🦋ALTHEA
"Thal!" I screamed, reaching for him.
He looked up at me, his face a mask of agony. His small hands clawed at his throat, and as he opened his mouth to cry out, he didn't produce a sound. Instead, a plume of that same solid, oily smoke billowed from his lips, as if the darkness were hollowing him out from the inside. He retched again, his body convulsing as the shadows began to swallow his small frame.
"No!"
I lunged forward, expecting the darkness to burn or bite. But as my fingers touched the bellowing blackness, it didn't resist. It parted. The shadows recoiled from my touch like a scolded dog, bowing and swirling away from my skin with an almost submissive grace. It was as if the darkness recognized me.
From the phantom of a second it has touched me, my skin lit up with a wild jolt that I recognized like its wielder.
This was Thorne's shadow.
The tendrils of darkness that coiled and whipped at his behest.
