Malachi
The heavy oakof the door groaned on its hinges as I shut it. I lingered for a moment, rolling my shoulders to shake off the weight of what had just transpired.
I let her fall.
I could have held on longer. Could have steadied her, even. But she would need to learn how to pick herself back up in a place like this. Nyxarra did not tolerate the weak. It swallowed them whole.
The corridor stretched before me, its towering stone walls whispering with unseen movement. Shadows curled and shifted in the torchlight, licking against the carved pillars. Once, they had been the disciplined sentinels of Eryndis—obedient, purposeful, a choir that moved as one. But since her banishment, they had grown feral. Still bound to Nyxarra but untethered, restless. They obeyed me, for now, though each command felt more like negotiation than control. The city had changed with her absence. So had I.
My boots echoed against the black marble, each step sharp.The castle’s beauty was a cold thing. The walls bore reliefs of goddesses and creatures long forgotten, their stone faces eroded by time, yet their eyes seeming to watch as I passed.
The kitchen doors ahead were cracked just enough to leak heat and winter spices. A Keeper rushed past, balancing a silver tray of polished, crimson apples. I plucked one from the tray without slowing, ignoring the wide-eyed glance she spared before scurrying on.
The apple sat heavy in my palm and cool against my skin. The skin gave against the sharp point of my canines with a quiet pop, and juice flooded my mouth—decadent, almost cloying. The clean puncture, the rush of sweetness, called up another kind of bite. My kind did not need blood to endure—we learned to live without it long ago. But blood is power. Memory. Bond. And no fruit, no wine, could quiet the body’s remembrance of that.
I tossed the half-eaten fruit into the dark. Shadow-hands caught it and vanished. Shadow-elves fed on what Kaelith allowed them, scavenging scraps with a loyalty born of desperation. Hunger, I had learned, bound tighter than iron ever could.
Up the spiral staircase, past tall windows furred with mist, the city stretched below—spires and bridges ghosted by fog, twilight pressed against glass. I paused outside Kaelith’s door, knuckles to blackwood.
“Enter,” came the reply, smooth and impatient.
I stepped inside, the scent of burnt sage and wine thick in the air. The room was sumptuous—velvet curtains the color of dried blood, mirrored walls etched with celestial runes, and marble floors veined with silver and obsidian. A chandelier of crystal fangs hung from the ceiling, catching candlelight in fractured glints.
Kaelith lounged in his chair, legs stretched lazily before him, a goblet of wine resting untouched at his side. His white hair,usually neatly tied at the nape of his neck, hung loosely over one shoulder. His eyes slid to me, bright with that practiced charm that always looked like hunger if you stared too long.
A Keeper slipped past me, pulling the sleeve of her dress back into place as she hurried toward the door, her face ducked low. Kaelith barely acknowledged her departure, but the amused twitch of his lips told me enough. Once, we had all served Eryndis—Keepers of her thresholds, spared from the Purge only by blood oath to serve Nyxarra instead. We weren’t born to it—we chose it. Keepers were a purpose. “Enjoying yourself?” I asked dryly, striding toward the center of the room.
The corner of his mouth hooked upward as he lifted his goblet, swirling the dark liquid within. “Enjoyment is a necessity, Malachi. You should indulge in it sometime.”
I ignored the bait and moved closer. “Someone crossed the Veil. Through the mist. All the way to the gates.”
Kaelith set his goblet down, his interest sharpening. “An intruder.” His smile stretched. “Or perhaps… a guest.” He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. “Tell me.”
I gave him the shape of it—how she moved, how the mist recoiled, the dream I wove and the moment it bent to her instead of me. Then her name.
“Moirae.”
His fingers stilled on the stem of his glass. Surprise flared and died, swallowed by calculation.
“So the ash had a spark left after all,” he murmured, half to himself. “And you’re certain?”
By the time I nodded, his mind was already building ladders. I’d known Kaelith since we were boys. If he could turn something to his benefit, he would.
Kaelith exhaled, a slow, thoughtful sound.
“So,” he murmured, more to himself than to me, “a Moirae… after all these years.” He’d been convinced the Moirae line was the key to unlocking everything. For years, he had paid handsomely for whispers—spies haunting the Synnex markets, chasing the name through bloodlines and rumor. Each tale ended the same: the Moirae line reduced to ash, their children powerless, their fire long extinguished by fear.
Even if the name surfaced in small, forgotten corners of Synnex, no one believed it anymore. The Moirae were a curse, a myth mothers used to hush their children. No one looks for what they’ve already buried.
Kaelith’s fingers drummed against the armrest, already mapping out his next move. A smile tugged at his lips, sharp and hungry. Power had always been his truest desire, and an opportunity had just been laid at his feet.
“She is not like the others,” I said. “The mist drew close, then recoiled—as though it sensed her. But the shadows lingered. They touched her like they knew her. I wove the dream’s shape, but she bent it to her will—turned my own creation against me, as if she’d always known how. And yet—” I paused, studying the memory as it replayed in my mind, “—it seems she doesn’t even know what she carries.”
“Ignorance is a gift,” he said lightly. “It makes loyalty so much easier to shape.”
Kaelith liked to wear the crown as if it had always been his. But I remembered Kaelith after the Purge—his head bowed beneath King Talon’s hand, wine-dark blood dripping from my palm onto an onyx blade. The blade that swore him crown and me chains, both bound in the same breath. I still felt that sting of onyx on my palm.
He rose from his chair, stretching with the ease of a man who believed outcomes bent to him alone. Amusement tugged at his lips as he rolled the stem of his goblet between his fingers.