The shadows snapped shut around Ravion like a closing mouth, and the chamber fell deathly silent.
Hana's breath caught.
One second he was there, solid, warm, trembling beneath her touch.
The next, he was gone.
"Ravion?" Her voice echoed into the emptiness, too small, too fragile. "Ravion!"
Only the hollow chamber answered her.
The air felt colder without him, as if the shadows themselves mourned his disappearance… or hungered for her instead. Hana wrapped her arms around herself. The glow of the Umbral sigils along the walls dimmed, pulsing weakly, as if Ravion's presence had been the only thing keeping them alive.
"Come back," she whispered, though she knew he couldn't hear her.
A faint tremor rippled through the stone beneath her feet.
Then another.
And another.
This time, it wasn't Ravion.
The temperature dropped sharply, her breath turning white in the air. A nauseating pressure built in the darkness, slow, creeping, suffocating. Something was approaching.
Something ancient.
Something powerful.
Hana took one shaky step back. "No. No, no...Ravion said this place was safe."
But the shadows didn't listen.
A whisper curled through the air. soft, cold, cruel.
"Human…"
Hana froze.
The voice slithered around her like smoke.
"…you should not be here."
Her heart slammed against her ribs. She stumbled backward, eyes darting across the chamber, searching for the source of the voice. But the shadows were too thick, too dense, swirling like ink in water.
Then something stepped out.
Tall. Hooded. Cloaked in flickering darkness that clung to his form like liquid night.
His footsteps made no sound.
His presence crushed the air.
Hana's knees weakened. She pressed herself against a stone pillar, her voice barely a breath. "Who… who are you?"
The figure tilted his head, studying her from beneath the hood. When he spoke, his voice carried an unnatural echo, as though more than one being spoke at once.
"A hunter."
Hana's blood iced.
"A hunter of what?" she whispered.
He took another step forward, the shadows swirling hungrily around his ankles.
"Of demons."
Her breath caught. "Then why are you here?"
His hood turned toward her fully, though she still could not see his face.
"To deliver a warning."
A cold shiver climbed down her spine. Every instinct screamed at her to run, but where? There was only stone, shadows, and the echo of Ravion's disappearance.
"What do you want from me?" she breathed.
The hunter raised a hand. Something glinted, metal, sharp, wickedly hooked. Not a knife.
A talon.
A weapon forged to kill things like Ravion.
Hana's stomach twisted.
"Stay away," she managed, though her voice trembled.
"I am not here to harm you," the hunter said. "If I intended to, you would already be dead."
Comforting. Very comforting.
He lowered his weapon slightly.
"But the prince you cling to," he continued, "is not who you think he is."
"I know who he is," Hana said quietly, fists trembling at her sides. "I've seen enough to trust him."
The hunter's laugh was soft and terrifying.
"You've seen what he's allowed you to see."
He moved closer.
Hana pressed tighter against the pillar.
"You think he is protecting you?" the hunter murmured. "He is endangering you."
"That's not true."
"Is it not?" The hunter raised his hand again, and the shadows behind him twisted into moving images, fragments of vision, memories, truth or lies she couldn't tell.
She saw Ravion's form surrounded by flames.
His eyes, those crimson eyes, unhinged, wild, tormented.
A monstrous silhouette stretching out of him like a second shadow.
Hana's throat closed.
"No," she whispered. "That's not..."
"That is what he becomes when the curse takes hold," the hunter said. "And the curse is accelerating."
Her heart thudded painfully. She remembered what the Chamber of Echoes had shown her. A future drenched in darkness.
The prince has fallen.
"You lie," she forced out, clutching her trembling hands. "Ravion said..."
"He does not tell you everything. He cannot." The hunter's head lowered. "If you knew the truth, you would run."
"I won't run."
"Then you are doomed."
The words struck her like a blow.
Tears prickled behind her eyes, but she shook her head fiercely.
"Ravion saved me," she whispered. "He's risked everything for me."
"And that," the hunter said, "is exactly the problem."
Her breath faltered. "What do you mean?"
"He is cursed," the hunter said flatly. "Every moment he holds onto you… his curse strengthens."
Hana felt the world tilt.
"What?"
"You anchor his humanity," the hunter said. "But you also accelerate the demon inside him. Love…" His voice darkened. "Love is poison to the Shadow Prince."
She staggered. "No. That doesn't even make sense..."
"Does it not?" The hunter's voice deepened. "Have you not felt the shadows growing hungrier? The Veins trembling? The mark on your wrist burning?"
Her hand instinctively flew to her wrist.
The mark there, Ravion's mark, throbbed faintly beneath her skin.
"You are tied to his curse now," the hunter said. "When he falls… you fall with him."
Hana's heart cracked.
She whispered, "Why are you telling me this?"
The hunter stepped closer, close enough that his cloak brushed the stone floor like black fog.
"Because the Court has noticed you," he said. "They know Ravion marked you. They know he brought you into the Veins."
Her breath hitched. "They'll… come after me?"
"They are already searching."
Her blood iced.
The hunter raised his hand again, and the talon glinted.
"Leave him," he whispered. "Leave the prince while you still can. While he still remembers who he is."
"No," she choked out. "I'm not leaving him. He needs me."
A long silence fell.
Then:
"So be it."
The hunter closed his fist, and the shadows shuddered violently around him, recoiling like wounded animals.
"The Shadow Court will not spare you," he said. "And they will not spare him either."
He turned, cloak swirling like torn smoke.
"But you cannot say you were not warned."
As he stepped back into the darkness, Hana reached out.
"Wait...!"
He stopped.
A single, pale hand emerged from the cloak. On his wrist, a faint silver mark flickered, identical to Ravion's curse mark.
Her breath caught.
"You… You're cursed too," she whispered.
The hunter froze.
And then, in a voice barely audible:
"Once."
Hana's eyes widened.
"Who are you?" she breathed.
But he did not answer.
The shadows swallowed him, and he disappeared entirely.
The chamber trembled.
The blue flames along the walls sputtered and died one by one, plunging the room into near-darkness.
Hana collapsed to her knees, trembling violently.
The hunter's warning echoed in her skull like a curse of its own.
Leave him.
Leave the prince.
Or share his fall.
She pressed her palms to the cold stone floor.
"No," she whispered, shaking. "I won't leave him. I can't."
Even if it doomed her.
Even if it doomed him.
The chamber shook again, this time not from the hunter's departure, but from something else.
Something rising.
A familiar presence.
A familiar pull.
Hana looked up, tears still on her lashes.
The shadows parted.
Ravion stepped through them, breathing hard, eyes glowing, expression stormy.
"Hana." His voice cracked. "Don't move."
She froze.
He rushed to her, taking her face in his hands.
"You're shaking," he breathed. "What happened? Who touched you?"
Hana's voice broke. "Someone was here."
Ravion stiffened.
"Who?"
She swallowed painfully.
"He said… he was a hunter."
Ravion's blood ran cold.
"No," he whispered. "No. Not him."
Hana gripped his sleeves desperately.
"Ravion," she choked, "what aren't you telling me?"
Ravion closed his eyes.
Then:
"Hana… the hunter you saw..."
His voice cracked.
"...was my brother."
The chamber fell silent.
And Hana's world shattered.