Chapter One: Burnout Clock
They always said the Gift faded after seventeen.
Like it was natural. Like it was merciful. A slow dimming of the candle so the fire wouldn’t consume you from the inside out. For some kids, it just dulled. They stopped seeing spirits. The voices faded. The nightmares stopped clawing at their bedsheets. Some even got better.
But for others—Darklings—it wasn’t that simple.
Silas Mercer sat cross-legged on the roof of the old convent, staring out over the ghostlit skyline of East Trenton. The moon was a pale coin behind the clouds. No stars. No traffic. Just the hum of something waiting.
The cigarette in his hand wasn’t lit. He didn’t smoke. It was for the spirits—they liked the smell. Burn something and they’d come sniffing, eager, hungry. Or maybe just lonely.
It had been six days since his seventeenth birthday. Six days since he should’ve started losing his abilities. Instead, the opposite was happening.
His aura—the ever-present shimmer behind his eyes—had started burning violet.
His dreams bled into reality. He no longer had to summon the dead. They came to him unasked.
He didn’t know what was happening. But he knew it wasn’t supposed to.
The door to the roof creaked. Silas didn’t move.
“Hey.”
Jay Calder stepped out barefoot, hoodie unzipped over a tank top that clung to his lean frame. His arms were marked with fresh sigils, drawn in thick black ink that glistened faintly under the moonlight. “You’re gonna get caught up here.”
Silas flicked ash from the unlit cigarette and smirked. “Not unless you rat me out.”
Jay sat beside him without a word, knees drawn to his chest. He wasn’t like the others. He didn’t press. Never asked questions he wasn’t ready to hear answers to. But tonight, his silence was heavier than usual.
“You feel it too?” Silas asked, voice low.
Jay nodded. “The veil’s thin tonight. The dead are moving.”
Silas didn’t respond right away. “Something’s inside the chapel. Not outside the fence—inside.”
Jay stiffened. “It whispered my name.”
“Mine too.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the air vibrating like stretched wire.
Below them, the chapel stood dark and boarded, a leftover relic from before the Foundation bought the place. A cross still crowned the peak, blackened and rusted. One of the stained-glass windows still shimmered—faint blue and red flickers, like candlelight behind glass.
But there were no candles.
Jay finally broke the silence. “You should tell Dr. Vale.”
Silas laughed bitterly. “And tell her what? That I’m not burning out like I’m supposed to? That my powers are getting stronger?”
Jay didn’t laugh. “She’d report it. You know that.”
“She already knows something’s wrong. She’s been watching me.”
Jay turned toward him. “Then you have to hide it better, Si.”
Silas let the cigarette fall. It hit the rooftop and rolled, lifeless.
“I’m tired of hiding.”
Below, something shifted in the chapel—loud enough to make them both flinch. Not wind. Not wood.
A whisper, thin and sharp as a blade, scraped through the air:
“He’s not done yet.”
Jay stood abruptly, spine tense. “We should go back in.”
Silas’s breath fogged as he stood. The air had grown colder. Not normal cold. Spirit-cold.
He turned once, eyes locked on the glowing window.
And for the briefest second, he saw a figure behind the glass.
White eyes. No face.
Then it was gone.
Chapter Two: The Rise
The calibration chamber was always too bright.
Silas squinted against the glare of halogen panels as he stood on the steel platform. The room smelled like antiseptic and burnt ozone, like every other corner of the Foundation. Sensors arched around him like ribs, each humming faintly as they pulsed through their routine scans.
On the far side of the glass, Dr. Marin Vale watched with her usual mask of calm interest. She wasn’t young, but she wasn’t old either; her face existed in that ageless gray area, sharp cheekbones and hair pulled into a severe knot that never seemed to loosen. Her eyes flicked between the monitors and him, as if she could read his pulse just by watching him breathe.
“Begin resonance test,” she said into the intercom.
