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.
