Page 73 of Crown of Storm and Silence
"Kaan?" she whispers, cradling her bruised wrist against her chest. "You're hurting me."
"Good," I hear myself say, and mean it. The word emerges from somewhere dark and hungry that grows stronger with each ritual. "Perhaps you'll finally understand what I've been carrying for you."
The devastation that crosses her face should break my heart. Instead, it feeds something twisted that lives where my compassion used to be.
Yet I can't stop. Because seeing her suffer is worse than any corruption, any transformation. I would rather become a monster than watch her die.
I realize I've been standing motionless for several minutes, lost in the past, while the present Obur whimpers in terror. The memory fractures as his renewed screams bring me fully back to the cave. I've been working on him for... minutes? Hours? Time has lost meaning in the haze of creative violence.
His body hangs in pieces now, held together by shadow-thread in a grotesque parody of life. Still conscious, still capableof suffering, but transformed into something that exists purely to experience agony.
"Art," I murmur appreciatively, stepping back to admire my work. "Pure, honest art."
The remaining Obur have gone silent, pressed against the far wall of the cave with expressions of absolute terror. Good. Let them understand exactly what manner of creature they've provoked.
As the poison grows stronger with each death, I find myself watching my own hands work with detached fascination. My shadows become extensions of my will, creating possibilities I never imagined while I remain fully aware of every beautiful detail.
Sometime later. I don't even know how much time has passed and how many more lives I've taken, but I'm standing in the middle of carnage that defies description. Bodies—or pieces of bodies—are scattered throughout the cave like macabre decorations. Arms hanging from stalactites, torsos split open and arranged in spiraling patterns, heads stacked in neat pyramids that grin with death-frozen expressions. The stone walls are painted in arterial sprays that form abstract masterpieces of crimson and shadow.
I'm breathing hard, my chest heaving as I survey my work through eyes that burn with silver fire. Blood covers me from head to toe—coating my hair, dripping from my fingertips, pooling in my boots. I can taste copper on my lips, smell the iron-sweet perfume of fresh death, and the darkness in my veins hums with satisfaction so profound it's almost sexual.
I don't remember creating most of this art. The poison has been guiding my creativity, showing me possibilities I never imagined, while the darkness from Isli grew stronger with each act of violence. How many were there? A dozen? More?The question of numbers doesn't matter—only the beautiful devastation remains, and it's magnificent.
The darkness in my veins sings with satisfaction, stronger now, more present. Each act of violence has fed it, and I can feel it growing, spreading, transforming me into something that would make my younger self weep with horror.
But I don't feel horror. I feel... empty. Satisfied in a way that transcends justice and approaches something purely aesthetic.
Time has become meaningless in this place of beautiful destruction, but I sense familiar presences at the cave mouth—Emir and Mikail, drawn by the symphony of screams that must have echoed through the forest.
"Beautiful work," Mikail's voice echoes from the cave entrance, admiration clear in his tone. "Though I believe you may have gotten slightly carried away with the artistic vision."
I turn to find him studying my handiwork with the appreciation of a connoisseur examining fine art. Behind him, Emir stands in the entrance, his face pale with something that might be recognition of what I'm becoming.
"They touched her," I say simply, as if that explains everything. Which, in my current state, it does.
"Indeed, they did," Mikail agrees. "And now they've been educated about the consequences of such presumption. Quite thoroughly educated, I might add."
Emir steps carefully around the remains, his expression carefully neutral. "The trail ends here, my lord. Justice has been... comprehensive."
"Justice," I repeat, tasting the word like wine. "Yes, I suppose that's what this was."
But as we leave the cave and its crimson-painted walls behind, I catch a glimpse of my reflection in a pool of standing water. The face that looks back at me carries silver veins that pulse with their own light, eyes that hold depths no mortal gazeshould contain, and a smile that belongs on something that hunts angels for sport.
I realize that Isil was right. The man she loved is gone, consumed by the very same darkness he absorbed to save her. What remains is something that wears his memories like ill-fitting clothes while growing into powers that would make gods step carefully.
And for the first time in two centuries, I find myself genuinely curious about what that something might become.
The monster has finally stopped pretending to be human.
And it feels like coming home.
25
The Truth of Shadows
Nesilhan
The memory fragmentlingers like a half-remembered song, haunting me with its incompleteness. I pace the obsidian corridors of the Shadow Court's medical wing, my bare feet silent against the polished stone, while my mind churns through the implications of what I've recalled.
