Elara's POV
I wake up screaming.
My throat is raw, my lungs burning like I've been underwater for hours. I claw at my neck, expecting to feel the poison still choking me, but there's nothing. Just smooth skin and my racing pulse.
I'm alive.
How am I alive?
I bolt upright and immediately regret it. The room spins. My head pounds. I press my hands against cold stone floors and try to breathe, but panic claws up my chest.
This isn't the temple. This isn't anywhere I recognize.
The walls are black stone that seems to absorb light instead of reflecting it. Shadows move across the ceiling even though there's nothing to cast them. No windows. No doors that I can see. Just endless darkness pressing in from all sides.
And I'm not wearing my wedding dress anymore.
I look down and see a simple white nightgown. Soft fabric. Clean. Someone changed my clothes while I was... dead? Unconscious? I don't know which is worse.
"No, no, no." I scramble backward until my spine hits the wall. "This isn't real. I'm dead. I have to be dead."
"You're not dead."
The voice comes from everywhere and nowhere. Deep. Male. Calm in a way that makes my skin crawl.
I spin around, searching the shadows. "Who's there? Show yourself!"
"I'm trying to decide if that's a good idea." The voice sounds almost amused. "You're already panicking. Seeing me might make it worse."
"I'm not panicking!" My voice cracks. Okay, I'm definitely panicking.
A soft chuckle echoes through the room. "You're screaming, crying, and backed into a corner. That's the definition of panic."
Heat floods my face. "You—you poisoned me. You kidnapped me. You changed my clothes while I was unconscious!" My hands ball into fists. "Of course I'm panicking!"
"I didn't poison you. That was your charming fiancé." The voice pauses. "Ex-fiancé, technically. Since you died before saying 'I do.'"
The casual way he says it makes my stomach turn. I died. I actually died. I remember the poison burning through me, remember my heart stopping, remember the darkness swallowing me whole.
"Then how am I here?" I demand. "How am I alive?"
"That's... complicated."
"Uncomplicate it!" I'm shaking now. From fear or anger, I can't tell. "Where am I? Who are you? Why did you bring me here?"
Silence stretches for so long I think he's left. Then footsteps echo across stone. Slow. Deliberate. Coming closer.
"I brought you here because you're bound to me now," the voice says. "And before you ask more questions you won't like the answers to, maybe you should look at your wrist."
My wrist?
I glance down and freeze.
A black mark wraps around my left wrist like a tattoo. Intricate symbols I don't recognize, swirling in patterns that seem to move when I'm not looking directly at them. The mark is warm. Pulsing. Like it's alive.
"What is this?" I claw at it, trying to rub it off. The symbols don't budge. "What did you do to me?"
"I didn't do anything. The curse did."
"What curse?"
"The one that's kept me alive for 237 years." He steps into the dim candlelight, and my breath catches.
He's tall. That's the first thing I notice. Easily over six feet, with broad shoulders and the kind of stillness that predators have before they strike. His hair is black as midnight, falling to his shoulders. But it's his eyes that pin me in place.
Silver. Like moonlight on metal. Completely inhuman.
He's wearing all black—simple clothes that somehow make him look more dangerous, not less. No weapons I can see, but he doesn't need any. Everything about him screams threat.
"Who are you?" I whisper.
His lips quirk into something that's not quite a smile. "They call me the Shadow Lord."
My blood turns to ice.
The Shadow Lord. Every child in the realm knows the stories. The monster who lives in darkness. The cursed king who can't die. The nightmare that parents use to scare kids into behaving.
He's supposed to be a myth. A legend. Not real.
"No." I shake my head. "No. You're not real. This is—I'm hallucinating. The poison made me crazy before I died and now I'm—"
"You're not hallucinating." He moves closer, and I press harder against the wall. There's nowhere to run. "And I'm very real. Unfortunately for both of us."
"Stay back!" I hold up my hands like that'll stop him.
He stops anyway. Tilts his head. "You're afraid of me."
"Of course I'm afraid of you! You're the Shadow Lord! You kill people!"
"Actually, I try very hard not to kill people." His silver eyes study me. "It's everyone else who does the killing. I'm just cursed to survive it."
"I don't understand—"
"The Sanctum cursed me two centuries ago," he interrupts. "Bound my life to innocents chosen through their rituals. Every fifty years, a new person gets tied to me through a death sacrifice. You're the fifth."
The fifth. My mind spins. "What happened to the other four?"
His expression goes cold. "They died. The Sanctum hunted them down and killed them to punish me."
"And now they're going to kill me." It's not a question.
"They're certainly going to try." He crosses his arms. "But here's the interesting part. You're not like the others. You've been connected to me for three days now, and you're still alive. That's... unusual."
Three days. I've been unconscious for three days.
"I want to go home." My voice sounds small. Broken. I hate it.
