The Shadow Realm stretches around them like a nightmare that refuses to end, its boundaries constantly shifting, folding in on themselves only to expand into impossible geometries. Ava feels the living darkness of her cage pulse against her skin, hungry and patient all at once. Beside her, Liam's cage hangs suspended in the void, his silhouette visible through gaps in the writhing shadows that bind him. Ahead, Lucian glides through the non-space with the confidence of someone returning to familiar territory, silver eyes reflecting a light source that doesn't exist.
"Almost there," Lucian says, his voice distorted as if reaching them through water. "The demon grows eager to meet its vessels properly."
Ava's throat burns from screaming words that disappeared into the void hours ago—or days, or minutes. Time stretches and contracts here without rhythm or reason. Her light remains suppressed beneath her skin, the pendant at her throat now burning with cold intensity, siphoning her power faster than she can generate it. They've been moving through this place for what feels like an eternity, each moment more disorienting than the last.
The terrain beneath them—if "beneath" even applies in this directionless realm—transforms with each step Lucian takes. Solid ground gives way to mist that thickens into something like tar before dissolving into crystalline structures that hum with discordant notes. The only constant is the sensation of sinking, of being drawn inexorably deeper into something ancient and aware.
"You feel it, don't you?" Lucian asks, turning to regard his captives with that measured academic tone she's come to hate. "The pressure of the demon's consciousness. The weight of its attention."
Liam struggles against his bonds, shadows writhing around his limbs like living restraints. His face appears gaunt in the strange non-light, exhaustion etched into every line. "Go to hell," he manages, voice hoarse.
Lucian's smile lacks warmth. "We're already adjacent to something quite similar." He gestures at the shifting void around them. "Though the demon's realm is more akin to hunger made manifest than any human concept of damnation."
The cages lurch forward suddenly, pulling Ava and Liam through a membrane of resistance that feels like moving through gelatin. On the other side, the landscape changes again—vast pillars of shadow rise from an unseen floor, twisting upward into a sky filled with what might be stars but move in patterns too deliberate for astronomical bodies. Ava realizes with creeping horror that the tiny lights are watching them, countless silver eyes observing from every direction.
"The core approaches," Lucian announces, voice taking on that rhythmic quality he used during the binding ritual. "Prepare yourselves for the honor of assimilation."
Fear spirals through Ava's chest, colliding with rage and desperation. The pendant burns colder against her skin, its drain increasing as they move deeper. Through the gaps in her shadow cage, she can see Liam's face—eyes meeting hers with a mix of exhaustion and stubborn defiance. They've both been fighting since the moment of capture, testing the limits of their cage, searching for weaknesses. But Lucian tuned the shadow frequencies perfectly, rendering their abilities useless against his constructs.
Something shifts in the atmosphere, a pressure change that makes Ava's ears pop. The cages slow as they approach what appears to be a vast sphere of concentrated darkness, its surface rippling like oil on water. Silver eyes open across its surface—first one, then dozens, then hundreds—each pupilless and ancient with patient hunger.
"The Shadow Demon in its true form," Lucian says, reverence coloring his voice. "Few have witnessed this and maintained their identities."
The drain from the pendant increases, pulling at Ava's light with greedy intensity. The cold penetrates deeper, reaching past skin and muscle toward her core. She feels herself growing weaker, her consciousness becoming sluggish. Beside her, Liam slouches in his cage, his struggles growing less coordinated.
"Let me show you how the binding works," Lucian continues, moving his hands in complex patterns that cause the cages to position themselves before the sphere. "Your consciousness remains intact, but your will becomes... redirected. Your abilities become extensions of the demon's purpose."
Ava's breath comes in short, panicked gasps. The pendant pulls harder, stealing not just her light but pieces of her identity with each pulse. She fights to hold onto memories—her name, her friends, the sound of Sophie's analytical observations, the warmth of Liam's hand in hers during their escape through the forest.