The air shifted. Silas felt it before he saw it—his Gift pulling at the edges of the chamber. The lights dimmed. A faint whisper slithered across his skin, cold and familiar.
A figure flickered in the corner of the chamber. A shadow with eyes like holes. It wasn’t supposed to manifest—this was a controlled space. He clenched his fists, focusing on the training they’d drilled into him since he was a kid. Push the spirit back. Close the breach.
Except it didn’t move.
It stayed. Watching him.
The monitors behind the glass shrieked into red. Alarms flared.
“Level six resonance spike,” one of the aides said sharply. “Unstable flux at—Dr. Vale, he’s not burning down. He’s—”
“Enough,” Dr. Vale cut in, her voice steady, unflinching. She pressed a button, and the chamber lights flared so brightly Silas staggered back, his vision seared white. When the spots cleared, the spirit was gone.
He caught his reflection in the glass. His eyes glowed faintly violet.
Not a trick of the light.
Dr. Vale’s voice was softer now, though still clipped. “You may step out, Silas.”
He hesitated, then obeyed. His body felt heavy, drained, but beneath that weight was something else—a current thrumming through his veins, alive and furious.
Dr. Vale waited for him in the corridor, arms folded. The aides were already whispering behind the closed doors, too low for him to catch.
“You’re supposed to be tapering,” she said. Not accusatory. More like a doctor remarking on an unexpected rash. “Instead, your readings are climbing.”
Silas shoved his hands into his hoodie pocket. “Maybe the machine’s broken.”
She arched a brow. “The machine is not broken.” She studied him for a long, unsettling moment. “We haven’t seen this since—”
She stopped. Just like that. Clipped the thought off mid-sentence.
“Since when?” Silas asked.
“Since no one,” she replied smoothly, like she’d practiced the lie a hundred times. She turned away, signaling the conversation was over. “You’ll keep reporting daily for recalibration.”
“And if I don’t?”
Dr. Vale looked back, her gaze sharp as glass. “Then the Foundation will ensure compliance. You don’t want to make this harder than it has to be.”
Her heels clicked as she walked down the corridor, her shadow long against the sterile walls. Silas stood frozen, fists clenched in his pockets.
Since no one.
The words echoed like a warning. Or a promise.
And for the first time, Silas felt it down to his bones—
whatever was happening to him wasn’t a mistake.
It was by design.
Chapter Three: The Basement
The chapel loomed at the edge of the Foundation grounds, a broken-toothed relic of the old convent. They’d sealed it off years ago, but no one had dared tear it down. Everyone knew the dead clung hardest to holy places.
Silas and Jay moved quietly across the courtyard after lights-out, their flashlights wrapped in red cloth to mute the beams. The air was sharp and damp, heavy with that spirit-cold that crawled under your skin.
“You sure about this?” Jay whispered. His hand brushed against Silas’s as they walked. It felt deliberate, maybe accidental. Silas didn’t move away.
“You heard it too,” Silas said. “Whatever’s in there—it knows us. It said my name.”
Jay grimaced but nodded.
The back door of the chapel was chained shut. The boards across it looked newer than the building itself. Jay knelt, tugging at the lock. From his hoodie pocket, he pulled a bent hairpin and got to work.
Silas raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you—”
Jay smirked faintly. “Since I got tired of waiting for permission.”
The lock clicked open.
Inside, the chapel smelled of dust and mildew. Pews sat broken in rows, splinters scattered like teeth. The stained-glass window they’d seen glowing was dark now, only shards of moonlight spilling across the floor.
Silas’s breath fogged. He flicked on the flashlight. The beam fell across a hatch in the floor near the altar. Metal, with a thick rusted handle.
Jay’s voice was a whisper. “You thinking what I’m thinking?”
“Basement,” Silas said.
The hatch groaned as they forced it open. A ladder disappeared into darkness. Cold air rushed up, bringing with it the smell of iron and something faintly sweet—like rot masked with flowers.
