⚭

When I woke up, I was alone, in my cell once more. This time, there was no Paris, there were no shadows, and there were no chains. I was utterly alone.

It hurt to move. It hurt to breathe. My entire body was stiff, flattened out into a board on the floor. I groaned as I tried to sit up, moving only millimeters at a time. It took several minutes of concentrated effort to sit up, as I attempted not to jerk my body too hard.

The cell was pitch black as always, and I could not tell how much time had passed. It could be dawn already. They could be coming to collect me this very moment. My panic spiked as I scrambled to sit up.

I stumbled onto my knees in the darkness, as my hands skimmed the dirty floors, cringing at the grimey feel of them. My blood was crusted to the stone, gathering under my remaining nails, which relieved me to know I was in my old cell. I did not stop searching blindly till my hands caught on something sharp on the floor. A shard. A bone shard. A demon tooth.

My hands shook as I closed my fingers around it and brought to my chest, exhaling in relief. I was in the same cell as before, which meant I still had my secret weapon. The thought brought me some consolation. Everything was not yet lost. I still had a chance at escape, If I acted now. I had no time for delay. I needed to get this ring off.

My hands felt numb, as I brought one shaking hand to the other. I felt the cool feel of the obsidian band around my pointer finger. It was slick, despite the gallons of blood that had poured over it in the past twenty-four hours. None of it stuck, washing straight over it.

The ring was cool to the touch as I pushed it up my finger, past the first joint, and stopping it just over the second joint. It would not go further. It was just the tip of the finger. Most of the finger would remain. It was just a small fragment that I would loose. I tried to come to terms with it as best as I could, though none of my reassuring words could stop the racing beat of my heart or the sweat breaking out on my skin.

Dropping my shaking hand, I brought the sharp edge of the tooth to my waist. I tested it on the fabric of my shirt, attempting to determine how sharp it was. It cut through the camisole like butter. I pulled the material taut as I brushed the sharp end of the tooth over the fabric, watching as the seams split with each slash. I cut all the way around my waist, slicing the bottom of the shirt off. A pile of previously-white cloth remained unraveled in my waist. I tied a knot into it before hand, while I had the use of both my hands. I would soon be immobile in both.

Sucking a deep breath, I tested the tooth on my skin, seeing how well it cut through flesh. I tested it on a rougher patch of skin- my knee. The sting of pain that accompanied the slice was hardly tangible compared to the unbearable amounts of pain I had endured in the last few days. I was almost thankful for the fresh pain, rousing me out of my fuddled state, making me alert once more. Before the tooth could go deeper than tissue and sink into muscle, like I knew it could—like I hoped it would— I pulled it out of the skin.

I simply sat for a long moment, body shaking, eyes closed against the tears pushing against my lids, attempting to breathe deeply. I inhaled and exhaled, my shadows no longer able to drain the emotion from me. I would have to do this on my own. I would have to gather my wits, calm down, and do this before they dragged me up to burn at the funeral pyre. I would burn alive.

It was one finger tip or my life. One finger or death. The pain I felt now would be nothing compared to the pain I would feel being lapped up by Araw's flame. I would have to feel my shadows die. My children. I would feel them whither away into space, wounded as they already were. I would have to feel solitude again, as fragments of my soul were destroyed with them. I would have to hear their screaming, knowing I failed them.

I brought them into this world. I gave them consciousness. It was my responsibility to protect them. They were never meant to feel mortal pain, and yet they had. They had felt so much of my pain, all because I bound them to myself. They shouldered so much of it for me.

Cypress was right. Everything in this world demanded sacrifice. If I would have to sacrifice one finger tip for them, then so be it. One finger for my life and for theirs.

For once, I was thankful for my spindly fingers and weak bones. If I had been any more nourished, my bones could probably withstand this. After the initial slice, I would have to break off the bone myself. The human biting range was up to twelve-hundred newtons, and it took at least two-hundred more to fracture a bone. Maybe even less for mine. I could do this.

If I had been completely empty, if I had completely wasted my magic, I could have been unfeeling about this. I would not have been so afraid that I couldn't keep my hand from shaking as I lined the razor-sharp demon tooth with the finger, making sure the black ring was right below the joint, pushed as far as it would go. I closed my eyes, breathing hard.