Something flickers in her peripheral vision—not a physical movement but a disruption in the flow of energy. The pendant's drain falters for a fraction of a second, its rhythm interrupted by something Lucian hasn't noticed. Ava focuses on the sensation, her analytical mind—so influenced by years of friendship with Sophie—cataloging the momentary weakness.
The sphere pulses, silver eyes blinking in unison. Tendrils of darkness extend toward the cages, reaching with deliberate hunger. "The transfer begins now," Lucian announces, raising his hands higher.
Desperation crystallizes into determination inside Ava's chest. The pendant's rhythm has a pattern, she realizes—three pulses, then a microsecond pause before the cycle repeats. The pause represents a vulnerability, a moment when its suppression weakens. If she can time it right...
"Liam," she calls, voice barely audible. His head turns toward her, eyes struggling to focus. "When I move, be ready."
Confusion crosses his face, but he nods, trust overriding understanding. That trust—the bond between them that Lucian has never fully comprehended—fills Ava with something warmer than light. The pendant pulses once, twice, three times...
In the fractional pause that follows, Ava closes her eyes and stops fighting the drain. Instead, she opens herself completely, offering everything she has—not resisting the pull but accelerating it, drawing every particle of light from the deepest parts of herself and channeling it directly into the pendant.
The silver disc can't process the sudden surge. It overloads, transforming from a draining force to an explosive one. Light erupts from Ava's body, blinding in its intensity, a supernova in miniature. The shadow cage shatters around her, fragments dissolving into the void. Lucian staggers backward, silver eyes wide with shock.
"No!" he shouts, but his voice is lost in the concussive force of Ava's release.
The explosion ripples outward, tearing through the fabric of the Shadow Realm itself. Reality splits along fault lines Ava never knew existed. Liam's cage ruptures, his shadows briefly mingling with the ambient darkness before being swept away in the chaotic aftermath. The path between them—the carefully constructed route Lucian created—fractures like ice beneath too much weight.
"Ava!" Liam shouts, his voice distorting as the distance between them suddenly expands. He reaches for her, fingers stretching across an impossible gap that widens with each second.
Ava tries to respond, but the current of the broken realm pulls her in one direction while Liam is dragged in another. The last thing she sees is his face, determination replacing fear as the darkness swallows him whole. Then she too is falling, spinning through layers of shadow without orientation or anchor, the aftermath of her desperate gamble sending her deeper into the unknown heart of the demon's domain.
Ava slams into something that might be ground, though it gives like sponge beneath her weight before firming into cold stone. Pain flares across her body—not from impact but from absence, as if pieces of herself were torn away during the violent separation. Her light, usually a constant presence beneath her skin, flickers weakly like a candle in its final moments. The pendant is gone, its chain broken in the explosion, but the cold imprint of its drain lingers against her throat like a phantom touch.
She pushes herself up on trembling arms, vision blurring as the world around her refuses to settle into anything recognizable. The Shadow Realm stretches in all directions, its landscape in constant flux. What appears to be a corridor of smooth obsidian walls begins to ripple, textures shifting to resemble bark, then fabric, then something like flesh before dissolving into smoke that reforms as jagged crystal formations. Nothing holds form for more than seconds, as if reality itself can't decide what to be.
"Liam?" Her voice sounds wrong here—flat and too close, as if the air swallows sound rather than carrying it. The name disappears into the void without echo. "Liam!"
Only silence answers, thick and watchful. Ava turns in a slow circle, searching for any sign of her friend, for any hint of Lucian, for anything stable enough to orient herself. The explosion tore their carefully controlled passage to shreds, flinging them into different currents of the Realm's chaotic structure. Liam could be inches away but separated by layers of reality she can't perceive, or he could be what passes for miles in this placeless place.
The effort of standing sends tremors through her legs. The light surge drained her more completely than anything she's experienced before. What little illumination remains beneath her skin pulses erratically, struggling to replenish itself without being immediately consumed by the hungry darkness around her. She feels hollow, scraped out, as if the explosion took more than just energy.
