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CHAPTER 44 — THE SHADOW THAT BREATHES
The night over Blackstone Ridge was unnaturally still, as if the world itself was holding its breath. Aren felt it before he understood it — a pressure in the air, subtle but suffocating, like hands pressing invisibly against his chest. Each step he took along the rocky path made the silence feel heavier, as though sound was being swallowed before it could escape.
They had camped earlier than planned. Mira insisted. The moment the sun dipped behind the jagged horizon, she had gone tense, eyes sharp, repeatedly glancing into the growing darkness. Aren had learned not to question instincts like hers; they were rarely wrong.
Now the campfire crackled softly, its orange glow flickering against the looming cliffs. Mira sat sharpening her dagger. Thorn carved runes into the dirt with a piece of charred wood, muttering old words to steady his nerves. Lira watched Aren closely, though she pretended to be stitching a tear in her cloak.
They all felt it.
Something was awake in the dark.
Aren's hand rested on the sword at his side. Not drawn — not yet — but ready. The blade pulsed faintly beneath his touch, as though sensing what lurked just beyond the ridge.
A whisper.
Soft.
Thin.
Almost like a breath brushing over the stones.
Aren's head snapped toward the sound.
Nothing.
"Aren?" Mira asked quietly, no longer pretending not to notice.
"You heard it?" Aren murmured.
"I felt it."
Thorn's runes suddenly glowed faintly, reacting to a presence none of them could quite see.
"That's no spirit," Thorn muttered, backing away from his own markings. "Spirits don't disturb the wards like this."
Lira stood, her voice low. "It's watching us."
The fire flickered violently, as if caught by a sudden gust — but there was no wind. Aren's heart thudded once, hard. The pressure in the air shifted again, thickening, pressing down.
Then—
A scrape of stone.
A slow, dragging sound from somewhere behind the ridge wall.
Mira rose instantly, blades drawn.
Aren stepped forward, unwilling to let fear take the lead. "We're not alone. But whatever it is… it's not hiding anymore."
Silence answered him, followed by another scrape, closer now. Something large. Something heavy. Something that should not move like that.
Thorn's voice trembled. "A shadow-entity shouldn't be here. They don't leave the Veiled Borders. This is—"
Before he finished, the fire extinguished in a violent burst of darkness.
Not wind.
Not shadow.
Something alive.
Aren's vision blurred for a moment, swallowed by the sudden black. Lira uttered a quick spell, and a small pale orb flared to life above her palm — but the light struggled, as if the dark was thick enough to choke it.
"There," Mira hissed.
At the ridge's edge, a shape uncurled itself from the stone. Blacker than the night. Taller than any human, hunched yet towering, its limbs long and unnatural. Its eyes — two slits of pale, shimmering gray — opened slowly.
The Shadow That Breathes.
A creature from stories meant to terrify children. A relic of the ancient wars. Something Aren had only ever read about in the forbidden section of the monastery archives.
Its voice arrived before its form fully did — a deep, rattling, broken exhale.
Ahhhhh—ren…
Aren froze.
It spoke his name.
Mira bared her teeth. "It knows you."
The shadow moved without stepping — sliding, gliding over stone like smoke with weight. It stopped mere meters away, tilting its head far too slowly to be natural.
The sword… awakens…
And so do— we.
The blade at Aren's hip pulsed violently, heat flaring under his fingers. For the first time since the vision, he felt the sword tremble — not with fear, but with recognition.
Aren realized something horrifying.
The vision hadn't been a warning.
It had been a summoning.
"Back away," Aren whispered to the others, stepping forward instead. "This thing came for me."
The shadow inhaled — the sound like bones grinding underwater — and the air grew colder.
Destiny… little heir… is not a path…
It is a chain.
The world tilted slightly, the darkness thickening around Aren's feet. His breath came shorter, not from fear but from something else — a pull. A tug in his chest that felt like invisible fingers hooking into him.
His vision flickered.
The cliffs dissolved.
The camp disappeared.
The shadow expanded, swallowing his sight entirely.
Suddenly Aren was standing in a vast empty plane, white and infinite. The shadow figure hovered above the ground, its form clearer here, sharper — too sharp. Its voice echoed without sound.
Your blood started this.
Your sword will end it.
And you… will not survive the ending.
Aren clenched his jaw. "You don't decide my fate."
You already agreed to it.
When you touched the blade.
The plane cracked beneath him — thin spiderweb fractures spreading fast.
Aren fell—
—and slammed back into his real body.
The shadow creature was inches from his face now, breath hot and unnatural against his skin. Mira shouted his name but it sounded far away.
Aren drew the sword.
Light erupted — blinding, explosive, tearing through the dark like a sunrise made of fire.
The shadow recoiled with a distorted hiss.
Aren lifted the blade higher, feeling strength surge through him — not borrowed, but awakened.
"You want my destiny?" he said, voice steady. "Then you'll fight for it."
The shadow paused.
Then it smiled.
The cliffs trembled.
Battle rose like a storm.
And Aren stepped into it.
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