They climbed down.
The basement walls were concrete, but the floor was lined with iron rings, chains, and chalk marks worn nearly invisible. Old cameras sat on tripods in the corners, their cords snaking to a control station long abandoned.
Silas swept the beam across a table stacked with folders, papers curled with age. He grabbed one and flipped it open.
PROJECT NOX: Selective Weaponization of Psychic Adolescence.
His stomach turned. He skimmed the page, words leaping out: Extraction. Burn cycle. Vessel compatibility.
Jay hovered over his shoulder. “What the hell is this?”
Another folder slid free from the pile, spilling photographs across the floor. Silas crouched, gathering them up—then froze.
One photo showed a boy strapped to a chair, his eyes glowing faintly. Wires clamped to his temples. His mouth open in a scream.
Another photo. The same boy. Still strapped down. Eyes burned white.
Dead.
Silas’s throat locked. The final photo was labeled:
Subject: Leo Mercer.
Status: Deceased. Cause: Burnout Failure.
Relation to Subject 42 (Silas Mercer): Sibling.
His hands shook so badly the papers slipped from his grip. The flashlight beam jittered across the wall, catching on a mirror bolted into the far corner.
And in the mirror—he saw the boy.
Pale hair, hollow eyes. Standing behind him.
Jay spun, flashlight raised, but the space was empty. Only the reflection remained.
“Si?” Jay’s voice was tight. “What did you see?”
Silas swallowed hard. His chest burned, hot and cold at once.
“My brother,” he whispered. “I think he died down here.”
The mirror rippled like water. And in the shifting glass, the boy’s lips moved.
Run.
Chapter Four: What They’re Not Saying
Silas didn’t sleep. Couldn’t.
Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the mirror in the basement, his own reflection warping until Leo’s face stared back. The pale hair. The hollow eyes. The mouth shaping a single word. Run.
By morning, he was raw and wired, his stomach knotted so tightly he could barely eat. The cafeteria buzzed with the usual chatter of kids pretending they weren’t afraid, but every voice seemed distant, muffled under the static in his skull.
Jay dropped his tray beside him, sitting close enough their shoulders touched. His hand brushed Silas’s for a second before pulling back. “You look like hell.”
“Thanks.”
“Nightmares?”
Silas gave a bitter laugh. “Worse. Not dreaming at all.”
Jay didn’t push. He just started cutting his apple into tiny slices, like he always did when he was nervous.
Silas finally leaned closer, keeping his voice low. “You know what we saw. That file wasn’t fake. Leo Mercer existed. He was my brother.”
Jay’s knife stilled. “You don’t remember him?”
Silas shook his head. “Not once. No pictures. No memories. Nothing. Like someone scrubbed him out of my life.”
Jay glanced around the cafeteria. No one was paying them attention, but the Foundation had ears everywhere. He slid the slices of apple across the tray, his voice barely audible. “They want us to believe our powers burn out so we won’t ask questions. But maybe… maybe they don’t fade. Maybe they’re taken.”
The words sank like stones in Silas’s chest. “Weaponized.”
“Yeah.” Jay’s jaw tightened. “What if the burnout is a lie? A cover for when the Foundation drains us dry?”
Silas’s throat closed. He thought of the mirror. Of Leo’s warning. “Then I’m next.”
Jay reached under the table suddenly, his fingers curling tight around Silas’s hand. His palm was warm, grounding, a tether in the storm. Silas froze—not from discomfort, but from the sudden, electric awareness of how much he needed that touch.
Jay’s eyes met his, steady and fierce. “You’re not dying in their basement. Not like him. I won’t let them.”
For a second, everything else faded—the cafeteria noise, the static, the ghosts pressing at the edges of the veil. Just Jay. Just that fire in his voice.
Silas wanted to say something back, anything, but before he could, a sharp voice cut through the air.
“Mercer. Calder. Dr. Vale wants to see you.”
