Theron’s eyes lit... slowly at first, then with a returning, dangerous brilliance, as he lifted his gaze toward his father.

Around him, the shadows had changed.

They were no longer the suffocating, parasitic tendrils that had drained him moments ago. These were different, fluid, luminous in their own strange way, like silken ribbons caught in a silent current. They rose and curled around him as sentinels. As guardians.

They stood with him, as if they chose him to shield.

Edric Vantaris felt it before he fully understood it—the sharp, biting recoil as the shadows he commanded were torn from his control and devoured. Those ethereal ribbons fluttered between him and the Crown Prince, swallowing his power without resistance, without effort, as though his mastery meant nothing before them.

A strangled breath left him as he clutched his chest, staggering back a step.

Still... instinct overrode fear.

He reached forward, forcing himself upright, placing himself between the King and the anomaly unfolding before them.

His mind raced.

That girl...

He felt a small part of her power when she broke the circle back home. He thought that was the best of her. But this...

And... She was supposed to be in the Arcanum.

So how...? How could her presence be felt here? How could her shadow reach this far?

The King’s gaze narrowed, fixed upon the shifting phenomenon.

Theron rose... Slowly... Steadily.

And as he did, a low sound left him that was not quite laughter and not quite breath. It was something deeper. Something darker.

Mocking.

"You called her useless..." he said, his voice dropping, each word carrying a quiet, lethal weight. "You questioned her worth..."

He tilted his head slightly, eyes now burning with a clarity that hadn’t been there moments ago. The red had not vanished, but it had steadied, sharpened into something far more controlled... far more dangerous.

The shadows curled closer.

They brushed against him, not clinging, not consuming... but soothing and caressing, as if answering something unspoken within him. As if... recognizing him.

And yet... There was something more; something the King could not see and not understand. His gaze hardened as realization, unwelcome and impossible, began to form.

Light-bending and shadow-bending were opposites.

By all laws known to him, shadows drained. They devoured. Unlike light that sustained life, shadows hollowed out what they touched.

And yet...

The more those ribbons coiled around Theron, the stronger he became.

Color returned to his face. His breathing steadied. The tension in his limbs eased, not into weakness, but into readiness.

He was recovering.

No... He was being restored and rejuvenated by the shadows curling around him. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

The King’s jaw tightened.

Impossible...

And yet there it was. The shadows were not weakening him. They were feeding him. Healing him.

The idea was absurd. It defied everything he knew, everything he had built his understanding upon, and still, it stood before him, undeniable.

The ribbons thickened, their movement growing more assured, more vibrant, as if they drew strength from the very defiance of the moment.

They danced around Theron—fierce, protective, almost reverent. The token glowed more fiercely beneath his foot.

And at their center... He stood, fully upright and unbroken.

The circle beneath his feet flickered violently, its glow stuttering, cracking under a force it had never been designed to contain.

The last of its hold slipped.

Theron did not move.

He no longer needed to.

The room had already begun to bend around him, the balance of power shifting with every breath, every trembling pulse of shadow curling at his side like a living tide that had chosen him over the force trying to crush him.

He lifted his chin and spread his arms slightly, as though inviting the room itself to witness what had been denied to him a moment ago.

"Can you see her worth now?" he asked.

The shadows that had nearly dragged Edric into unconsciousness now coiled around Theron’s arms with unnerving obedience, no longer wild or feral, but precise, almost affectionate, like a trained beast returning to the hand of the one it trusted. Their dark ribbons brushed over his skin in restless waves, and with each passing second, his strength returned. Color seeped back into his face. The harsh tension in his limbs eased. His breathing deepened.

The King faltered.

He took an involuntary step back, one hand pressing against his chest as if the force of the broken circle had struck him internally. His eyes lost their unnatural fox-like glow, the brilliance draining from them as the backlash reached him. Edric moved at once, shifting instinctively to shield him, while the guards tightened their formation and stepped closer, their caution sharpening into alarm.

And then, from the tips of Theron’s fingers, light sparked again.

Thin at first.

Then brighter.

Alive.

Theron’s smirk slowly shifted, hardening into something far more dangerous. The amusement that had once touched his mouth vanished, replaced by a grim, focused fury that made the air around him feel tighter, sharper, as though even the room knew better than to breathe too loudly. His gaze fixed on his father.

He looked almost drunk on power.

Not his own alone.

Aveline’s too.

The King saw it before Theron fully acted on it. He felt the change, the dangerous expansion of Theron’s strength, and knew with sudden, terrible clarity what was coming. Theron was no longer fighting from desperation. He was fighting with something deeper now—something borrowed, something shared, something that made him feel untouchable.

And the King reacted on instinct.

He drew his sword.

The steel rang softly as it cleared the sheath, and then he lunged.

Theron, who had been on the verge of reaching for Aveline through the token’s fading connection, turned just in time to see the blade come for him. His lips curved into a sharp, almost mocking smile.

"You are going to kill me now?" he asked.

There was pride in the question. Pride, and a reckless kind of certainty. He had Aveline’s power flowing through him now, warm and fierce in his veins, and it made him feel invincible. A mere sword did not seem enough to touch him anymore.

Or so he thought.

He lifted one hand, intending to blind his father with a burst of light before moving. It flared instantly from his palm, brilliant enough to wash the space in white.

But the King did not hesitate.

Even as he fell forward, he did not drive the sword toward Theron.

He dropped to one knee with the blade still raised high, his momentum carrying him down just long enough to bring the hilt crashing downward with brutal precision.

Not against Theron.

Against the token.

The impact landed hard.

The wooden rune shattered.

The glow died at once.

Its pieces scattered across the floor, dull and broken, no longer carrying even the faintest trace of light.

And with that—

The bond snapped.

Whatever fragile connection had linked Theron and Aveline broke in a single, merciless instant.

Theron’s breath caught.

His knees hit the ground.

He clutched his chest as he felt that snap... that tear that happened to their connection.

"Ahhh!" he screamed as he felt nothing.