A Spark In The Shadow

CHAPTER - TWENTY THREE

"This is why Duskiel is so weak," she realized aloud, her voice trembling.

"This is why he's fading. It's tearing him apart, piece by painful piece." he was being drained, consumed, turned into an empty shell.

And then, the revelation that made her blood run cold. Ember's words turned frantic, scrawled with desperate urgency.

"But its hunger is not sated by the wielder alone. The Shadescore is drawn to pure, unawakened light. To the nascent essence of the Sun-Weavers. It seeks to amplify itself, to grow beyond all limits, by consuming that power." Ember had then, in a desperate, last-ditch effort, scrawled a crude, almost invisible family tree, tracing her lineage.

And there, at the very end of a branching line, was Brianna's own family name, faint but undeniable.

Brianna stared at the words, her eyes wide with horror.

"My family... my name." she traced the faint lines with a shaking finger.

"It's me. My light." Her. Her own light. Her family. She remembered the blinding surge of power during the attack, the times Duskiel had flinched in pain when she was near.

"It wasn't a coincidence," she murmured, a fresh wave of despair washing over her.

"It was never a coincidence. My very essence... is what it wants to feed on." her very essence, her inherited light, was the "potent source" Ember had warned about. The Shadescore was drawing on her, trying to feed, to amplify its curse.

A wave of guilt washed over Brianna, cold and sharp.

"Did I make it worse for him? Did I bring this down on him?" had her power, her very existence, unknowingly accelerated

Duskiel's suffering? Had she been a beacon, drawing Rowen's attention, causing Duskiel more pain, bringing him closer to his dreadful fate?

Ember's final, desperate entries filled the pages. She detailed Rowen's grand, horrifying plan. He didn't just want power. He wanted godhood.

"He means to fuse the perfected Shadescore, once it is bloated with my son's spirit and the essence of the nascent light, into himself," Ember had revealed, her anguish bleeding through the ink.

"To become the ultimate being. Immortal. Invincible. The master of both light and shadow, ruling all realms."

Brianna's hands trembled. The world was at stake.

"This isn't just about Duskiel anymore," she whispered, her voice choked with emotion.

"It's about everything. And I'm the key." she, a simple village girl, was somehow the unwitting key. She was the weapon to shatter the curse, but also the very fuel for the ultimate evil.

She reread Ember's last, desperate plea:

"My son. My Duskiel. Run. Live. Shatter the gem. Be free. My light, my love, will guide you." And then, a final, almost impossible instruction: "If another Sun-Weaver should awaken, one with true, pure light... they can shatter it without consuming the wielder. The resonance... the key to freedom."

Hope, fierce and bright, surged through Brianna, cutting through the chilling fear.

"There's a way!" she cried softly, a sob of relief tearing from her.

"Ember, you found a way!" Ember had left a way. A desperate, dangerous way. Brianna's light could save him. Not just destroy the gem, but shatter it, releasing Ember's trapped essence, and freeing Duskiel.

She looked out her window. The moon was high now, casting long, stark shadows. The village was silent, its peace a fragile illusion. But she knew. She knew the red eyes had been real. The scout had found her. Tarrowe knew about her light. He knew about its power. And he would stop at nothing to claim it.

"He's coming for me," she whispered, pulling the journal close to her chest.

As if confirming her chilling thoughts, a low, guttural murmur drifted from outside her window. Not a single scout this time. Multiple voices, cold and rasping, speaking in the ancient vampire tongue.

"The light-bearer is here," one voice hissed, barely a whisper.

"The King's command is absolute." she recognized a few words from Ember's journal:

"Light-bearer... Sun-Weaver... King's command."

The sounds of deliberate, heavy footsteps crunching on the gravel below her window grew louder. The shadows around her house seemed to thicken, to writhe.

"They're here," she breathed, her eyes wide with terror.

"They've come for me." her knowledge was now their target.