It was either my finger, or my life. One finger or death.

I swallowed heavily, tears already brimming at my lash line in anticipation for the pain. So much endless pain. My eyes were closed as I pushed the demon tooth up against the ring. My jaw quivered as I inhaled a shuddering breath through my nostrils. Without a second thought, refusing to allow myself to loose gall, I pushed down with the tooth.

Despite knowing what was coming, I could still not prepare myself with the pain that hit me. A scream tore itself from my mouth, making the tendons of my neck strain, yet I did not relent. Tooth sunk through flesh, as I forced it down down down, sawing through tendons and muscle and millions of nerve endings for long, agonizing minutes, till it finally hit hard bone. I screamed out as I shoved the make-shift blade even further. The top corners of the tooth cut through the skin of the hand holding it, yet I continued sawing.

My eyes bulged out of my head, my entire body engulfed in flame. I was turning red, my entire body painted in my blood. Painted in my pain. Painted in my agony.

I finally pulled the tooth back, when I could not dig it further into the bone. Blood gushed down it, the digit disfigured and mutilated, with a large cut running all the way down to the bone. The bone I had sawed at with the tooth, but could not cut through.

Once I was confident the tooth had done as much damage as it could, I brought the finger up to my mouth. I shifted it to my back molars, making sure that the strongest part of my jaw would be situated near the bone. And then I bit down as hard as I could manage.

The scream that erupted from my throat was muffled by my finger, hot, metallic blood filling my mouth. White hot pain flashed before my eyes, as black filled my eyesight, blanking everything out. I was afraid I would loose consciousness before I could finish the job, and bit down even harder to finish quickly.

The skin under my teeth was rubbery and stringy, me having to bite multiple times to get through to the muscle underneath. Bile rose from my stomach, but I swallowed it down, refusing to remove the finger from my mouth. If I removed it, I would collapse and not be able to bring it back, knowing the unbearable pain that screamed through my nerves. I would not be able to bring it to my mouth again. I had to finish this now.

I continued chewing through tendons of muscle and tissue, tears streaming down my face as I sobbed from pain. I had to keep my jaw still from quivering, or else I'd loose the spot in which I was digging through. The bottom row of my teeth cut through the lower half of my finger, while the top row cut through the upper section. My jaw and mouth were now covered in blood, and I knew I needed to hurry and finish before I lost too much blood.

I began clamping down harder, sobbing and crying out hysterically each time I brought down my teeth upon the fractured bone. Just a little bit more, I reminded myself, praying that it would be over. My finger or death. One small finger or death. Finally when I reached fissure in the bone, I opened my mouth wide, sobbing with my eyes closed, before I snapped my jaw down.

A cold sweat speckled my body, my stomach churning as I shivered. The smooth, obsidian ring felt cooI against my tongue, In comparison to the bloody, fleshy, pulp of ruined muscle and tissue. I clamped down one last time, my teeth aching as they hit the hard bone. Another crack resided as I screamed against clamped teeth. I couldn't let go. I couldn't let go till it was nearly broken. I felt sharp splinters of bone against my tongue as I tried to breathe through my nose. Every breath was superficial, feeling as though it wasn't enough air. When I was sure that I was slowly suffocating myself, I finally gasped with my mouth, allowing myself to let go of the bone.

With shaking hands, I pulled it out of my mouth. My bloodied finger was limp and bent at an odd angle, the only thing keeping it intact to my knuckle being the fractured bone. The thin line of white peaked out from between the pulp of red. It needed to break. Now, before I lost consiousness. My other hand clawed at the ground, looking for the bone once more, without taking eyes off of my finger. When my fingers grabbed at something rugged and not-quite round, I snatched it off of the cell floor.

Placing my burning finger on the floor, whimpering upon contact, I lifted the tooth. I spread out my fingers so that it wouldn't harm the rest of them. I couldn't feel my pointer finger. It didn't move, or even twitch. I couldn't feel it anymore. A sobbed racked my body at the realization. I knew I needed to look. I needed to make sure my aim was accurate, but I couldn't bring myself to stop the flinch when I brought the tooth down upon myself once more. I couldn't stop myself from looking away.

