We survived.
That was the lie I kept telling myself.
Days had passed since the fight with the Shadow Guardian, but my body refused to move on. Pain lived in my chest now—deep, constant, intimate. Every breath scraped against the wound beneath the bandages, shallow and careful, like my lungs were afraid to remind me how close I was to breaking.
I was alive.
That didn't mean I was whole.
Trace lay a short distance away, curled on her side. Her breathing was uneven, fragile. She hadn't truly woken since she healed me. I watched her chest rise and fall, each breath slower than the last.
She saved me.
And it cost her more than it should have.
The thought twisted in my gut. If I closed my eyes too long, I imagined her not waking at all—and the fear snapped me back every time.
Sare was still there. She always was.
She hadn't slept much. She sat nearby, unmoving, her attention stretched outward into the dark—listening, measuring, waiting. Without her, we wouldn't have survived these days.
"Asher."
Her voice was quiet. Careful.
I turned my head toward her. The motion sent a sharp flare of pain through my chest, stealing my breath for a moment. I swallowed it down.
She stood closer now, blindfold creased where it rested against her brow.
"We're out of food," she said softly. "We need more."
I exhaled slowly, the sound empty and tired.
"What do we need to do?" I asked.
She hesitated.
"I'm sorry," she said. "But we need to hunt. If we don't, we'll starve before either of you recover."
The word hunt sat heavy between us.
"How many are on the second floor?" I asked.
"A lot," she admitted.
Silence pressed in.
"But we can't fight them head-on," she continued. "We need one. Just one." Her face turned fully toward me. "I need you."
I frowned. "Me?"
"You can mask your presence," she said. "And you can catch it off guard. That's the only way this works."
The weight of her words settled on my shoulders, heavier than the pain.
"And after?" I asked quietly.
"As soon as it's dead, you go back," she said. "I'll drag it here. I'll finish it if I have to."
She was lying again. Not fully—but enough.
I didn't argue.
I pushed myself up.
Pain tore through my chest, sudden and brutal. My legs trembled as I forced myself upright, vision dimming as I fought to stay conscious. I clenched my jaw, refusing to fall.
This wasn't bravery.
It was obligation.
If I didn't do this, we'd all die.
My head dipped forward as I steadied myself, breath shallow and burning.
Survival wasn't about strength anymore.
It was about being useful, even when you were already breaking.
I called my shadow to me, letting it crawl up my body and wrap around my limbs, lending me what little physical strength it could.
Before it fully merged, it paused.
Then it pointed at the ground.
I frowned. It dove—slipping into the floor like it had done countless times before—then reemerged a few steps away.
"I know you can do that," I muttered, my voice rough. I didn't have the energy for this. "What of it?"
The shadow shook its head slowly.
"Let's go," I said, irritation bleeding into my tone. "We don't have time. If we stall, we fail."
It pointed at us—at me—then back to the ground.
"Listen," I snapped, my voice hoarse now. "I don't have time for this."
My legs gave out before I finished the thought.
I dropped to one knee, breath ripping out of me in a sharp, broken gasp. Pain flared through my chest, bright and unforgiving. I braced myself with one hand against the stone, fingers shaking.
"Just—" I swallowed. "Just hurry up and engulf my body."
The desperation in my voice surprised even me.
Sare stepped closer. "Asher," she said carefully. "What's wrong?"
"I don't know," I said between breaths. "My shadow isn't listening."
The shadow looked at me.
Then it pointed at itself.
Then at me.
Then at the floor again.
Sare's brow furrowed. She didn't look at me—she watched the shadow instead.
"No," she said quietly. "You aren't listening to him."
"What?" I rasped, still on the ground.
"I think," she continued, eyes fixed on the movement, "he's trying to tell you something."
The shadow nodded.
I exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down my face. "Fine," I muttered. "What is it you need?"
The shadow repeated the motion once more—pointing, then diving into the ground.
This time, when it emerged, it didn't stop.
It surged forward and engulfed me completely.
The realization hit like a blow.
If he can shadow dive…
Why can't I—when he's part of me?
I didn't think. I just reached for the sensation, for the way the darkness folded and bent.
And then—
I was gone.
Not dead. Not unconscious.
Just… elsewhere.
I existed in a pit of shadow, weightless and cold, yet I could still see the world above as if through a veil. Sare. Trace. The stone beneath their feet. Everything felt distant, muted—like I had stepped out of the world without leaving it.
For a brief, terrifying moment, a thought surfaced.
Am I still someone… if I'm not really here?
I forced myself back.
The world snapped into place, pain and all.
I sucked in a breath and looked up at Sare. "This," I said quietly, voice steadier than I felt. "This will help me lurk."
Sare studied me for a long moment.
Then she nodded. "Good," she said. "Then we move carefully."
We moved toward the stairs.
I forced myself to the front, even as my chest burned with every step. Once we reached them, I paused.
"When it's dead," I said quietly, my voice thin, "run in and take the body."
Sare nodded. "Be careful."
I masked my presence and let myself sink deeper.
I didn't step into the room.
I slid beneath it.
Shadow swallowed me whole, and the world above dulled into something distant and muffled. I drifted forward, not walking, not crawling—just existing in the space beneath everything.
It felt wrong.
Not painful. Just… detached. Like I had loosened my grip on myself and something else had taken over holding the pieces together.
When I passed the threshold, the weight changed.
Even from below, I could feel them.
Dozens of presences crowded the room above me—weak individually, but layered thick enough to press down through the stone. They moved slowly, mindlessly, their forms bleeding into the darkness like unfinished thoughts.
Knights.
That was the shape my mind kept giving them. Hollow helms. Broken silhouettes. Echoes of armor that no longer remembered what it protected.
Low-ranking.
It didn't matter.
If we faced them head-on, we would die.
Quietly.
Completely.
I let myself drift closer to the one nearest the door.
Even from beneath the floor, I could feel it—its presence thin and hollow, pacing without purpose.
I drew Midnight in a reverse grip.
The hilt flared to life in my hand, its glow sharp and vivid against the darkness, almost painfully bright. It shouldn't have been possible to see it so clearly down here, yet it burned like a quiet warning.
The blade, however—
Nothing.
Pitch black. Absolute. So dark it devoured the light around it, leaving only the certainty of its edge. I couldn't see where it began or ended. I only knew it was there because my hand remembered its weight.
The creature above me paused.
I froze.
It didn't see me. It couldn't.
I waited until it drifted just a step closer to the entrance.
Then I rose.
Not fully. Just enough.
My arm broke the surface of the shadow and drove the blade upward into the space where its neck should have been.
The resistance was soft. Wrong.
The thing shuddered once—no scream, no clang of metal—just a faint ripple through the darkness before it went still.
I sank back under immediately.
One kill.
No triumph.
Only the sudden awareness that I had done it without ever really being there.
As I drifted away with the body's weight tugging above me, a thought surfaced uninvited.
How long can I stay like this… before I forget what it feels like to stand?