The world narrowed to the pulse of poison and the Shadow King's silent watch.
Elara stood at the edge of the silver circle, the cold, green fire of the braziers painting her skin in sickly hues. The blighted root throbbed before her, a heart of corrupted magic. The hunger inside her was no longer a whisper; it was a roar, a clawing desperation that drowned out the hum of the chamber, the scent of stone, even the formidable presence of Kaelen at her back.
Touch it.
His command echoed, not in the room, but in the hollow space of her fear. To do this was to cross a line she had drawn in her soul as a child. It was to willingly embrace the abomination.
But the cage of stone and silk had been its own kind of death. And Kaelen's offer—protection for utility, knowledge for service—was the only hand extended in the dark.
"How?" she asked, her voice a dry scrape. "It consumes magic. It will consume me."
"It consumes unshielded magic," Kaelen corrected, his tone that of a lecturer. He hadn't moved, but she felt his focus like a physical weight between her shoulder blades. "It is a scavenger, a parasite. It cannot feed on something that is itself a void. Your… nature… is not a conduit for power. It is the absence of it. That is my theory. Now, prove it."
A void. He saw her as empty. The irony was a bitter tang on her tongue. If only he knew the hunger that lived in that emptiness.
She closed her eyes, shutting out his watching gaze, the eerie room. She focused inward, on the gnawing pit in her core. She had spent a lifetime building walls against it, learning to siphon only the tiniest, most desperate sips to survive. Now, she had to do the opposite. She had to open the gate. Just a crack.
Tentatively, trembling, she lowered the mental barriers. Not all the way. Just enough to let the hunger's intent flow to her fingertips.
A shudder wracked her body. It felt like stepping to the edge of a bottomless well and leaning over. The pull originated deep within her, a magnetic, aching need directed at the shimmering corruption.
She stretched her hand out over the silver circle. The air above the root warped, rippling with heatless, sickly energy. The blight-light seemed to swell, sensing a presence.
"Do not reach for it with your will," Kaelen's voice came, low and steady, a mooring line in the storm of her panic. "Reach for it with your lack. Let it come to you."
It was an impossible instruction. But she tried. Instead of pulling, she focused on the emptiness within her, on the silent scream of the void. She held her hand open, an invitation.
For a moment, nothing. Then, a single, glowing tendril of the silver-blue corruption detached from the root. It moved like a seeking worm, sinuous and slow, drifting through the air toward her outstretched palm.
Revulsion choked her. Every instinct screamed to snatch her hand back. She held firm, her breath trapped in her lungs.
The tendril touched her skin.
A shock, cold and electric and profoundly wrong, jolted up her arm. It wasn't pain. It was… consumption in reverse. The blight wasn't attacking her. It was flowing into her. The moment it made contact with the channel of her hunger, it was siphoned, pulled down into the void within her.
The sensation was horrific and euphoric.
The gnawing hunger, ever-present, gave a sigh of terrible satisfaction. A wave of dizzying, alien energy—twisted, toxic, but potent—flooded her system. It was like drinking saltwater; it quenched a thirst only to create a deeper, more desperate one. Her veins lit up with faint, sickly silver traces beneath her skin before the void swallowed that, too, breaking it down, digesting the magic, leaving behind only a cold, oily residue of power.
The tendril vanished. A small, dark, brittle patch appeared on the root where it had been attached.
Elara stumbled back, breaking the connection. She clutched her hand to her chest, gasping. The skin was unmarked, but it felt scorched from the inside. The hunger was… quieter. Sated, for a fleeting moment. And in its place was a terrifying, exhilarating thrum of stolen power. Her senses felt sharper. The green flames of the braziers seemed to crackle with individual voices. She could feel the intricate web of containment magic in the silver circle. She could feel the vast, dark ocean of power that was Kaelen, standing so still behind her.
"Look," he commanded, his voice tight with a barely contained intensity.
She forced her eyes open. The root still pulsed, but the rhythm was altered. Where she had drawn from it, the corruption seemed less organized, frayed.
"You didn't just contain it," Kaelen said, stepping forward now. He didn't look at her face; he stared at her hand as if it were a newly discovered relic. "You unraveled it. You broke its cohesion." He finally lifted his gaze, and the storm in his eyes was alight with pure, undisguised avarice. "You can destroy it."
Elara's mind raced, trying to process the implications, the violation, the awful power of it. "What… what was that? What did I just do?"
"You confirmed my hypothesis," he said, a slow, triumphant smile spreading across his features. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of a strategist who has found the ultimate key to a locked door. "You are not a mage, Elara. You are an anti-mage. A void-weaver. A Siphon."
The word hung in the air between them, ancient and profane. He knew its name. Her secret had a name, and he knew it.
Terror, sharp and absolute, sliced through her. He would kill her now. He would see her for the monster she was.
But he didn't reach for a weapon. He took another step closer, his voice dropping to a fascinated murmur. "A creature of legend. A myth used to frighten Fae children. Beings who could unmake magic itself. I thought your kind were exterminated ages ago."
"I'm not a— I didn't know—" she stammered, backing away until her shoulders hit the cold stone wall.
"It doesn't matter what you are," he said, stopping an arm's length away, his presence dominating the small space. The predatory curiosity was gone, replaced by a chilling, practical certainty. "What matters is what you can do. This blight is a magical weapon. And you… you are the precise counter-weapon. This changes everything."
He paced away, a restless energy in his movements. "The traitor in my court, the source of this plague—they are using a tool. And I now have the tool to break it. Our bargain stands, but its terms have just been rewritten."
He turned back to her, his decision made. "You will no longer be a passive wife or a mere suspect. You will be my secret weapon. You will learn to control this power. You will help me hunt the origin of the blight. And in return, I will not only protect you from the court, I will help you master this… gift… so it doesn't master you."
He offered his hand, not in comfort, but in sealing a pact. "Do we have an accord, Siphon?"
Elara looked from his hand to his face, to the diminished, but still dangerous, blight-root. The hunger inside her was quiet, a sleeping beast fed its first real meal. The fear was still there, a cold knot in her stomach. But beneath it, something new stirred. Not just the thrum of stolen power, but a spark of… agency. For the first time since arriving in this beautiful hell, she had done something. She had changed something. She had a value beyond her political symbolism.
It was a deal with the devil. But the devil was offering her the keys to her own chains.
Slowly, she uncurled her hand from her chest. She did not take his offered hand. Instead, she looked him directly in the eye, the residue of the blight's power making her own gaze feel sharper, clearer.
"The lessons start now," she said, her voice no longer trembling. "And I have questions."
Kaelen's smile returned, thinner, more approving. He lowered his hand, acknowledging her unspoken terms. "Ask."
Elara took a steadying breath, the taste of poisoned magic still on her tongue. "What happens to a Siphon who takes in too much?"
The King of Shadows looked at her, and for the first time, she saw not a captor or a skeptic, but a co-conspirator staring into the same abyss.
"That," he said softly, "is what we are going to find out."