Pain interrupted in my hand at the sound of a meaty slice, hacking away till the bone finally cracked. I grabbed it, screaming upon the pressure, and snapped the remaining tip off by the bone. The finger fell to the ground, alongside the ring, and I felt my power rush back to me in a dizzying, overwhelming sense of relief. My eyesight blackened once more as my shadows retuned to me. I continued sobbing, my whole body shaking as I lifted my hand. My ringed finger remained dejected on the floor. I did not touch it.

My shadows did their best to drain me of pain, enough to make me numb and unfeeling, my tears streaming only out of instinct. I was silent as I began to breathe again, eyes wide and hazed. My panic fled, leaving me in a daze as I planted, calming down steadily. My logic returned to me, making move, continuing on with my plan.

I grabbed the makeshift gauze I had cut from my camisole, and pressed it to my eyes. I was still crying, salt water streaming down my face. The gauze needed to be wet in order to not stick to the wound, and makeshift salt water was the best option I had. When my gauze and was soaked with my tears, I wrapped it around my stump of a finger. There was nothing left from the second joint and up, except excess flesh that I couldn't remove in a clean cut. It was not too bad, I reminded myself; only a couple centimeters from beneath my finger nail were gone. The rest of the finger was still there. My hands shook as I attempted to apply the gauze, failing to tie it tight.

My shadows quickly took the job from me, wrapping the bandage snugly around it, attempting to stop the bleeding. I could feel them working on me also, swallowing up my emotion, but they could do nothing about the pain. They could not shut it off the same way they could guzzle my sadness or euphoria. Still, they worked diligently, aiming to relieve me somehow, so I would not be so miserable.

I placed my hand on my chest, resting above my collarbone so that it would be elevated from my heart. My eyes blurred. My shadows wrapped themselves around me snugly, like a blanket. I could not shadow walk out. This cell was not warded like my inconsequential dorm room. All big bouts of magic were smothered in here. It was not only the walls and door that was warded. Every inch of oxygen in here was laced with counteractive spell-wards. I would have to wait till someone opened the door for me to get out.

Now that the binder was gone, I needed to move. I reached into my powers, bringing them up like a flood. The swelled my senses, with me extracting such bountiful quantities. I crawled to the far end of the cell, so that I would be in direct line of the metal door. Once they opened the door, I would need to act fast, and with my senses screaming in pain, there was no guarantee that I could aim properly. I would blow the whole door off and whoever stood within the doorway.

But as I slumped against the wall, breathing heavy as my nerves burned in pure agony, I realized I had not thought this through. My eyesight blurred as I shook, my body freezing and skin clammy. How was I supposed to wait through this pain? I could barely sit up, much less walk. How could I possibly wait this pain out. My entire body was burning, my skin shriveling and lungs suffocating in smoke.

How could I wait this out? I knocked my head back against the wall, attempting to wake myself up. The lingering pain was worse then actually biting it off. Then, my mind was preoccupied with a goal. But now, I was simply sitting here, as my body screamed in agony and my mind was swallowed whole by pain.

I sat there, tense and crying for what seemed like eternity, waiting for that door to open. It didn't open, and my eyelids got heavier and heavier, as if weights were sewn into the lids. Finally, when I couldn't take the pain anymore, my mind slipped into a restless, hazy sleep. The burden of my body's torment lifted, and for those short moments, the torture finally stopped.

⚭

When my eyes fluttered open, I felt a light wind on my face. The cool feel of it startled me awake. I was supposed to be in a cell with no windows. There was not supposed to be a breeze tickling my face and dancing in the strands of my hair.

Light blinded me, though my shock was more from the sudden contrast, than the intensity of the light itself. I was in a field, surrounded by trees. Fruit trees, in what seemed like an orchard. The sickly sweet smell of over ripe blossoms and nectar filled my nostrils, alongside the unmistakable scent of magic. Whatever this place was, it was magical, the same way my shadow realm was. Only here, it was much more potent, the sweetness laced in the thick air, making it hard to breathe without inhailing it all in one big gulp.