One of the aides stood at the end of the table, clipboard tucked under her arm, eyes too cold for someone so young.
Jay’s hand slipped from his, leaving behind an ache like absence.
They followed the aide through sterile corridors, each step heavier than the last. Silas’s pulse pounded, louder than the click of the woman’s shoes.
When they entered Dr. Vale’s office, she was waiting behind her desk, a folder already open.
She didn’t look up. “You went into the chapel last night.”
Silas’s breath stalled.
Jay’s voice was steady. “We couldn’t sleep.”
Dr. Vale’s eyes lifted, sharp as blades. “Don’t lie. The chapel is off-limits for a reason.”
She pushed a photograph across the desk. The grainy security still showed two figures climbing into the hatch. No mistaking who they were.
Silas’s skin prickled. “You were watching.”
“Of course I was.” Her voice was calm, almost gentle. “You’re becoming… anomalous, Silas. Stronger. The burnout should’ve begun. Instead, your resonance grows. Do you understand how rare that is?”
Silas’s fists clenched. “What did you do to Leo?”
Her expression didn’t change. If anything, it softened. “Leo was unstable. A tragic failure. But you—” she leaned forward, eyes glinting—“you might be the vessel that succeeds.”
Jay stepped in front of him, voice sharp. “He’s not your experiment.”
For the first time, Dr. Vale smiled. It wasn’t warm. It wasn’t kind. It was the smile of someone who knew she already owned the game.
“On the contrary,” she said softly. “He already is.”
Chapter Five: The Others
The Foundation called it quarantine, but everyone knew it was a lockdown.
Doors sealed at midnight. Alarms on every exit. Cameras that hummed like flies in every corner.
After the meeting with Dr. Vale, Silas and Jay weren’t sent back to their usual dorms. Instead, they were moved to the upper floor of the east wing—“for observation.” The halls were quieter here, but the silence was worse than noise. It meant someone was always listening.
Silas paced the narrow room, the air thick with the faint buzz of wards etched into the walls. His body vibrated like a tuning fork. Every shadow seemed to breathe.
Jay sat cross-legged on the bed, eyes following him. “You’re going to wear a hole in the floor.”
“They’re going to dissect me,” Silas snapped, running a hand through his hair. “Vale practically said it.”
Jay’s voice softened. “Not if we get out first.”
Silas stopped. “How?”
Jay leaned forward, a spark of defiance lighting his face. “There are others. Kids like you. Ones who didn’t fade at seventeen. I’ve been hearing whispers for months. They’re hiding in the old storm tunnels beneath the west grounds.”
Silas blinked. “You knew about this and didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t know if it was real. Until now.” Jay stood. “If Vale’s been hunting them, they’ll know how to stay invisible. And if anyone can help us fight back—”
He didn’t need to finish.
The plan came together in hurried whispers. The storm tunnels connected to the boiler room in the east wing, and from there, a forgotten maintenance hatch led outside the perimeter wards. Getting past the cameras would take a miracle—or a distraction.
Jay produced a small tin from his pocket. Inside were strips of paper covered in messy black ink. Sigils.
“You’ve been stockpiling these?” Silas asked.
Jay smirked faintly. “Call it a hobby. Enough to fry a camera for a few minutes if we’re lucky.”
They waited until lights-out, counting the slow sweep of the cameras until the moment they turned away. Jay pressed a sigil to each lens they passed, the ink flaring dull red before fading. Sparks hissed softly, the smell of burned metal curling in the air.
The boiler room door was locked, but the wards on it were old. Silas reached for the handle and felt the cold pulse of the spirits nested inside the metal. He whispered a low chant, words older than the Foundation itself, and the wards shivered, then broke.
Jay shot him a look. “You’ve been practicing.”
“Guess I don’t fade,” Silas muttered.
The storm tunnels breathed damp air that smelled of rust and wet stone. Their flashlights caught the glitter of old water stains and scrawled sigils in languages Silas didn’t recognize. The deeper they went, the colder it became, until their breath fogged in the narrow beams of light.
