The candle on the desk had burned so low that wax bled across the wood in pale rivers. Asher Vale turned a page in the black book before him, not even noticing the hiss of hot wax spattering his knuckles. The words held him. Crooked letters, ancient symbols that crawled in his vision like ants on bone. He traced them with his eyes, not his finger—he knew better than to touch ink like this.
Outside, the night had no silence. The asylum walls were thick, but thick stone only muffled the screams; it did not kill them. The mad sang in broken tongues. Some pleaded, others laughed. The sound seeped through mortar, became the rhythm of the place, a heartbeat of the damned.
Control, he thought. If I could only hold it, chain it, maybe then…
The page whispered instead. The words spoke themselves. Power threaded up his arm like molten wire, through his veins, into his chest. The hunger roared. It drowned the screams in the asylum, drowned the rattle of chains and boots above. It wanted out. It wanted blood.
He clenched his jaw, fighting the tide. He thought of Elena's voice, her whisper—Don't, not for me. But what if this was the only way? What if the spell was not damnation but salvation?