A marble statue sat perched against a tree the orchard, draped in a makeshift toga of a deep, blood-red cloth. Veins of gold spread through the statues arms, and glimmered in his hair. The detail chiseled out into the stone made him seem almost alive. I inched closer, leaning down to observe his Parian-carved face, so sharp that it could cut. The lashes on the statue were painted gold, matching the threads of gold in his hair, and contrasting the whiteness of his entire being.

He almost looked asleep, as if the sun had locked him in stone as punishment for resting under its fiery rays, in this enchanted garden. The trees around us swayed, yet not a single strand out of the boys head moved, nor did the statues nostrils flare or chest rise with the action of soft breathing. I almost expected him to.

His full lips curved peacefully, his beauty sharp and painful. The statue looked so hyper realistic, so alive, that I reached forward to feel the cool of its stone. I could not stop myself, a force greater than my own will pulling me towards him. Golden veins slithered under his eyes, as I cupped his severe, ethereal face.

When my pale hand came in contact with the stone though, I startled, feeling the soft skin of a mortal besides the expected hardness of a statue. In a flash of gold, his eyelashes shot open, and two pools of gold stared back me. They burned into mine, their heat trapping me with their intensity.

I screamed, stumbling back, as my heart jumped into my throat. The statue startled also, eyes wide and alarmed. He reached up a hand towards me out of instinct, as I slapped a hand to my chest, attempting to keep my heart in place. We stared at each other for a long moment, equally terrified. His gold-threaded hair had disheveled as he sat up from the tree.

"What are you doing here?" He demanded, his voice deep and rich, partially breathless, eyes wide and lips parted. His wine-colored toga fell open at the torso, revealing his pale as stone chest, chiseled and defined. It looked as though not a drop of blood coursed through it.

"I—" I tried to explain, but found my self at a loss of words, "I don't know where I am, much less how I got here"

Understanding dawned in his gold-painted eyes, as they trailed down to my forearm. I followed his eyes, and found myself gaping at the black wound that adorned it. Gone was the bloody, pulpy mess from today. Instead, black teeth marks carved into my pale skin, black veins spreading through the expense of the arm. The true nature of the wound, the poison marking my essence.

"Master of beasts you may be, but even you are not immune to their venom" He noted in a grim tone, his mouth set into a line. I stiffened, a cold spreading over me.

"I am—" I looked up at him with wide eyes, "Am I dead?"

My voice was but a whisper. My entire body felt as though it was dumped in ice water, thrown under the freezing current of winter rapids, drowning in dread. Yet I could not help the small prickle of relief that surfaced with it. It was over. It was finally over. Hearing the pitch that my voice had taken, something flickered in the beings golden, potent eyes.

"It is not yet your time to remain here, little witch" He said quietly. My face fell, and something resembling amusement flit onto his expression.

"Do not fret, witchling, the Fates will have you returned to me many times more, and many times more will you steal back to the mortal world"

I sighed out, a bitter edge taking hold in my voice, "I can't imagine why"

Of course I was not truly dead. I would not be able to escape my miseries quite so easy. Then a thought struck me. I had bit my finger off for nothing. I had removed the binding ring for nothing. I died anyways. It was all for nothing.

As if sensing my devastation, the beings' lips quirked up into a painfully sharp smile. He almost looked wistful. A fruit I was unfamiliar with fell from the tree, into his open palm, and he took a bite out of it, it's blood red juices trickling down his defined chin as though he were eating a bloody heart. When he pulled it back, his lips were a startlingly deep shade of burgundy.

"It is not your time, Eulalia. Return back to the realm of the living" He said in a softer tone, as though attempting to console me, though not quite achieving it. His voice was still too cold and emotionless, as though the nuances of human emotion evaded him. Still, whoever this divine being was, they were attempting to be kind to me, despite how foreign the concept was to him. The soft words sounded strange in his cruel mouth. This was undoubtedly not something he did often.

The being nodded his head in farewell. A faint burning sensation began in my arm, making me aware of the wound once more. I dragged my eyes from him to my arm, before quickly looking back at him, my eyes terrified to loose sight of him.

"Wait!" I called out, "What is your name?"

