THE SHADOW THAT CHOOSE HER .

Cassian I have not slept peacefully in five years. And yet I keep closing my eyes. She is always waiting for me. Elira stands in the courtyard beneath the hanging lanterns, silver light catching in her dark hair. The air smells like night-blooming ivy and rain. She looks exactly as she did before everything ended—alive, smiling, untouched by the thing carved into my chest. “Say it again,” she whispers, stepping closer. Even in dreams, I hesitate. Because I know what comes next. But I am weak here. Weak in memory. Weak in longing. “I love you.” The world splits. Her smile fades first. Confusion flickers across her face, then fear. A thin black vein crawls up her throat like spilled ink spreading beneath glass. “No,” I breathe. The mark on my chest ignites. It always does. I feel it tearing open beneath my skin, feeding, claiming, answering the confession I can never take back. Her violet magic flickers violently around her hands before collapsing inward. She reaches for me. “Cassian—?” Her fingers crumble. Ash scatters between us. I wake before she disappears completely. — I sit upright in the dark, breath tearing from my lungs as though I’ve surfaced from drowning. The sheets are twisted around my legs. My skin is damp with sweat. The burn is still there. I press my palm to my chest, over the jagged black sigil carved into me at birth. It pulses beneath my touch—slow, deliberate. Alive. “You’ve taken enough,” I mutter. The curse does not answer. It never does. It simply waits. Five years. Five years since I loved someone. Five years since I learned the truth of my bloodline in the cruelest way possible. The Curse of Devouring does not punish desire. It punishes attachment. It awakens when love becomes real. And it kills the one I love. I swing my legs off the bed and cross to the mirror carved from dark glass. Moonlight spills across my reflection. Controlled. Cold. Untouchable. The mark stretches across my sternum like fractured lightning, veins branching toward my ribs. For years it has been dormant. Quiet. A reminder. Never again. I drag a shirt over my head, covering it. Armor follows. Gloves. Composure. By dawn, the Crown Prince of the Night Court exists again. The boy who once whispered I love you does not. But as I turn toward the door, the mark pulses once more. Not with memory. With something new. And for the first time in years— It does not feel dormant. It feels aware. — Liora I wake gasping. Light explodes from my hands. It slams into the ceiling in a burst of gold, scattering across the stone before fading into trembling sparks. My heart is racing so violently I press a hand to my chest just to steady it. Not again. The dream lingers like smoke. There is never a face. Never a clear voice. Only a presence in the dark. Cold air against my skin. A sensation of being watched—not with cruelty, but with something heavier. Something burdened. And always— Always— The feeling that my magic is reaching back. I stare at my hands. They’re shaking. Light has never behaved this way around me. Since childhood, it has been warm. Obedient. Gentle. It answered my call like sunlight pooling through open fingers. Now it flickers unpredictably. As though something is pulling at it from very far away. I rise from my bed and pace across my chamber. Dawn filters through the crystal windows, bathing everything in soft gold. The Radiant capital glitters outside, perfect and unbroken. I should feel safe here. But beneath my ribs, there is a pull. It has grown stronger these past weeks—since the summit was announced. The Night Court will step inside our walls for the first time in decades. Including their Crown Prince. I have never seen him. But sometimes, in the dream, I feel as though the darkness is not empty. As though someone stands inside it. My pulse spikes. Without warning, my magic flares again—thin strands of gold curling around my wrists. I gasp, trying to steady it. And at the edge of that glow— Shadow answers. Just a thread. A whisper of black at the edge of light. I freeze. “That’s impossible,” I breathe. Darkness does not live in Radiant blood. It is purged. Burned away. Cleansed at birth. And yet I felt it. Not invading. Responding. As though something across the world inhaled— And I did too. The sensation vanishes as quickly as it came, but the echo remains. Something is changing. I don’t know what it is. I don’t know why my magic feels like it’s listening for something— Or someone. But far away, somewhere beyond the Black Divide… I swear I feel it listening back.