Chapter 36: The Name That Should Not Exist
The name hung between them like a blade suspended in the air.
“Elyra…?”
Darius’s voice cracked on the word, raw and broken in a way that no undead creature should sound. He took another halting step forward, black mist swirling chaotically around his towering form. His glowing green sockets burned with confusion and something far deeper, a pain that cut through centuries of death and necrotic power.
Seraphine stood frozen, her staff trembling in her hands. The way he said the name, with such aching mourning, such desperate love, shattered something inside her. It wasn’t the voice of a monster. It was the voice of a husband who had lost everything.
The templars behind her shifted nervously, swords raised. One of the captains shouted, “High Priestess! Destroy it now! Do not let the abomination speak!”
But Seraphine couldn’t move. Her silver eyes were locked on Darius. The resonance between them pulsed like a living thing, pulling at her soul. Grief flooded her chest, not her own, but familiar all the same. Tears slipped down her cheeks before she could stop them.
Darius staggered another step closer. “Why… why does your face tear me apart?” His clawed hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. “I should want to kill you. You carry their Light. You hunt me. But seeing you… it hurts worse than dying. Why?”
The undead legion behind him grew restless. Thralls twitched and shifted, their green eyes flickering unsteadily as their master’s emotions bled through the bonds. Rhen moved closer to Darius, sword half-raised, concern etched on his face. Even Vael looked uneasy, his massive frame tensing.
Brother Aldric’s voice cut through the tension like a whip. “Seraphine! Strike him down! This is the creature’s trickery! He seeks to corrupt you with false memories!”
Seraphine raised her staff, golden light gathering at its tip. But her hands shook violently. The silver streaks within the light grew stronger, responding to Darius’s presence. She could feel Elyra inside her, stirring, reaching, grieving.
“I don’t know you,” she whispered, voice breaking. “I shouldn’t know you. But when you say her name… it feels like my heart is being torn out.”
Darius stopped ten paces away. The undead army behind him had gone completely still again, but the air crackled with unstable power. His glowing sockets never left her face.
“Elyra…” he said again, softer this time, as if testing the name on a tongue that had forgotten how to speak with love. “I lost her. They took her from me. And now… looking at you… I feel like I’m losing her all over again.”
The words struck Seraphine like a physical blow. She gasped, nearly dropping her staff. The grief inside her swelled until she could barely breathe. It wasn’t just sympathy. It was memory. It was love that had survived death itself.
“High Priestess!” one of the templar captains roared. “He is manipulating you! Purify the abomination before he corrupts us all!”
Seraphine raised her staff higher. Golden light blazed around her, but the silver undertone refused to fade. She channeled her power toward Darius, preparing to unleash a wave of holy radiance that would burn through his necrotic core.
The moment the Light left her hands and streaked toward him, the world fractured.
Both of them were struck by the same shared vision.
A woman in white, beautiful, fierce, with dark flowing hair, collapsed into blood-covered arms. Her hand reached up weakly, fingers brushing a familiar face. A wedding ring glinted on her finger before slipping off and falling into a pool of blood. Her lips moved, whispering a final promise.
“I’ll find you… again…”
Seraphine cried out and dropped to one knee as the vision ended. Darius staggered backward, clutching his chest as if the memory had physically wounded him. Dark energy leaked from his eyes like tears.
“Elyra…” he whispered again, voice filled with raw agony.
The undead around him became even more restless, some dropping weapons, others letting out low, unnatural groans as their master’s emotions flooded the bonds.
Brother Aldric rushed to Seraphine’s side, grabbing her arm. “Now! While he is weakened! Destroy him!”
But Seraphine could only stare at Darius across the blood-stained road, her heart shattering into pieces she didn’t know existed. The monster she had been sent to kill wasn’t just a monster.
He was the man her soul had once loved.
And he was looking at her the same way.
Darius took one more step forward, claws trembling, black mist swirling violently around him. The silence between them had become more dangerous than any battle could ever be.