His eyes twinkled gold at the question, filled with secrets I could never dream of knowing. His lips curved up in a painfully beautiful smirk as he said softly, "I am Death, Eulalia, and I have known you for all your life"

My vision blinked shut, till I found myself in darkness once more. I attempted and failed to orient myself for several seconds, till the details of my circumstances finally returned to me. I was sat on the cool floor again. My body was heavy. My bones ached, and the pain was unignorable. A sound brought me to my senses—a big groaning screech of metal hinges, something heavy being moved.

"The door" my shadows whispered to me over my shoulder.

The door groaned as it unlatched, and my eyes shot open. I jolted up, my wounded hand still cradled to my chest, elevated just above my heart. The pain came back with an unbearable intensity as the haze faded from my mind, slamming into me in pulses. I quickly realized I was back in the cell, but was not allowed any time to even process where I had just been, for the door was opening, and I needed to act now.

I raised my good hand towards the door, gathering up my power so that I could blow the whole thing off it's hinges once it opened. I breathed heavy as it finally shuddered open, and twisted my fingers, ready to attack.

"Eulalia!" A familiar voice whisper-shouted to me, a millisecond before power erupted from my finger. I frantically clasped down on it, attempting to contain it so that it might not murder Paris. Then I would most definitely be done for. The explosion hit the wall near the door, ripping it off it's hinges, black marks visible on the surrounding wall. Paris ducked as he bolted into the room, his eyes scanning the moon-lit darkness for me. Recognition lit his features as he saw my hunched over, small figure in the corner.

His eyes scanned me over head to toe, examining me for wounds. His green eyes caught on my bloodied mouth, my entire jaw and the top of my shirt soaked in red. They caught on my sloppily bandaged hand, and the dirtied, bloodied rag covering the space where my bound finger was meant to be.

"Eulalia, what..?" He asked me, horror flitting on his features. His tan skin paled to a sickly shade of grey. His eyes scanned the floor, till he caught sight of the amputated finger on the cell floor, laying dejected in a pool of blood, the ring still on. The onyx band remained tightly clasped onto the skin, despite the finger tip itself not being connected to the body. It only justified my actions. There was no other way. The binding ring would not have come off in any other situation.

My body shook as I whispered out, "There was no other way-"

"There was another way!" He exclaimed at me, coming closer. I shook my head angrily, defeated by the series of recent events. My spirit had left me from the moment I realized that mutilating myself was the only way to survive. I could not rely on anybody. I could not rely on Paris. Only myself.

He did not save me when I faced the council, so I had no hope that he could save me now either, locked in this cell. I had no hope, and did what I had to do to get out, despite how savage the action was. Animals did the same when caught in a bear trap, gnawing off their limbs in the name of survival. How was my situation any different?

"There was no other way. It had to be done, or else I had no chance of surviving" I said out to him as he reached me. My eyes were wide as attempted to process what I had just endured. Paris' eyes were filled with tears and desperation as he kneeled down. He cupped my face in his hands, holding me. Still my gaze remained on the ground.

"I would have come for you. I would have saved you. I would have never left you here to die" He cried to me. I wanted to shout at him that I did die. Everyone failed me. Even him. I went to such extremes because I knew he could not save me. I shook my head again as he lifted me into his arms. He took enough combat medical courses to know that I could not stand, my body frozen in shock from blood loss.

"There was no other way" I repeated to him into the crook of his neck, "I had to do it. If you could not help me out there, then you definitely could not help in here while I was bound. If I did not cut it off, I would have never even had a chance to get out. They would track me with the ring. I would die without my magic. There was no possible way for me to get it off without the person who casted it. I did what I had to do" My voice shook as he held me to his chest. He carried me out bridal style, flitting past fallen soldiers.

"Are they...?" I asked him, hinting to their corpses littered all over the hall. Paris was attempting to be as gentle as possible, but my body still cried out in pain every time he jostled or moved too harshly.

"No, they're just knocked out" Paris stated, "They'll wake up in a few hours"

"How?" I asked him, my voice raw. I had screamed it ragged when amputating my finger.

"I happen to know a golden eyed witch that is particularly good with explosives and chemical reactions. She made me a gas bomb" He stated. I swallowed heavily at the mention of golden eyes, unsettled once more.

