The Mother who Fed the Dark
His small fingers were ice-cold, and he whispered, “It… it wants more. It wants me again.”
The eldest child tightened his grip. “I won’t let it.” But even as he spoke, doubt gnawed at him. The Darkness had already claimed one—the middle child—and had twisted him into a vessel. Resistance alone might not save them.
Above, in the decaying room that had once been Sipho’s sanctuary, the Keeper stirred. His skin was paler than ever, veins blackened, and his eyes burned with a feverish glow. He leaned over the cracked mirror, tracing a pattern in the air with a trembling finger. Shadows coiled around him like serpents, whispering, guiding, demanding.