A sound rose ahead—soft at first, then clearer. Whispering voices. Not spirit-voices, but human.
Jay raised a hand, signaling silence. They rounded a bend and stopped dead.
A circle of teens stood in the tunnel, flashlights casting long shadows on the wet walls. There were five of them—three girls, two boys—each marked with tattoos or scars that shimmered faintly in the dark. Their eyes burned with the same strange light Silas sometimes saw in the mirror.
The tallest girl stepped forward. Her buzzed hair was streaked white, her jacket patched with sigils. “You’re late.”
Silas’s heart kicked. “You were expecting us?”
“Word travels,” she said. Her gaze lingered on Silas, sharp and assessing. “Vale’s newest anomaly finally came looking for answers.”
Jay tensed. “Who are you?”
The girl smiled, all teeth. “We’re what the Foundation tried to erase. The ones who don’t burn out.”
She pointed to the others in turn. “Felix. Aria. Mina. Theo. We call ourselves the Black Veil.”
Aria, a tall trans girl with delicate features and a silver ear cuff shaped like a crescent moon, tilted her head. “You feel it too, don’t you? The surge. The fire.”
Silas swallowed hard. “Yeah.”
Felix, a wiry boy with dark eyes that glinted like wet stone, stepped forward, his voice low and rough. “Then you need to understand something, Mercer. The burnout isn’t real. Vale feeds on us until we’re empty. You’re not dying—you’re evolving. And she knows it.”
The words settled in Silas’s chest like a second heartbeat.
Mina, blindfolded but smiling faintly, added, “She’ll come for you soon. You’re the one she’s been waiting for.”
Jay’s hand found Silas’s in the dark, fingers lacing tight. “Then we fight.”
Felix’s grin was grim. “Fight? Kid, we’re past fighting. We’re planning a reckoning.”
From deeper in the tunnel came a low, resonant sound—like a distant drumbeat, or a heartbeat too large to belong to anything human. The air trembled with it, a vibration that rattled Silas’s bones.
Aria’s voice lowered to a whisper. “That’s the Hollow King stirring. Vale thinks she can feed him with us. But we have our own plans.”
Silas met her gaze, the violet in his vision burning brighter.
“Good,” he said. “Because I’m done running.”
Chapter Six: The Reckoning
The storm tunnels became their war room.
By the time Silas and Jay returned the next night, the Black Veil had gathered maps, stolen schematics of the Foundation’s electrical grid, and a set of devices that looked half mechanical, half arcane. Every surface of the damp chamber glowed with chalked sigils. The air vibrated with barely contained power.
Felix crouched over a battered laptop, screens casting blue light across his sharp features. “Vale’s running a surge calibration at midnight tomorrow. Every Darkling in the Home will be routed through the resonance chamber.”
“Like a battery bank,” Aria said bitterly. “She’s going to drain everyone at once.”
“She’s been testing the circuits for weeks,” Felix added. “If she pulls the trigger, the Hollow King gets a feast big enough to tear the veil wide open.”
Silas’s stomach knotted. “Then we cut the power.”
Felix glanced up. “Not that simple. Vale’s layered protections—electrical, spiritual, psychic. We can kill the grid, but if the wards stay intact, the Hollow King still gets through.”
Mina sat cross-legged in the corner, blindfold hiding eyes that didn’t need sight. Her voice was calm, almost serene. “You are the key, Silas. Vale’s been preparing you since you were a child. Your surge is a beacon. The wards answer to you.”
Silas stiffened. “I’m not opening anything for her.”
“You might not have a choice,” Mina replied. “But choice and power aren’t the same thing.”
Jay rested a hand on Silas’s shoulder. “Then we take the choice back. We use the surge against her.”
Aria tilted her head, listening to something only she could hear. “The spirits agree. They’re restless. Hungry for justice.”