Something shifts in her peripheral vision, a movement too deliberate to be the realm's random fluctuations. Ava turns quickly, nearly losing her balance. The darkness twenty feet away seems denser, more concentrated than the ambient shadow. It moves slightly, a rippling motion that reminds her of the tendrils that reached for her from the sphere of eyes.
She reaches instinctively for her light, trying to form one of the defensive spheres that once came so easily. Only the faintest glow manifests around her fingertips, barely enough to illuminate her own skin. The effort leaves her gasping, spots dancing in her vision.
The darkness notices.
It creeps closer, not advancing directly but circling, testing, sensing her weakness. More condensed shadows appear, forming a loose ring around her position. They remain at a distance, patient in their hunger, content to wait as her strength fades. Ava feels their attention like a physical weight, pressing against her skin from all sides.
"Stay back," she warns, voice steadier than she feels. The darkness makes no response but seems to pulse slightly, almost like amusement.
The ground beneath her feet begins to change again, stone softening into something with the consistency of wet clay. Her shoes sink slightly, making each step an effort. The transformation accelerates, the surface becoming less stable with each passing second. Ava forces herself to move, to pull free of the miring ground and stagger toward what appears to be a more solid section several yards away.
The terrain shifts faster now, responding to her movements. What looked like solid ground becomes transparent the moment before her foot touches it, revealing a bottomless drop. She stumbles back, heart pounding, only to find the path behind her has narrowed to inches. The Shadow Realm isn't random in its changes, she realizes with growing dread. It's reacting to her, reshaping itself to herd or trap her.
Ava remembers Lucian's words: "The demon's realm is hunger made manifest." The entire place is an extension of the Shadow Demon's will, and that will is focused on her now, testing, playing, wearing her down before it consumes what remains of her identity.
"Liam," she whispers, the name a talisman against despair. No response comes. She thinks of Sophie too, wondering if she's found the archives, discovered the truth about Lucian. At least Sophie remained in the real world, beyond the demon's immediate reach. The thought provides small comfort as the circle of concentrated darkness tightens around her.
A corridor forms to her right—the only stable path in the constantly shifting landscape. It's an obvious trap, but the alternatives are rapidly disappearing as the ground continues to transform into impassable terrain. With no choice, Ava steps into the passage, her flickering light creating more shadows than illumination.
The walls pulse with a rhythm reminiscent of a heartbeat, surfaces gleaming with oily moisture that evaporates when she tries to touch it. The corridor stretches before her, bending at impossible angles that somehow remain traversable. Physics operates by different rules here, if it operates at all. Ava moves forward, each step requiring conscious effort as exhaustion weighs her limbs and fog clouds her thoughts.
How long has she been here? Hours? Days? Without reference points, time becomes another meaningless concept, as fluid as the realm's geography. Her memories of the world before this place grow hazy around the edges, details blurring like watercolors left in rain. The demon doesn't need to attack directly, she realizes—just keep her here, lost and alone, until her identity dissolves on its own.
"Not happening," she mutters, forcing more strength into her voice than she feels. "I am Ava Montgomery. I exist. I matter." The words feel childish, simplistic, but they help anchor her, provide something solid when everything else shifts.
The corridor branches suddenly, splitting into three identical passages. No markers differentiate them, no clues suggest one might be safer than another. Ava closes her eyes, blocking out the visual confusion of the realm. She thinks of Liam, his steadfast presence that has been beside her since childhood. She thinks of Sophie, her analytical mind that would already be cataloging every detail of this place, searching for patterns.
"I will find you, Liam," she promises to the empty air. "And we'll get back to Sophie."
She chooses the middle path without knowing why, perhaps simply because it feels right. Her light flickers again, dimming to barely a glow, but she cups it protectively in her palms. The darkness presses closer, more confident now, sensing her growing weakness. Ava keeps moving, one stubborn step after another.
