Lindarion stood at the center, chest bare, sweat running down the cut of his shoulders. His coat, with the hidden blade beneath, lay folded over a crate nearby. In his hands gleamed Zerathis. The weapon pulsed with a dark red light that coiled faintly, like embers trapped beneath black glass. Each swing cut the air with a low hum, as though the blade sang its own hunger.
Ashwing lounged in lizard form on Nysha’s lap at the edge of the chamber, his scaled body sprawled as though he’d claimed her as his personal cushion. She sat cross-legged on a flat stone, gray skin glowing faintly in the torchlight, her red eyes fixed on Lindarion.
For hours, the rhythm repeated: a step, a slash, a burst of mana so violent the walls cracked. Stones fell in small showers, dust coating the air. Lindarion’s face remained cold, but there was a fury in the way he drove the blade, as though every cut sought to erase an enemy that wasn’t there.
"Again," he muttered to himself. "Stronger."
He let lightning surge through his arm, bright veins of blue crawling along the blade, then swung. The impact carved a trench into the sand and left the air reeking of ozone.
He shifted to flame, the sword igniting with white fire, the heat forcing Nysha to shield her eyes. Another slash sent fire arcing across the chamber like a whip.
Then ice. Then astral. Then blood, the blade drinking greedily before a crimson arc carved into the ground.
Each affinity, raw and brutal.
But when the torchlight dimmed slightly, and the corners of the chamber seemed to stretch unnaturally long, Nysha leaned forward.
"You’re doing it wrong."
Lindarion froze mid-swing. His head turned, eyes narrowing. "What?"
Nysha’s hand rested on Ashwing’s scaled back. The dragon rumbled softly but didn’t move. Her red eyes locked on Lindarion.
"Darkness," she said. "You use it like fire. Like lightning. You blast, you burn, you crush. That isn’t how it works."
Lindarion lowered the blade slightly, though his knuckles stayed white on the hilt. "I’ve mastered more affinities than anyone alive. Don’t lecture me about control."
"I’m not lecturing," she said calmly. "I’m watching. And I see someone who doesn’t understand the shadow he carries."
The words slid under his skin like barbs.
Lindarion turned sharply, swinging the sword one-handed. A black wave of darkness surged from the edge, crashing against the far wall in a violent roar. The stone shuddered, fissures cracking outward.
He looked back at her, expression flat. "You call that misunderstanding?"
Nysha didn’t even flinch. She stroked Ashwing absently, the dragon chirping in small pleasure. "Yes."
Lindarion’s jaw clenched. He drove Zerathis into the ground, the blade sinking half its length into stone as though the rock were water. The air in the chamber thickened, tension rolling off him like a storm.
"Explain," he said at last. His voice was quiet, but the edge in it promised danger if she wasted his time.
Nysha tilted her head slightly, considering. Her priestess robes, patched and simple, seemed almost absurd against the power radiating from him. Yet her voice was steady when she spoke.
"Darkness isn’t about force. It’s about absence. The unseen. The hidden. It’s the space between breaths, the silence after a heartbeat. You wield it like a hammer. But shadow isn’t a hammer. It’s a knife at the throat you never saw coming."
Lindarion’s eyes flickered. He hated to admit it, but something in her words struck. He remembered the Sword Saint’s blade flashing faster than sight, remembered how his darkness affinity had done nothing but add another brute slash against an enemy too precise, too sharp.
Nysha leaned forward. "You think of affinities as weapons. Fire burns. Ice freezes. Lightning shatters. But shadow... shadow conceals. It devours light, blinds eyes, drowns sound. You don’t burn with it. You erase."
Lindarion’s brows drew tight, but he didn’t interrupt.
"Tell me, Lindarion," she continued, voice low, almost conspiratorial. "When you walk into a room, does the darkness announce itself? Or is it already there, waiting, unnoticed, until it’s too late?"
The words slid through him like cold water. He thought of his fights, of his need to overwhelm, to dominate, to break everything before him. And he thought of Ouroboros, her voice, her effortless mastery of shadows in that endless black space.
He had been wielding it wrong. Brutally wrong.
Still, pride burned in his chest. "And what would you know of it? You’re a priestess, not a warrior."
Nysha’s gaze didn’t waver. "I was raised in the dark. The old temples worship shadows, not fire or sky. I know what I see."
Ashwing lifted his head from her lap, eyes glinting as if amused. His tiny lizard mouth parted in a toothy grin before he flopped back down with a huff.
Lindarion exhaled sharply, almost a laugh but edged with frustration. He pulled Zerathis free from the floor, the stone groaning as if relieved of its weight.
Nysha blinked. "What?"
"You think I’m using it wrong. Prove it." He stepped back, blade angled downward, black smoke curling faintly from its edge. "Show me how shadows should move."
For the first time since she’d met him, Nysha hesitated. Her hands tightened in her lap. "I’m not... I don’t fight."
"Then don’t fight." His voice was sharp. "Demonstrate."
The silence stretched again, broken only by the faint drip of water in the cavern. Finally, Nysha rose. Ashwing slid off her lap with a chirp of protest, his tail curling around himself.
She stepped into the circle opposite Lindarion, barefoot, her gray skin seeming to merge with the dim light. No weapon in her hands, no armor on her body. Only her steady breath.
"Watch," she said softly.
The torches flickered. One by one, their flames guttered low, though no wind stirred. The shadows on the walls deepened, stretched, shifting strangely.
Lindarion’s eyes narrowed.
The darkness didn’t strike. It didn’t roar. It simply... swallowed. The chamber seemed smaller, tighter, as though the light could no longer find space to exist.
He blinked, and for an instant, Nysha wasn’t where she had been. She was already behind him, her bare feet making no sound.
His instincts flared. He turned, Zerathis humming as he slashed, but the blade cut only air. Nysha’s form blurred, shadows clinging to her, and when she reappeared, she was at the edge of the chamber again, calm as if she’d never moved.
Lindarion’s heart beat faster. Not from fear, but recognition.
This was what his darkness affinity had never been. Not a storm. A silence. Not a hammer. A void.
Nysha let the shadows recede, the torches steadying once more. She exhaled softly and sat again, folding her hands in her lap.
"That," she said, "is how you use it."
The chamber was silent but for Lindarion’s breath.
He stared at her, then at Zerathis. His grip tightened. For the first time in a long while, the prince of a thousand affinities felt the sting of inadequacy.
And for the first time in even longer, he welcomed it.