Felix tapped the laptop, a flicker of excitement breaking through his grim focus. “During the calibration, all systems route through a single conduit beneath the chapel—same place you found Project NOX. Cut the physical link and disrupt the resonance, we short the wards and fry her equipment. But someone has to be inside the chamber to channel the surge when it collapses.”
Silas knew before anyone said it. “Me.”
Jay turned sharply. “No.”
“I’m the anomaly,” Silas said. “The wards respond to me. If anyone else tries, they burn.”
Jay’s jaw tightened. “And if you try, you could—” He broke off, eyes flashing. “Vale wants a vessel. You’ll be handing yourself to her.”
Silas met his gaze, the weight of it grounding him. “Or I’ll be handing her a bomb.”
The group fell silent. Only the distant drip of water echoed through the tunnels.
Finally, Aria spoke. “If we do this, there’s no turning back. Vale will unleash the Hollow King the moment she realizes we’ve cut her off. We’ll be fighting her, the wards, and whatever’s on the other side.”
Felix cracked a thin smile. “Sounds like a party.”
Jay squeezed Silas’s shoulder, fingers trembling despite his steady voice. “If you go in there, I’m going with you.”
“No,” Silas said, softer than he intended. “If I lose control, you can’t—”
“I don’t care,” Jay snapped. “You’re not doing this alone.”
The air trembled again—deeper this time, a slow, resonant thrum that made the walls sweat cold. Mina tilted her head, blind eyes shining behind the cloth.
“He hears you,” she whispered. “The Hollow King knows his vessel is awake.”
A chill cut through the chamber, and every candle flickered blue.
Silas looked at the others—Felix with his restless hands, Aria listening to ghosts of the future, Mina serene in the dark, Jay burning bright and stubborn at his side.
For the first time since his surge began, he didn’t feel like a mistake. He felt necessary.
“Tomorrow night,” he said. “We end this.”
Chapter Seven: Blood and Choice
The chapel was silent when they returned. The moon hung high and full, casting pale light through broken stained-glass. It should have been peaceful. It should have been safe. But the air trembled with tension, thick as blood.
Silas adjusted the sigils taped across his hoodie, his hands shaking slightly despite Jay’s grip on his shoulder. Tonight, it wasn’t about survival—it was about ending it. Or dying trying.
The resonance chamber hummed beneath the floorboards, wires and wards pulsing faintly like the heartbeat of a beast. Vale had already begun the calibration sequence, no doubt aware their intrusion was imminent.
Felix and Aria stayed near the entrance, ready to disrupt any sensors or wards that detected them. Mina sat cross-legged on the altar steps, her blindfolded gaze fixed on the floor as though seeing through the layers of reality itself. Jay remained close to Silas, every inch of him taut, prepared.
The first ripple of the Hollow King arrived as a low, resonant vibration through the floor, cold and hungry. Shadows moved unnaturally across the walls, twisting like smoke, coiling around the room. The temperature dropped so fast Silas could see his breath.
“You’re the key,” a voice slithered into his mind. Hollow, deep, endless. He’s waiting, Mercer.
“I’m not yours,” Silas whispered back, though his lips barely moved. The violet flare in his eyes burned brighter.
Jay gripped his hand, grounding him. “Then don’t be. Let’s end this.”
Silas inhaled and stepped toward the chamber hatch. Every fiber of his being screamed for him to turn back, but he didn’t.
The moment he descended, the wards flared violently. The Hollow King manifested, an immense shadow coalescing above the chamber, a mass of teeth, claws, and glowing white eyes that burned into his soul. Vale’s voice echoed behind it, calm and clinical.
“Channel it, Silas. Become the vessel.”
“I’d rather die!” Silas shouted. He shoved his hands toward the wards, feeling the surge answering him. Violet energy lanced from his fingers, hitting the wards, cracking them, and then feeding them. Not to Vale—but to him.
