There is a kind of silence that belongs only to mortals.
It's fragile. Soft. The sound of wind weaving through laundry lines, of water drawn from a well, of footsteps light enough not to disturb the dust. I hadn't heard that kind of silence in years.
The hamlet lay in a valley carved between two sleeping hills — a scattering of thatched roofs and clay walls, their edges softened by fog and age. Smoke rose from hearths like the sighs of ghosts. From afar, it could have been mistaken for peace.
But I could smell fear even before I reached the gates.
Blood — faint but fresh — and the metallic tang of silver. Marcus's scouts had been here.
I walked through the wooden gate, hood drawn low. The villagers froze where they stood — a man dropping a bucket, a woman clutching her child, eyes widening at the stranger who moved like a shadow through their dawn.
It didn't matter how much I hid. The aura always betrayed me.
One whisper spread through the crowd, trembling and reverent:
"The Shadow Saint."
They said it the way one might say curse.
I wanted to tell them they were wrong. That saints don't kill. That salvation shouldn't come wrapped in darkness. But I didn't. Words were useless things these days.
Instead, I asked quietly, "Where are the scouts?"
A man stepped forward — older, thin, his face scarred by years of hard living. "Dead," he said. "We found them in the fields at sunrise. Burned."
My heart lurched. Burned.
Not by fire, I realized. By shadows. My shadows.
I looked at my hands — still faintly stained from the night before. I didn't remember using the power, only the rage that had followed the scent of silver, the screams that had chased me into dreams.
"They were hunting you," the man said. "They always are."
"And you still let me in?"
He smiled grimly. "You've done worse than them. And yet you're the only reason this village still stands."
That was the truth of it. I'd arrived here weeks ago — half-starved, half-mad — hiding from Marcus's trackers. When they came, I defended the people who gave me shelter. At first, they feared me. Then they began to depend on me.
Now, they called me their protector.
The word tasted wrong in my mouth.
...
I found her by the well.
A small girl, no older than seven, her hands cupped around a firefly. The glow lit her face in fragments — wide eyes, soft lips, a bruise along her jaw.
She didn't run when I approached. She only looked up and said, "You came back."
I frowned. "You remember me?"
She nodded. "Mama said you were an angel."
"Your mama was wrong."
"She said angels don't look like they do in the books," the girl continued matter-of-factly. "She said they come when people are scared."
I had no answer for that.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Elsin."
I knelt beside her. "Elsin, do you know what happens to angels when people stop believing in them?"
She tilted her head. "They disappear?"
"They fall."
She thought about that, then smiled sadly. "Then I'll keep believing."
Something in my chest cracked. I looked away quickly, afraid she'd see what lived behind my eyes — the endless, hungry dark that even I no longer understood.
The air shifted suddenly. A low vibration hummed through the ground.
Thunder.
But there was no storm.
It wasn't sound. It was sensation — deep, faint, familiar.
The bond.
It flared for a single heartbeat, then vanished. Like lightning far beyond the horizon.
I staggered back, breath sharp. My fingers twitched — the shadows responding instinctively.
Elsin frowned. "Are you sick?"
"No," I whispered. "Just… remembering."
...
That night, I couldn't sleep.
I sat on the roof of the chapel, watching mist curl around the graves below. The cross above the steeple was crooked, its shadow long and broken against the moonlight — like everything else in this world.
My mind wandered backward, unbidden.
To the streets before all of this.
I remembered cold rain and hunger. The way cobblestones scraped my knees as I ran from guards. The way bread tasted like heaven when I finally stole it.
I remembered a night under a collapsed bridge — shivering, clutching the stolen loaf, praying that no one would find me.
And then, a man's voice.
"Hungry, little one?"
Even now, the memory of him was smoke — curling, shifting, impossible to hold. He had stepped out of the shadows like a god wearing human skin. His eyes had been kind, his smile patient.
He had offered me a hand.
And I had taken it.
That was the night the hunger changed.
Not for food. For power. For belonging.
A part of me still missed the girl under the bridge — the one who had stolen to live, not to kill. The one who had believed that kindness was real.
