered. For a moment, I though they would die out, but instead they surged higher, nearly licking the rafter. I stumbled back, but Damian didn't move.
"This is the Firelight," he said. "It binds me. It feeds on me. The more I use it, the faster it burns through what I am. "He raised his hand, and the markings on his arm glowed brighter, cracks of molten light. "But it keeps you alive. That's the bargain."
The words twisted in my gut. Part of me wanted to run, to escape this ruin, this fire, this man who carried both salvation and destruction in his veins. But another part - the darker, quieter part - felt the shadows at my feet stir. As if the recognized him.
"Why me?" I asked, my voice sharper than I intended. "Why not let the hunters finish what they started? Why drag mw into this curse with you?"
For the first time, his mask slipped. The fire in his eyes flared and softened, all at once. "Because your death is the end of balance. And because..." He stopped, jaw tightening, as if catching a word before it escaped. "Because I don't want you to die."
The silence that followed was heavy, filled only by the crackle of unnatural flames.
I turned away, pacing the edges of the ruined hall to hide the tremor in my chest. His words shouldn't have mattered. He was cursed, bound, a stranger I'd known for less than a day. But they carved into me anyway.
When I looked back, he was watching me - not with hunger, not with threat, but with something far more dangerous. Recognition.
I needed to break it. To put space between whatever was happening here. "So what now? You train me? Turn me into some kind of weapon?"
He stepped out of the fire circle, the heat of him hitting me even across the distance. "No. The weapon was forged long before you were born. All I can do is teach you not to destroy yourself with it."
The shadows at my feet stretched, restless, curling like they wanted to reach for him.
I swallowed hard. "And if I refuse?"
His mouth curved, but there was no humor in it. "Then I'll drag you back here every night until you stop refusing."
The words should have sounded arrogant. They didn't. They sounded like a vow.
The fire dimmed, leaving the hall half-dark. My shadows thickened in the corners, whispering at the edge of my mind. For the first time, I realized how dangerous it felt to be caught between us - between shadow and flame.
And still, I didn't walk away.
I stayed.
"The silence between them burned hotter than the fire in his veins, and darker than the shadows curling at her feet."