Pain lanced through his body, bones and spirit alike. The Hollow King shrieked, a sound that could crack stone, clawing at his mind. Shadows lashed at him, trying to enter, to take control. But Silas pressed forward. He was light. He was darkness. He was everything Vale never understood.
Jay scrambled down after him, placing a hand on Silas’s shoulder. “I’m with you. Whatever happens, we’re together!”
The violet flare expanded, the chamber trembling under the power. The Hollow King twisted, screeched, tried to possess him, but Silas gave it nothing. He opened himself fully, letting the surge run through, then outward, collapsing the wards, frying Vale’s equipment, and ripping the Hollow King into fragments of shadow that dissipated like smoke in wind.
Silas screamed, not from fear but from the intensity of becoming more than human, more than the Foundation could control. Pain seared him, then abruptly stopped. Silence followed.
Jay’s hand was still on his shoulder, steady. “You did it. You’re alive.”
Silas staggered, chest heaving, and finally let himself collapse into Jay’s arms. Tears burned his eyes—not from pain, but from relief. They had survived. They had won.
Vale’s voice echoed weakly through the debris of her machines, sharp and angry. “You… will never—”
Mina’s voice cut through. Calm. Certain. “The Hollow King is gone. So are your plans.”
Felix and Aria appeared at the hatch, breathing hard but triumphant. “We’re free,” Aria said softly.
Silas looked at Jay, their foreheads touching, breaths mingling. “We… we did it.”
Jay smiled, fingers threading through Silas’s hair. “We did it together.”
The violet light in Silas’s eyes dimmed, leaving a faint shimmer. He wasn’t fading. He wasn’t done. He was something else.
And for the first time in his life, he didn’t fear what came next.
Chapter Eight: Afterlight
The sun rose over the Foundation grounds, painting the broken chapel in gold and pink. The storm tunnels were silent now, their secrets buried—or perhaps finally free.
Silas sat on the edge of the chapel roof, legs dangling over the crumbling stone. Jay joined him, handing him a cup of lukewarm coffee. They didn’t speak at first. Words felt too small for the silence and the relief.
“The Foundation?” Jay asked finally.
Silas shook his head. “Gone. The directors, the labs… all burned in the collapse of the resonance. No one left to rebuild it.”
Jay’s fingers brushed Silas’s. A simple, grounding touch. “And the Hollow King?”
Silas’s violet eyes flickered faintly. “Fragmented. Scattered. He won’t come back… not like before.”
They watched the wind stir the broken stained-glass, colors fractured across the rooftop. Shadows moved at the edges of their vision, but they weren’t hostile. Just curious. Watching. Acknowledging.
Mina, Felix, and Aria emerged from the chapel, laughing softly, alive. Black Veil, survivors, all of them. They had survived the impossible.
Aria tilted her head, blue hair catching the sunlight. “You’re still… glowing,” she said, nodding at Silas.
Silas flexed his fingers. A faint shimmer of violet traced his skin. “Guess I’m not fading.”
Felix smirked. “Good. We need a leader who actually survives.”
Silas let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Maybe. Maybe we just need someone to make sure the Foundation never comes back.”
Jay leaned against him, quiet, steady. “We’ll figure it out. Together.”
For the first time, Silas felt what it meant to be free—not just from the Foundation, but from fear. The Darklings had survived. The Hollow King was gone. And for once, seventeen didn’t feel like a death sentence.
Silas turned to Jay, a small smile curving his lips. “You hear that?”
Jay’s brow arched.
“The world is still out there. And we get to decide what it becomes.”
Jay laughed softly. “Sounds like work.”
Silas laughed too, a sound unburdened by ghosts or shadows. He reached for Jay, holding his hand firmly.
And somewhere, deep in the ether, the remnants of the Hollow King hissed into nothingness.
The dark didn’t need to be feared.
It just needed someone strong enough to hold it.
Silas Mercer had survived.
And he was ready to burn brighter than ever.