Kaelen ran.
The soldiers moved like a tide of rust and steel, their spears cutting through the haze of ash with terrifying precision. His shadow pulsed at his feet, longer now, twisting unnaturally as though it had a will of its own.
"Stay back!" he shouted, but the sound of his own voice was swallowed by the whispering winds. The shard inside his chest thrummed like a drum of war.
A soldier lunged. Kaelen swung an empty fist, expecting nothing.
And then it struck — but not with his hand. His shadow lashed forward, curling around the man's legs. The soldier toppled as if invisible chains had yanked him to the ground. Others froze, eyes widening.
Kaelen's heart raced. This power… it's not mine. Not fully.
He glanced down. The shadow writhed, stretching, splitting, crawling along the ground like a living thing. His pulse hammered in sync with it, pain slicing through him. Every time the shadow struck, it whispered in a voice not his own:
Kill. Take. Become.
The soldiers hesitated. One raised a blade, but the shadow struck again, a black whip that threw him against a corpse-strewn tree. The air reeked of iron, ash, and the uncanny.
Then came the figure in red — Lira. She emerged from the smoke, her golden eyes blazing. "Stop!" she commanded, voice sharp enough to cut steel.
Kaelen froze. The shadow paused, hovering over the nearest soldier, waiting.
"You don't control it yet," she said, stepping closer. "It feeds on fear. On anger. On blood. If you let it… it will own you before you even know it."
The shard throbbed violently. Kaelen's chest ached. He had already felt its pull, its hunger, but the taste of blood — his enemies' blood — made it roar like a storm.
A soldier shouted, rallying the others. "He's an abomination! Kill him!"
Kaelen's mind screamed. He had no sword, no shield — only the shadow and the shard. The world around him trembled, ash swirling into miniature whirlwinds.
The shadow surged forward. Soldiers screamed as the darkness coiled around them, pulling, choking, slamming. Kaelen staggered backward, arms trembling. Every strike of the shadow burned him, but he couldn't stop.
When it was over, the battlefield was silent again. The dead, the dying, the scattered crows — all still. Kaelen looked down at his shadow, now stretched unnaturally long, its edges twitching as if it were alive.
Lira approached carefully, keeping a wary distance. "This is only the beginning," she said. "You cannot fight them… and you cannot let them take you."
Kaelen clenched his chest where the shard pulsed. I'm no one now. I'm not a knight. Not a man. Then… what am I?
Above the mountains, a low rumble rolled through the world. Black rivers churned faster, and a whisper rode the wind:
Rise. Rise, or fall. Your shadow waits.
Kaelen swallowed hard, the first true taste of what power — and darkness — truly demanded.