"They didn't see me. Don't worry. You're safe" Paris stated. The words made my skin crawl, the hair standing on my arms. I felt too hot, suffocated by everything touching my body.

"Put me down. Do not touch me, Paris" I said to him with closed eyes, attempting to breathe in and out and refrain from hyperventilating. The cool flow of steady air in my lungs was the only thing keeping me conscious.

"Put me down, Paris. Please" I repeated to him, gripping his t-shirt in my fists as I tried to sit up. My head spun with the action, black spots floating before my eyes.

"Eulalia, you're hurt—" Paris tried to reason with me, his voice gentle.

"I said put me down" I repeated, my tone steely. Upon my insistence, Paris did. He brought me to the ground gently, his arms hooked beneath my neck and legs. I could feel his hesitance in letting me go, but I could not bear the weight of anybody's touch against my skin with my memories so fresh. My legs buckled as soon as the entirety of my weight was placed upon it.

Instantly, my shadows were beneath me, holding me up by the arms. They took all my weight from my body, as I allowed myself to hang freely, the pressure releasing from my spine. After a moment, I realized my feet were dragging against the floor, my body floating inches above the ground. Dark wisps of shadows were splayed under my arms, connecting beneath my shoulder bones to my back. The darkness composed me wings of shadow, as I floated, sinking into them. My hair floated behind me like a silver cloud.

I dipped my eyes into the black of my shadows, opening them anew in the throne room. The cool darkness seeped into the deep of my eye sockets. My sight exchanged places with the shadows in one of the dark corners of the council hall. I did not need a mirror to see my eyes had turned a shade of inky black.

Paris claimed that nobody had seen him come in, but I would make them see me. I would make them pay for what I had to endure, dragged before them like an animal, beaten and broken, humiliated. They would pay.

Paris sucked in a sharp breath. I blinked, though I did not see him. My eyes observed the hall, where the council was still seated. The people had deserted it, indicating that it was too early of an hour for the burning to begin. The new day had already begun, sunlight streaming in through the glassed dome above. My suspicions had been correct. Any longer, and they would have burned me alive. The throbbing in my finger suddenly dulled at the memory of the white-hot flame lapping up my skin.

A pyre had been built in the middle of the hall.

"Are the twins in building?" I asked, my voice a cold monotone. It sounded almost robotic, leeched of all emotion. Paris' mother was not present, his grandfather serving in her stead.

"No. They're waiting for us in the woods" Paris said hesitantly, "The only ones here this early are the guards and the council. I checked before we broke in"

"Good" I replied hollowly, my face blank and eyes still black. I imagined beneath the layer of shadow, they were glassy and covered in a milky haze—near white, as though I had gone blind.

"When— when did you learn to do that?" Paris asked me, the uncertainty evident in his voice.

"Just now" I replied. Again, I did not recognize my voice. It was detached, as though emitting from the room itself, besides me. From the walls. From the shadows.

"What Skill is it?" He asked me nervously, remembering the last Skill I dedicated myself to mastering. Me leaving my body and transforming into shadow form had terrified just about everyone who witnessed it, Paris included.

"I don't know yet. As I stated, I only created it a minute ago" I replied to Paris blankly, not allowing myself much time to dwell on my own words. Paris did get a chance to reply, for the  entire building began to tremble.

I wove my shadows into every crevice, every fissure and vent in the building, enforcing my hold on the structure. I beckoned my shadows out of their hiding spots, watching as they pulled out from their dark corners even into the brightly-lit spots of the hall, slithering out like dark snakes. I watched as the council panicked at the sight of the black vines seizing the room, something sinister in their energy.

I tightened my hand into a fist, resulting in a sickening cracking noise throughout the entirety of the hall. Once, I used this trick to break camera lenses, but now my powers had transformed into something entirely different. They could no longer compare to the minuscule levels they were once at. I watched as a rain of glittering crystal rained down on the council, cutting them open, slicing them bare. All the glass from the ceiling shattered, as the building began to collapse around us.