The corridor narrows, ceiling dropping until she's forced to hunch forward. The walls seem to breathe now, expanding and contracting with deliberate rhythm. Ava focuses on her own breathing, keeping it steady and controlled despite the panic scratching at the edges of her mind. The passage shrinks further, transforming into a tunnel barely wide enough for her shoulders.
Claustrophobia claws at her throat, but stopping means surrendering to the darkness that follows close behind. Ava pushes forward, scraping her shoulders against surfaces that feel disturbingly warm and yielding. Her light fades to the barest hint of illumination, revealing only inches of the path ahead.
"Keep going," she whispers to herself. "Just keep going."
The tunnel twists suddenly, dropping away beneath her. Ava falls, a scream trapped in her throat as darkness rushes past. She tumbles through nothingness, all orientation lost, her fading light spinning around her like a dying star. Below, above, beside—direction loses meaning as she plummets through the heart of the Shadow Realm, alone and fading, a single mote of light in an ocean of hungry darkness.
Ava stops falling as suddenly as she started, the darkness solidifying beneath her into another false ground. This section of the Realm feels different—more ordered, more deliberate in its construction. Corridors branch in all directions, forming a labyrinth of shadow and memory. The walls here don't shift and writhe like the previous terrain. Instead, they remain unnervingly stable, surfaces reflecting distorted versions of moments Ava recognizes from her own past. The demon has stopped toying with physical disorientation—it's found something more effective to break her with.
"No," she whispers, the word absorbed by the watchful silence around her. She knows what this is—a maze built from her own regrets, her failures, her deepest insecurities. The walls shimmer, images clarifying into painful precision.
To her left, eight-year-old Ava stands frozen as a group of children surrounds a crying classmate. She watches, says nothing, does nothing, as cruel words fall like stones. Her younger self feels the other child's pain so acutely that it paralyzes her, empathy without action becoming its own form of betrayal.
"I was just a kid," she tells the memory, voice shaking. "I didn't know what to do."
The image changes, the crying child looking up directly at present-day Ava. "You felt it all but did nothing," the child says, voice eerily adult. "You let it happen. Every time."
Ava turns away, only to confront another wall, another memory. Fourteen-year-old Ava sits with her mother after a parent-teacher conference, absorbing Maya Montgomery's disappointment without protest. "I know you're capable of better," her mother says, words heavy with expectations Ava never asked for but internalized completely. The failure sits in her younger self's stomach like lead, the conviction that she is fundamentally inadequate crystallizing into belief.
"You'll never be enough," her mother's reflection says, though the real Maya never spoke those words. "Not for me, not for your friends, not for yourself."
Ava's light flickers dangerously, dimming as the accusations strike home. "Stop," she pleads, turning to escape—but there is no escape in a maze built from her own mind.
More memories surround her, each one twisted into something darker than truth. Ava curled in her bedroom, overwhelmed by others' emotions she can't help absorbing, unable to set boundaries between herself and the world's pain. Ava watching silently as Liam pushes himself too hard at practice, knowing he's hurting himself to meet impossible self-expectations but afraid to challenge him. Ava smiling reassuringly at Sophie while hiding her own struggles, perpetuating the fiction that she must always be the group's emotional center.
"You pretend to be kind," the shadows whisper, voice like paper tearing. "But your empathy is selfishness. You feel others' pain to feel important. To feel special."
Her chest tightens, breaths coming in short, painful gasps. The accusation cuts deeper than it should because part of her has wondered the same thing—whether her sensitivity to others is truly compassion or merely a way to define her identity, to make herself necessary to others.
"That's not true," she says, but her voice lacks conviction.
The maze constricts around her, corridors narrowing, ceiling dropping lower. The memories press closer, voices overlapping in a crescendo of self-doubt. Ava stumbles, knees hitting the ground as her light dims to almost nothing, a dying ember in an ocean of shadow.
"You failed them," the darkness says, using her mother's voice, then her own. "You'll fail them again. Light-bearer who can't maintain her own illumination. What use are you to the Chosen Trio?"