I didn't know if that girl could exist anymore.
But when Elsin had smiled at me today, I'd seen a flicker of her — a reflection in the child's eyes. And for the first time in months, I didn't feel entirely monstrous.
...
The peace didn't last.
At dawn, the bells rang — a desperate, panicked sound.
I was already moving before the first scream.
The scouts had returned, not dead as the villagers had hoped, but more — twice as many, cloaked in crimson, Marcus's sigil carved into their armor. They came through the fog like wraiths, blades drawn, torches blazing.
Their leader rode at the front — Lucian's colors.
My chest tightened.
Lucian.
Marcus's right hand.
The man who had once promised to help me escape.
He dismounted, eyes scanning the village until they met mine. For a heartbeat, something unreadable passed between us. Recognition. Regret. Restraint.
Then he raised his sword.
"By order of Lord Marcus," he said, his voice ringing cold and clear, "the traitor known as Aria Valen is to be executed. Anyone who harbors her will share her fate."
The villagers froze. I could feel their fear like heat against my skin.
Lucian looked at me. "Come quietly, Aria. Don't make me do this."
I almost laughed. "Do what, Lucian? Pretend you have a choice?"
The torches flickered.
The shadows rose.
They came alive around me, swirling like smoke and ink. The villagers fell to their knees, praying, crying. Lucian's soldiers hesitated — just long enough.
I moved.
The world became black light — the air shredding as my power tore through it. The first row of soldiers vanished in a storm of shadow; their screams cut short. Others charged, and I felt their hearts as if they were fragile flames in my palms.
I snuffed them out.
Lucian's blade clashed against mine — steel singing against shadow.
For a moment, we were alone in the storm, his eyes meeting mine.
"Stop," he hissed. "You'll damn them all."
"They already are."
He faltered — a flicker of the man who had once pitied me. Then he attacked again, faster, harder. I parried, our blades locking, his breath ghosting across my face.
"You can't keep running forever," he said.
"Then catch me."
The shadows burst outward. The ground split beneath us. When the smoke cleared, he was gone — thrown back into the wreckage.
The village was burning.
I stood in the center of it all, surrounded by death. The survivors looked at me — not as savior, not even as monster.
As something between.
And for the first time, I didn't know the difference.
...
When the fire died, I searched the ruins for survivors.
Most were gone. Some had fled into the hills. A few huddled in the chapel, praying to gods that hadn't answered them in centuries.
Elsin was among them.
She ran to me, arms outstretched, but stopped when she saw the blood on my hands. Her little face twisted — confusion first, then fear.
I knelt slowly. "Elsin, it's over."
She shook her head. "You hurt them."
"They were trying to hurt you."
"They were people."
The words hit harder than any blade.
I wanted to tell her that they weren't. That they'd chosen their fate. But the truth was simpler.
They were people. So was I. So were all the monsters I'd ever killed.
I reached for her, but she stepped back. "You're not an angel," she whispered.
No. I wasn't.
I turned away before she could see the tears that burned without falling.
...
That night, I buried the dead myself.
The villagers didn't help. They watched from afar, whispering prayers that might have been curses.
The sky had gone blood-red by the time I finished. I knelt before the last grave — a nameless one — and pressed my palm to the earth.
The bond stirred again.
This time, it was clearer. Stronger. A heartbeat that wasn't mine, burning through the distance like fire through oil.
Liam.
He was alive.
But the warmth I felt wasn't comfort. It was heat — furious, consuming. The echo of something feral.
I pulled my hand back, trembling. The world around me seemed to tilt, the air thick with unseen voices. The shadows whispered warnings I couldn't understand.
He was alive.
And he was burning.
I closed my eyes.
"Don't," I whispered to the wind. "Don't make me your enemy."
The river below the hills answered with thunder.
And somewhere — far beyond the reach of this quiet village — I felt the faintest hint of his fire, pulsing in rhythm with my own darkness.
We were still bound.
Just no longer as lovers.
Now, as inevitable opposites.