Whispers in the Dark

The night stretched long, cloaked in silence and thick with the smell of blood and burned magic. Althea knelt beside Xanden’s motionless body, her palms glowing faintly with healing light. The warmth barely touched his skin anymore. Cassian hovered nearby, his own power spent and fractured, eyes rimmed red from exhaustion and fear.

“He’s not responding,” she whispered, her voice hollow. “I don’t understand… I should be able to—”

Cassian ran a hand through his hair, pacing. “You’re pouring too much into him. He’s not rejecting the healing—he’s… hiding. Or something in him is.”

Althea turned toward him, her face streaked with tears and fury. “You think he wants to be like this?”

“No,” Cassian said, kneeling beside her again. “I think something won’t let him wake up. Something old. Something we unleashed.”

They had tried everything. Spells ancient and forbidden. Potions, runes, chants. But Xanden remained still, his face pale, breath slow and strained. The light in him flickered like a candle in a storm.

The hours crawled by. The moon waned overhead. At some point, Cassian succumbed to exhaustion and slumped beside the bed. Althea stayed awake, her fingers lightly tracing the lines of Xanden’s cheek as though willing him to stir.

Then came the cold.

A sudden drop in the room’s warmth, as if the shadows were leaning in to breathe against her skin. Her eyelids grew heavy, and she blinked slowly—

—and found herself standing in a place that was not her own.

A blackened forest, where the trees bled ash and the stars were wrong. The air buzzed with a low hum, vibrating through her bones.

“You came,” said a voice.

Althea turned. The ancient entity stood before her—not in its monstrous form, but as a man draped in shadows and silver fire, beautiful in a way that broke sanity. His eyes were voids.

“What is this?” she asked, stepping back.

“A gift,” he said smoothly. “A meeting between fate and inevitability.”

“You’re inside my head.”

“I could be inside more than that,” he murmured, stepping forward. “You called me, little flame. When you reached through time and power to save your mate… it was me who answered. Not the magic. Not the stars. Me.”

“I didn’t ask for you.”

“You needed me. And now I want you.” His voice dripped with honey and rot. “Cast aside the weak. Come to me freely, and I will give you power enough to rip the stars from the sky. Enough to save him.”

She clenched her fists. “No.”

“You’re already mine,” he whispered, brushing a knuckle along her jaw. “You just don’t know it yet.”

The dream shattered.

Althea gasped awake, heart pounding, skin ice-cold, her hands trembling. Cassian stirred beside her.

“You okay?” he mumbled.

She didn’t answer. She just turned back to Xanden’s still form, brushing a trembling hand across his chest.

He was in her dreams. Watching. Wanting.

And she feared—no, knew—this was far from over.

The fire had burned low, nothing but a soft orange glow licking at the stone walls of the healing chamber. Cassian had long since stopped counting the hours. The endless attempts at mending Xanden’s wounds had taken everything out of them both, leaving Althea curled in exhaustion beside their unmoving mate.

Xanden hadn’t stirred—not once.

Cassian sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the heel of his hand against his brow. He hated this helplessness more than anything else. Magic pooled inside him, demanding release, but none of it worked. Nothing reached Xanden. His spirit felt… trapped. Caged in a way Cassian couldn’t understand. And that terrified him.

A soft murmur pulled him from his thoughts.

At first, he thought it was Xanden. But the voice was too light—too laced with something darker.

Althea.

She was twitching in her sleep, her fingers curled into the sheets, her breathing uneven. A shiver ran down her spine, and then her lips parted again.

“No… you said… I wasn’t yours…”

Cassian stiffened. He leaned closer.

Another whisper. Louder this time.

“I said I’d come willingly… but not them. Never them.”

He reached for her shoulder, gently. “Althea—wake up.”

But her head jerked to the side before he could touch her, and her eyes flew open.

Only they weren’t hers.

Black—whorled and starless—had swallowed the emerald green.

Cassian froze.

She blinked slowly, like she was still half asleep. Her body shifted, graceful and languid like a predator. Then that twisted grin curved her lips—mocking and wicked and far too familiar.

“You’re not supposed to be here,” she purred. “He and I were speaking.”

Cassian’s blood ran cold. “Who are you?”

She tilted her head, and just for a second, the blackness in her eyes flickered.

“Don’t you recognize me, Consort?” she said. “You tasted me the night you bonded her.”

Cassian lunged forward, his hand grabbing her wrist.

Althea gasped.

In an instant, the black vanished.

Her eyes—green again—widened in shock as she yanked away from him, breathing hard and clutching her head.

“What… Cassian, what just happened?”

His chest was heaving, heart thundering with rage and panic.

“You were speaking to him. In your sleep. He was in you.”

Althea stared, horrified. “I—I didn’t mean to. I didn’t know I—”

“He wants you, Althea. He’s already in your dreams. Now he’s crawling into your skin.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, shaking.

“I can feel him. Whispering. Watching. Ever since the sanctum… something inside me cracked open. I think he’s trying to… mark me.”

Cassian’s jaw clenched. “He’ll have to kill me first.”

Althea looked past him, toward Xanden’s still form.

A new fear bloomed behind her eyes. “What if that’s the price?”

Cassian turned, gaze locking on their mate.

Still unmoving.

Still cold.

Still not coming back.

“Then we burn the world before we pay it.”