Chapter 165 Hundred and sixty eight

Chapter 165 Hundred and sixty eight
“Sienna… open your eyes.”

The voice drifted through the darkness like a trembling thread of sound, too soft to grasp, too familiar to ignore. Sienna forced her lashes apart, expecting to see the ruined forest or the tear swallowing her whole. Instead she found herself suspended in a vast, endless void where light and shadow twisted together like smoke. Her feet weren’t touching ground. There was no ground. Only shifting glimmers beneath her that mirrored pieces of the world she’d left behind, fragments of broken trees, shards of moonlight, flickers of faces she loved and feared.

“Where am I?” she whispered.

A soft pulse answered her, vibrating through the void. Her own heartbeat echoed back strangely, louder than it should’ve been, as though the air itself resonated with her.

“This place isn’t meant for you,” another voice said, this time behind her, sharp and raw.

She turned, breath catching when she saw him.

“Ryder…”

He stood a few paces away, his form half-solid, half-shadow. His shoulders rose and fell too fast, each breath looking like a battle he was losing. His eyes glowed faintly, not with the warmth she remembered but with the dim light of something unraveling inside him. The darkness curled around his arms and legs like smoke trying to drag him deeper, threads of shadow flickering through his skin.

“Why are you here?” Ryder rasped. “You weren’t supposed to follow.”

She stepped toward him without hesitation. “You called me.”

His jaw clenched. “That wasn’t a call, Sienna. That was a warning.”

“Well, I didn’t listen.”

“You never do,” he muttered, but the exhaustion in his voice softened the words. “And now you’re trapped.”

She reached for his hand. “Then we’re trapped together, ”

He jerked back before she could touch him. “Don’t. The shadows are feeding on me. If you touch me now, they’ll taste you.”

She ignored the sting of his rejection and studied him closely. His silhouette flickered, fading in and out. His outline blurred like a candle burning too close to the edge of itself. “Ryder… how long have you been like this?”

“Time doesn’t exist here the way it does outside.” He glanced into the void, muscles tensing as if listening to something she couldn’t hear. “It’s been long enough.”

“Long enough for what?”

“Long enough for her to start erasing me.”

The shadows around him tightened, and he staggered forward, gripping his chest as if something inside him clawed for escape. Sienna lunged, catching him before he fell, her arms wrapping around him despite his attempt to pull away. The moment her skin touched his, a violent jolt tore through her, silver light clashing with shadow like lightning hitting water. Her breath hitched as the sensation ripped through her spine, but she held him tighter.

He gasped. “Sienna, no, let go, I don’t want to hurt you, ”

“You won’t,” she whispered fiercely. “No matter what she does to you, you won’t.”

He collapsed against her, his forehead falling to her shoulder, breath shaking as though even speaking required strength he no longer had. The shadows hissed around them, recoiling from the silver flicker pulsing beneath Sienna’s skin.

“Your power…” Ryder murmured, voice hoarse. “It’s different.”

“You’re different too,” she whispered. “But you’re still mine.”

He closed his eyes at that, a sound almost like a broken laugh escaping him. “I wish that were enough.”

Sienna cupped his face, lifting it so he had to look at her. “It is enough.”

“No.” His voice cracked. “It’s the reason Lunaris is destroying me.”

Sienna stiffened. “What do you mean?”

He pulled away from her arms and turned toward the shimmering expanse of the void. “This place is alive, Sienna. It’s the place between breath and silence. Shadow and light. Death and the echo before it. Lunaris dragged me here because she can’t kill me as long as you love me.”

Sienna’s heart dropped. “She said something like that when she branded you.”

“She marked me with shadow, Sienna. And you with moonlight. And now both are pulling at me like opposing tides. The more I try to return to your world, the more I fade. And the more you try to reach me”, he looked at her with tortured eyes, “the more she’ll take from you too.”

Sienna stepped closer, refusing to flinch. “Then we’ll fight her.”

Ryder gave her a long, pained look. “You don’t understand. There is no fighting a goddess. There is only obeying or being undone.”

“Then I’ll be undone with you.”

“No!” His shout reverberated through the realm, stirring the shadows into a frenzy. “You say that now, but you don’t know what it means.”

“Explain it to me.”

He stared into the swirling void, his chest rising and falling with heavy breaths. “This place is a path. A bridge only the dead or the damned cross. Lunaris keeps me here because she wants to separate us until your bond with me breaks. Once it does, the curse completes. I disappear. And you ascend.”

“Ascend?” Sienna whispered.

“As a goddess,” Ryder said bitterly. “Her successor. Her puppet. She thinks your power is strong enough to replace her, if she tears the human part out of you.”

“So she wants to kill what I feel for you.”

“She wants to kill you,” Ryder corrected. “Or the part of you that matters.”

Sienna shook her head. “I won’t let her win.”

“You already walked into her realm,” Ryder reminded her quietly. “You’re standing in her hand.”

Sienna turned slowly, taking in the vast emptiness. The shadows shifted around them like restless spirits, whispering fragments of voices she couldn’t understand. The space twisted and flexed like a living thing, stretching endlessly into the dark. The only constant was the thin thread of moonlight trembling beneath her feet.

“She wants me to lose you,” Sienna whispered.

Ryder’s expression softened, pain flickering behind his eyes. “She wants you to lose everything that keeps you mortal.”

“I’m not losing you.”

“You might not have a choice.”

She stepped toward him again, ignoring the way the shadows hissed, and took his hand before he could pull away. His fingers trembled in hers, not from fear, but from the effort it took to keep them solid.

“I always have a choice,” she said softly. “And I choose you.”

Ryder’s breath caught. For a moment, he seemed almost whole. His form stabilized under her touch, the darkness retreating ever so slightly, as though her presence disrupted whatever curse was dissolving him. His thumb brushed her wrist, slow and reverent.

“Sienna,” he whispered. “You have no idea what you’re risking.”

“You’re worth the risk.”

He exhaled shakily. “Say that again.”

“You’re worth everything,” she said, her voice steady. “I don’t care where Lunaris drags you or what shadows try to take you. If you fade, I fade. If you fall, I fall with you.”

For a heartbeat, Ryder closed his eyes, the kind of expression someone wears when given a mercy they don’t think they deserve. But the shadows surged behind him, swirling faster, sensing the defiance rising between them.

Ryder opened his eyes. “Sienna… the path is shifting.”

A tremor rippled beneath them. The moonlit threads at her feet began to twist, splitting into multiple branching trails that extended into the void like veins of light. Each one pulsed with a different rhythm.

“What’s happening?” she asked.

“The realm is choosing your path,” Ryder said. “She’s giving you a way out.”

Sienna shook her head immediately. “I’m not leaving without you.”

Ryder stepped closer, pressing his forehead to hers. “One of these paths will take you back to the waking world. One will trap you here forever. And one will bring you to me. But if you choose wrong…”

She whispered, “I won’t.”

Another tremor shook the darkness. Ryder’s form flickered violently, his body nearly vanishing before stabilizing again. He choked on a breath.

“Ryder!” Sienna grabbed him, holding him upright as the shadows tore at his legs. “Stay with me, just stay with me, ”

His voice was barely a whisper against her ear. “Sienna… I’m slipping.”

“No,” she said fiercely. “No, you’re not.”

He lifted a shaking hand and touched her cheek. “Find me,” he murmured. “But choose the path with your heart. Not your fear.”

The void around them cracked with light.

The shadows surged.

Ryder’s body dissolved into drifting smoke in her arms.

And Sienna was left holding nothing but darkness.