Chapter 9: The Devil's Bargain
The Abbey burned behind them.
Its black spires collapsed in groaning agony as fire consumed stone and history alike.
Ashes floated like cursed snow, drifting over the cliffs like the dead reaching for one final breath.
Dorian and Evelyn stood at the edge, wind howling around them like the voices of the damned.
The past had bled. The zealots were dead. The Abbey—a tomb of twisted faith—was no more.
But Dorian's heart remained heavy, not with victory, but with unease.
"It's over," Evelyn whispered, her eyes reflecting the dying fire.
But Dorian only stared ahead, silent.
No.
Revenge had brought silence, not peace.
And silence could be crueler than pain.
---
They returned to Valemire, cloaked in secrecy and shadow.
Not to celebrate, but to hide.
To remember. To forget.
The manor stood like a ghost—weathered and overgrown, yet still haunted by memories.
He had sworn never to enter it again.
But something pulled him inside.
Through dust and decay, he found himself in front of the door to his father's study—its wood still bearing the scars of the night it was shattered open.
He pushed it now, slowly.
Inside, the air was thick with secrets.
Old tomes. Broken glass. A blood-stained desk.
And a letter.
Sealed in red wax. Marked with the cult's sigil.
Addressed to Evelyn.
The floor beneath him felt like it vanished.
With trembling fingers, he opened it.
> "Your sacrifice has not gone unnoticed. The boy trusts you now.
When the time comes, you know what must be done.
We gave you your life back—remember the deal."
Dorian didn't feel the letter slip from his hand.
He didn't hear it hit the ground.
Only the rushing in his ears—the sound of betrayal returning to life.
Then, a shadow moved.
Evelyn.
She stood in the doorway, drenched from the rain, as pale as the ghost of herself.
"You knew?" Dorian's voice cracked like old wood.
Her lips parted—but no lie came.
"At first… yes," she said. "They spared me. They said I could live if I… if I brought you to them. But I never meant to—"
His eyes, dark as stormclouds, turned colder than any blade.
"The dagger you dropped," he whispered. "Your freedom. How you always found me, no matter where I was. All of it…"
"It changed," she said quickly, stepping forward. "I changed. I chose you. I broke the deal, Dorian. For you."
He looked at her like he was seeing a stranger.
"But you made it in the first place."
---
The thunder cracked, and rain screamed against the manor's broken windows.
Evelyn's breath hitched.
"I didn't know you then," she said, voice trembling. "I thought you were just a name. A target. But when I saw you—what they did to you—how you still fought, still protected people, even after all of it—I couldn't do it. I couldn't deliver you to them."
Tears filled her eyes.
"I fell in love with you."
Dorian turned away.
"I don't need love that comes with conditions," he muttered.
He stepped outside. The sky opened like a wound, releasing the storm.
---
Evelyn stood in the doorway, her silhouette framed by lightning, sobs lost in the downpour.
"I never stopped fighting for you!" she shouted after him. "Even when it meant they'd kill me!"
But Dorian didn't look back.
He had survived the Abbey.
Faced fire. Poison. Steel.
He had killed monsters in the name of vengeance.
But this—this was something different.
This was trust. Shattered.
This was love—tainted, conditional, and cruel.
And it broke him in ways no blade ever could.
---
He disappeared into the rain.
No goodbye. No hatred. Just a silence deeper than death.
Evelyn fell to her knees in the doorway, the storm soaking her, her screams swallowed by thunder.
The devil had found his light.
And the light…
had cast a shadow after all.