Page 56 of Stormvein
And then I feel something I never expected to ever feel again.
The return of my shadows.
The feeling transcends language. It’s beyond agony, beyond pleasure. It’s a reunion so profound I have no reference for it. In the tower, I was bound but never truly separated from them.Even when Sereven’s crystal broke my connection, I couldfeelthem even though they were out of reach. But the restraints completed what the crystal began. Total severance. Absolute isolation. A hollowing out of everything that made me who I am.
And now, what was torn away floods back. Now the void fills. What defines me returns.
They pour into me like a river breaking through a dam. But they’re not the same as they once were. They’ve changed, evolved by their journey through Ellie, by their time spent intertwined with her awakening power. Silver threads weave through darkness that was once absolute. Lightning cracks where only shadow-silence existed before.
Where shadow leads, storm will follow.
I’m unable to dismiss the prophecy manifesting within my own flesh. The dreams and omens are now taking physical form within me.
I gasp. The first true breath I’ve taken since capture. Shadows race through my body with a wild, desperate hunger, seeking every wound, every broken place. They remember these paths, these vessels, these chambers of muscle, bone, and blood. They reclaim territories surrendered to infection and death with a single-minded fury.
The corruption in the sword wound doesn’t stand a chance. Shadows tear into it with cold violence, with righteous rage at what was done to their host. The infection that has been slowly poisoning my blood shudders under their assault, death’s advance faltering for the first time in days. The wound that has festered since Ashenvale, when Sereven’s guard drove his blade between my ribs, begins to knit together at its edges.
My lungs clear in a rush that makes me cough up blood, leaving a black splash on Ellie’s shoulder. Shadows find fluid where only air should be, and they absorb it, pushing it out, clearing pathways for breath that feels sweet and sharpand necessary again. Every cough brings pain but also life, a reclamation of what was being stolen. Oxygen floods my blood, reaches my brain, and brings a new clarity that cuts through fever’s fog with the sharpness of a blade.
The second restraint fights back, the metal turning painfully cold against my damaged wrist, then burning hot, the temperature fluctuating wildly, as it refuses to surrender. The runes burned into its surface pulse with unnatural blue light, the same as Sereven’s crystal, while it fights to maintain its hold on me.
Inside me, pressure builds against the weakening barrier. The freed shadows collide with the restraint from within while another force, one filled with Ellie’s presence, pushes from the outside. The sensation is unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Power fighting against the binding from both sides, in a perfectly balanced battle.
When it shatters, the release is cataclysmic.
Where the first restraint’s breaking was a river,thisone is the ocean itself crashing through. Shadows surge into me with such force that my back arches despite broken ribs, despite flayed skin, despite wounds that should make movement impossible. A sound tears from my throat. Not quite a scream, but something primal, and broken, and relieved beyond measure.
Silver light joins the shadows, dancing through me, twining together in patterns I can feel but cannot see. They race along nerve pathways, reestablishing connections severed through torture. They flow through my blood, burning away infection with cold fire. They spread beneath my skin, seeking every injury carved into my flesh.
I feel it all. Every single moment of their return, their work, their fury at what was done to me. It borders on too much, too intense, too immediate after days of fading. It’s like being drowned and rescued, unmade and reborn in the same moment.
When they find the brand on my chest, their rage is palpable. They target dying tissue, separate it from living, pour into the wound’s edges, forcing it to knit together. The Authority symbol that Sereven pressed into my flesh with such satisfaction begins to lose its hold on me. The shadows attack it as if it’s a living thing, erasing the claim he tried to stamp upon my body.
They reach my back, where the whip laid flesh open to bone in some places. Their touch here changes, becomes gentler, almost sorrowful. They can’t heal this quickly. The damage is too extensive, but they begin the work that will take weeks to complete. I can feel them binding together what the torturer tore apart, creating paths for healing where there was only raw meat before.
Through it all, I can feel Ellie. Not only her physical presence, but heressence. Her silver light moves with my shadows, strengthening them, guiding them to places most damaged. Where they touch, where silver and shadow meet, something forms between us. A connection beyond physical, a resonance like nothing I’ve experienced before. It’s different from Stonehaven, different from Ashenvale. This is deeper, as if our very natures are intertwining.
I remember the night in Ashenvale, how her silver called to my shadows in a way I couldn’t understand. How our powers danced together. This is that connection magnified beyond imagination, forged in desperation and survival, when all barriers between us have been stripped away by necessity.
Her presence anchors me while the shadows work, as awareness returns in painful increments. I can feel her heartbeat against my chest, her breath against my neck, her fingers entwined with mine. I can feel her power flowing into me, freely given, a gift I have no right to take, but desperately need.
For the first time since my capture, since the crystal, since the restraints, I am not alone inside my skin. The void is filled.The emptiness recedes. The shadows—myshadows, changed but returned—flow through me, restored to their purpose.
My hand moves, fingers curling around Ellie’s, and the contact sends another surge along my nerve endings. Shadows leap in response to her touch, to her power, to her presence that somehow called them back from wherever they were scattered.
“Ellie.” Her name breaks on my lips, carrying all the gratitude I cannot express, all the wonder at what she’s done, all the debt I can never repay.
“I’m right here.” Her voice washes over me, warm and steady amidst the chaos of returning power. “I’ve got you.”
Thunder shatters the silence outside wherever we are. The storm responding to her emotions, to the power flowing between us, to the miracle of shadows returning from dissolution. The sound rumbles through stone and into my newly awakened senses.
“Rest.” Her fingers touch my face, carrying more tenderness than I deserve, more care than I’ve known in my entire adult life. “I won’t leave you.”
The shadows hear her promise. They settle deeper, continuing their work slower now that the initial crisis has passed. They move through my body with purpose, with memory, with determination to reclaim what was lost.
Consciousness begins to slip away. Not toward death this time, but toward a healing sleep. The difference is profound. One surrender meant oblivion. This surrender means chance, means possibility, means defiance.
I hold onto Ellie’s hand as darkness takes me, anchoring myself to her warmth, to her power, to her presence that somehow reached into the void and called me back.
