Page 73 of The Bound Mage
Loren swallowed hard, dread filling his heart as the warm breeze kissed his face, already knowing what he would see whenhe turned to face the temple. There was only one night the shadows would show him like this.
His father stood on the threshold beside Thorne’s father, tall and grim. The silver crown atop his long, dark hair gleamed in the moonlight, shadows trailing him like a living cloak. They licked at his heels, coiling in slow, serpentine waves over the ground behind him.
Corwin Shadowbane looked every bit the king Loren remembered, but there was a new strain in his expression, a hollowness beneath his eyes, where grief had aged him faster than time ever could. Elric Emberwood walked beside him, one hand on the hilt of his sword as they looked out over the soldiers.
Loren tried to turn away, to close his eyes, but the dream held him fast. Shadows bled from the edges of his vision, winding around his wrists and ankles.
Watch, they hissed.
Loren could do nothing else as two hundred fae warriors took their places before the temple, faces set with grim resolve as the human army crested the ridge. They just kept coming, marching down the same road he’d walked with Araya—hundreds strong, many wielding stolen magic bound inside grisly artifacts. If battles were decided on numbers alone, this would surely be a slaughter.
But the fae haddara’el.
The shadows burst from Corwin like a wave torn from the sea—black and wild, but united in their purpose. His father’s eyes glowed with power, the shadows answering to his command as they moved with him—never against. Together, they cut down the front line of Dominion mages with deadly grace, wrapping his father in mantle of darkness that shimmered like liquid night.
Thiswas how it was meant to be. This was what a worthy ruler looked like.
But there were so many humans.
They struck back with stolen magic, forcing their way forward despite the shadows. The fae cried out, pushed back step by step until their backs were pressed against the temple walls. Loren couldn’t look away from his father’s face, his desperation growing as he wielded the power the Goddess had gifted him to protect her people—and failed.
The first blast of magic struck the temple.
The doors groaned under the force of it, cracking down the center as huge chunks of stone crashed to the ground, shattering the steps.
Corwin stumbled back, Elric’s hand on his arm pulling him away. For a heartbeat, Loren thought he would do the only wise thing and retreat—even though he already knew how this ended. But then the human Commander stepped through the settling dust, the Arcanum’s Eye gleaming gold over his heart. In his hands, he lifted a staff fashioned from an entire fae femur, raising it toward Corwin with deliberate finality.
Loren held his breath, waiting for killing blow.
But instead, the shadows broke.
With a soundless roar,dara’eltore free from his father’s body, surging forward in a tidal wave of darkness. The Commander had only a moment to react. His eyes widened. His lips parted in what might have been a command, or a scream, but it was lost as the shadows swept over him.
They spared no one.
Fae warriors were dragged screaming into the dark. Human soldiers fell with their lungs full of shadow. The battlefield turned into a graveyard. Thorne’s father fought his way forward, carving a desperate arc through the chaos as he cried out for Corwin to call back his shadows.
But Loren already knew—he couldn’t.
Corwin dropped to his knees as Elric fell where he stood, the darkness devouring him whole. His crown slipped sideways, his fingers curling into the blood-soaked earth. All around him, the battlefield fell silent—because there was no one left to scream.
The shadows slowed, wavering as they slunk amongst the bodies, fae and human alike. They gathered slowly, coalescing around the fallen king. And Corwin, tears pouring down his face, closed his eyes and bowed his head as the shadows he should have wielded to protect them all turned on him at last.
Loren could only watch—frozen and horrified—as the shadows spread across the battlefield. They poured over the corpses like spilled ink, devouring armor, blade, and flesh with equal hunger. Smoke-like tendrils crawled through the broken remains of the temple, seeped into the soil and made themselves at home among the trees. Even the air itself turned thick and gray, the stars winking out one by one as darkness shrouded the night sky.
“You killed them all,” Loren whispered. “That’s why there were no survivors.”
His father hadn’t raised the Shadowed Veil toprotectthe fae. It had raised itself because there had been no one left to command it.
His shadows stirred, curling around his boots and flickering at the edges of his vision.We remember,they said, their voices jagged and fragmented.What we were. What he made us. What we became. You—you should have brought us together again. Reforged. Whole.
“You’re only part of it,” Loren murmured. Araya had theorized as much, even without knowing the details. “The Shadowed Veil—it’s something else, isn’t it?’
Lost.The shadows thickened, drawing tighter around him.Do not break us further, lost prince.
“I’m sorry.” Loren stared out over the darkened battlefield. “But she’s right. The fae need control of the Shadowed Veil or we’ll all die. I can’t do it. But if she can…we have to let her.”
The battlefield wavered, the memory curling in on itself like burnt paper to reveal four stone walls, as familiar to him as his own heartbeat. The ever-present damp chill seeped into his skin, biting through the thin, filthy shirt he wore. His pallet of moldy straw reeked of damp decay, and iron cuffs bit into his raw wrists, the collar chafing his throat with every shallow breath. The chains that bound him were thicker than before—reinforced. There would be no slipping free this time.