"You don't have a home anymore." His words are blunt. Not cruel, just factual. "Theron announced your death. Your parents held a funeral. The Sanctum declared you a tragic victim of a failed protection ritual. Going back would be suicide."
"But my family—"
"Believes you're dead. And it's safer for everyone if they keep believing that."
Tears burn my eyes. Everything I knew is gone. My life. My family. My future. All of it destroyed by Theron's betrayal.
"Why?" I choke out. "Why did he kill me?"
"To prove his loyalty to the Sanctum. A blood sacrifice earns favor with the High Priestess. He probably gained rank, wealth, maybe even a better marriage prospect." The Shadow Lord shrugs. "You were currency to him. Nothing more."
The truth hits like a slap. I wasn't even worth keeping alive. I was just a tool. A stepping stone. Exactly like Theron said.
I slide down the wall until I'm sitting on the cold floor. My whole body feels numb.
"I'm sorry." The Shadow Lord's voice softens slightly. "I know this is overwhelming."
"Overwhelming." I laugh, and it sounds hysterical. "I was murdered at my wedding, brought back to life, kidnapped by a mythical monster, and cursed to be hunted by the most powerful organization in the realm. Overwhelming doesn't even begin to cover it."
He crouches down so we're eye level. Up close, I can see he's not as old as I thought. Maybe early thirties in appearance, though his eyes look ancient.
"You're angry," he observes.
"Of course I'm angry!"
"Good." A hint of approval crosses his face. "Anger will keep you alive longer than fear. The others were too scared to fight back. You..." He studies me. "You might actually survive this."
"What happens if I don't?" I meet his silver gaze. "If the Sanctum kills me, what happens to you?"
His jaw tightens. "If you die, I die. That's how the curse works. We're bound together now. Your life is my life."
"So you're protecting me to save yourself."
"Yes." He doesn't even pretend otherwise. "I'm selfish enough to want to live. Even after 237 years of this hell."
At least he's honest.
I look at the mark on my wrist again. The symbols pulse with each beat of my heart. "Is there a way to break it? The curse?"
Something flickers in his eyes. Hope? Regret? It's gone before I can identify it.
"I've been searching for a way to break this curse for two centuries," he says quietly. "I've found nothing that works. But..." He hesitates. "There might be information in the Sanctum's deepest vaults. Records of the original curse. Maybe even a reversal ritual."
"Then we get it."
He actually laughs. "Just walk into the Sanctum—the organization currently hunting you—and steal from their most protected location?"
"You have a better idea?"
"Staying alive. Hiding. Keeping you safe until—"
A loud crash echoes through the fortress. Then another. And another.
The Shadow Lord's head snaps toward the sound. His whole body goes tense.
"What is that?" I ask.
"Sanctum soldiers." He stands quickly, pulling me up with him. "They found us faster than I expected."
"How many?"
"Based on the sound? At least twenty." He grabs my hand. His skin is surprisingly warm. "We need to leave. Now."
"Leave where? I don't even know where I am!"
"Questions later. Running now." He pulls me toward a wall that suddenly opens—a hidden door I couldn't see before.
We're halfway through when I hear a voice echo through the fortress. Loud. Familiar. Filled with false concern.
"Elara! I know you're here!"
I freeze. No. It can't be.
The Shadow Lord feels me stop and looks back. "What's wrong?"
"That's Theron's voice," I whisper.
His silver eyes widen slightly. "Your fiancé came personally?"
"Ex-fiancé," I correct automatically. "And he's here to finish what he started."
Another voice joins Theron's. Female. Cold as winter.
"Come out, Shadow Lord. Give us the girl, and we'll make your death quick."
The Shadow Lord's hand tightens on mine. "That's High Priestess Seraphine. She never leaves the Sanctum temple. Never." He looks at me with something close to fear. "What are you, Elara? Why would both of them come for one cursed girl?"
Before I can answer, the fortress shakes. Magic pulses through the air—powerful enough that I can feel it pressing against my skin.
The Shadow Lord swears under his breath. "They're bringing down the whole building."
"Can you stop them?"
"Not against both of them." He meets my eyes. "I need you to trust me."
"I don't even know you!"
"I know. But right now, I'm the only thing standing between you and them." His expression is deadly serious. "So I'll ask again: Do you trust me?"
The fortress shakes harder. Cracks spider across the ceiling. We have seconds to decide.
I look at his silver eyes. See desperation there. Fear. But also determination.
Theron killed me without a second thought. The Sanctum watched and did nothing. They want me dead.
The Shadow Lord wants me alive.
Right now, that's enough.
"I trust you," I say.
He pulls me close, shadows erupting around us like wings.
"Then hold on tight," he says. "Because this is going to hurt."
The darkness swallows us whole just as the fortress explodes.