I felt like a puppet master as my shadows shook the building, as though I were a child shaking a snow globe, my fingers splayed out into the form of claws. Paris shouted out in shock as the ground began to escalate from intermittent trembles, to full blown shaking as the floor rolled from side to side beneath us. My knees buckled, but I remained standing strong.

Concrete ripped open, large slabs of asphalt jutting up from the ground, as though the tectonic plates were rearranging themselves beneath us at the feel of my power. A large column crashed to the ground, squashing Paris' grandfather.

The sight made my lips curl up, something about it so hysterically humorous that I could not help the vicious laugh that ravaged my throat. His small figure, crushed by such a big, marble column. Just like that. His reign of terror was ended. Flattened. I continued deliriously laughing, my voice growing more and more feral by the moment.

A large crack had broken my mothers Parian throne in two, as though struck down by lighting, smited by the vengeful Gods. My mother jumped off of it just in time, wide eyed and horrified, her face a shade of chalky grey. It would have split her in two if she hadn't abandoned the seat.

Screaming. There was so much screaming. How they feared the darkness. How they trembled in its sight. In its glory.

The darkness had never frightened me. I always embraced it, even before my magic. It always signified the unknown for me, hiding secrets just out of sight, the possibility of anything in the world appearing within it. The darkness had always signified hope—hope of something better waiting behind the veil of black, waiting to be uncovered.

It is too bad for them that I was now waiting in the darkness. The screaming continued, only now amplified.

"Eulalia" Paris whispered out, realizing that I was the cause of the earthquake that shook the Council Hall. I blinked, returning my sight to my body. Paris was pale, lips ajar as he breathed heavily.

"Eulalia, stop it" He repeated, shocked. The whites of his eyes were garish as he stared at me, wide-eyed. He looked cadaverous.

"They thought they could dispose of me so easily. They thought they could ravage me and wipe my existence from this world without any consequences" I hummed out, my voice oddly airy, "I am not a shadow Paris, and I am done hiding in them, making myself small for the convenience of others. They thought they could ruin me, but they are not The Bane. They are not my ruination. I am theirs"

The building began shaking even harder with my words. Rubble crashed to the ground even in the hall that Paris and I stood in, the ground rippling in waves beneath us. A marble column came groaning down, missing us by mere feet, rubble shards spraying in all directions. A wall of shadow stopped them midair before they could hit us, making them still and fall flat to the ground, inches away from our faces.

I was smiling faintly, my expression oddly peaceful. This was my natural state. I would only find peace in destruction. This was what I was destined for.

"Eulalia, please" Paris' voice sounded panicked. I looked over at him, observing his ashen expression. My face softened, as I brushed a shadow to his cheek, cupping his face with the darkness. Paris shuddered at the feel of it against his skin.

"They titled me The Bane for a reason, Paris" my voice was gentle as I spoke to him, "They knew that their actions would have consequences, yet they were too arrogant to realize that I would hold them accountable. They did not expect me to survive it. They raped and pillaged my mind, my body, and my soul, ruining every inch of my being. and believed that they would not pay for it. They believed that they would not have to pay. Well I will make them"

"Eulalia" Paris whispered out again, only this time it was softer, weaker, more desperate. He said my name like it was a plea, devastated by the circumstance in which he found us in. His eyes dropped, becoming glassy with liquid,  and his eyebrows furrowed upwards. He had lost the argument. He knew he had no right to ask me not to do what I planned. Even Paris—pure lovely, Paris—knew that they had earned their fate.

I wrapped my shadows around him gently, like a hug. He did not fight me as they swarmed around him, only looking at me with a defeated, tired expression on his face.

"I will see you on the other side, Paris" I whispered out, pressing a soft kiss to his cold lips, before nudging him through the shadow portal. He sunk back into them without fight, his body disappearing into the thicket of unnatural night. He looked lost in the darkness for a moment, staring at me with a hollow expression, floating adrift in a sea of black. He looked broken. Untethered.

And then he reappeared in the mortal world, under the sway of trees and golden sun. I could see the daylight streaming in from the other end, as the shadow portal closed in front of him, the devastation still evident on his expression, before blinking out completely.

I took a deep inhale, attempting to forget the look on his face, before smiling anew and calling out to the darkness, "Come my dears, we have souls to reap"