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His once playful, mischievous features twisted into something dark and sinister. His eyes, usually a warm, inviting blue, glowing a deep, malevolent red.
When he turned them on me, it was as if he could see into the depths of my soul. As if he could see every deep, dark thought I’d ever had and was determined to coax them to the surface.
His skin, previously smooth and unblemished, became covered in intricate, swirling tattoos that looked like living shadows. They snaked up his arms, across his chest, and up the sides of his face, pulsing and undulating as if they were trying to both consume him and free him.
But it’s not his eyes or his skin that has lodged in my brain.
It is his wings.
No longer small or delicate. No longer a part of him that I could bind or play with.
They became huge, larger than Eldrion’s, stretching out like the wings of a fallen angel. Instead of their dull, muted shade, they became pitch black. They seemed to absorb the light around them, pulling in the shadows until Finn was cloaked in an aura of darkness.
As he moved, the shadows danced around him, swirling and shifting like a living entity. They caressed his skin, wrapped around his limbs, as if they were an extension of him.
When he turned his red-eyed gaze on me, his lips curling into a cruel, mocking smile, I realised the Finn I had known was gone. Or perhaps that he never existed.
In his place was a monster; a being of pure darkness.
And I have no one to blame but myself for what will happen next.
Something touches my arm. I jolt away from the sensation, purple light crackling in my palms. When I realise it’s Briony, I freeze but do not lower my hands.
She shakes her head and holds up her palms. “Alana, it’s me.”
“And it was Finn,” I whisper, looking out over the awakening citadel. Golden hues dancing on the rooftops. The day is slowly beginning, just like any other, except nothing will ever be as it was before, and Finn’s storm clouds still paint dark bruises in the sky above us.
Wiping tears from her face, Briony nods at me. “I know,” she says. “It was Finn. He...” A violent sob escapes her lips and she falls forward into my embrace. I hold her as if I’m her mother and she’s my child. Usually, it is her comforting me. But now, she feels small and fragile, and I am too numb to feel anything at all.
Her wings twitch. I stare at them. Pale grey, almost translucent.
The way Finn’s were.
Is that why I underestimated him? Because I saw what he wasn’t instead of what he was?
The rooftop is eerily silent now, the only sound being the distant rumble of thunder and Eldrion breathing raggedly beside me.
My heart hammers in my chest, a sickening mix of fear, confusion, and dawning horror swirling inside me.
Finn, my Finn, the one who was the one steady thing amongst all the turmoil of the past few months... He is gone.
And it was all because of me.
I clutch my stomach, doubling over as another wave of nausea hits me.
I am no longer numb.
I am broken.
I can’t breathe, can’t think. The image of Finn’s red eyes, his shadowy tattoos, his twisted limbs reshaping themselves into something monstrous – it’s seared into my mind. Worse than the visions that have haunted me because they are real and I cannot undo them or forget them.
“What have I done?” I whisper, my voice cracking. “What have I unleashed?”
Beside me, Eldrion staggers to his feet, his face pale and his eyes wide with shock. He looks down at his hands, flexing his fingers. His gaze darkens. He splays his wings and draws himself up to his fullest height.
My breath hitches in my chest. I wait for the shadows to come to him, but nothing happens. Everything is completely still.
“My powers,” he murmurs, his jaw twitching. “He’s taken my powers.”