Ava's forehead touches the cold ground, her arms wrapping around herself in that protective gesture she's had since childhood. Her light gutters like a candle in wind, ready to extinguish completely. The shadows gather closer, patient in their hunger, knowing victory is moments away.
"You don't have to be perfect, Ava."
The voice cuts through the cacophony of accusations—Liam's voice, steady and familiar, a memory from last summer when she'd broken down after failing a music recital she'd practiced months for.
"You've got us," memory-Liam continues. "Just be you. That's always been enough."
Ava lifts her head slightly, the voice anchoring her against the tide of self-recrimination. The memory surfaces clearly now—Liam sitting beside her on the porch steps, shoulder pressed against hers, neither looking at the other but connected all the same.
"He's not here," the shadows hiss. "He's lost. Forgotten. Gone."
"You're stronger than you think," another voice joins in—Sophie's, precise and warm in that way only her closest friends ever got to hear. "Especially when you let us in."
This memory too comes into focus—Sophie awkwardly patting Ava's back after she'd spent a night absorbing the emotional aftermath of a town tragedy, boundaries erased by her overwhelming empathy. "Your sensitivity isn't weakness," Sophie had said. "It's data. Information you can use rather than drown in."
Laughter follows—Sophie's analytical assessment of emotional situations, Liam's exasperated sighs when Ava pushed him to talk about feelings, their shared inside jokes from a decade of friendship. The sounds warm the air around her, pushing back the chill of the Shadow Realm.
Ava's breathing steadies. The maze still surrounds her, the accusing memories still play on its walls, but something shifts inside her chest—not surrender but acceptance. These failures, these regrets—they're real. She has failed. She has regretted. She has fallen short of her own expectations countless times.
"Yes," she says to the shadows, sitting up straighter. "I've failed. I'll probably fail again."
The admission doesn't bring more darkness as the demon clearly expected. Instead, it creates space—room to breathe, to exist with imperfection rather than be crushed by it.
"But failure isn't the end of the story," she continues, voice stronger now. "It's just part of it. My part."
Ava rises to her feet, facing the memory of her younger self paralyzed by another's pain. "I was learning," she tells the image gently. "I'm still learning. Where the boundaries are. How to help without drowning."
The younger Ava's expression softens slightly, accusation fading from her eyes. Ava turns to the next memory, her mother's disappointment, and nods in acknowledgment rather than defense.
"I wanted to be perfect for you," she says. "But I'm not perfect. I'm just me."
One by one, she faces the regrets the demon has weaponized against her. Not to erase them or defeat them, but to accept them as parts of her story, threads in the fabric of who she is. Her fear doesn't vanish—it remains present, a companion rather than a master.
Something changes in her light—a subtle shift that starts at her core and spreads outward. The desperate, flickering quality transforms into something steadier, no longer a fragile flame but a warm glow that illuminates from within. It's not the blinding flash she unleashed against Lucian's cage, but something more sustainable, more intrinsically connected to her true self.
The maze walls continue to show her failures, but they no longer tower over her. The shadows still press close, but they can't penetrate this new quality of light—not because it's brighter, but because it's rooted in something the demon can't easily corrupt: acceptance rather than perfection, love rather than fear.
"I am Ava Montgomery," she says to the darkness, her voice steady. "Light-bearer of the Chosen Trio. Friend to Liam Foster and Sophie Clarke." Each word strengthens the glow beneath her skin. "I'm not flawless. I'm not unbreakable. But I am whole, even with my cracks. Especially with my cracks."
The maze shudders around her, shadows retreating slightly from her transformed light. The demon hasn't fled—Ava can still feel its presence watching, assessing this unexpected development—but its attack has lost its sharpest edge.
Ava stands in the heart of the Shadow Realm, surrounded by her own imperfections made manifest, and for the first time since her capture, she doesn't feel like prey. The light within her pulses with each heartbeat, no longer desperate illumination against encroaching darkness but a steady beacon of who she truly is—not perfect, but authentically herself.
And in this realm of illusion and deception, authenticity might be the most powerful weapon of all.
The Shadow Realm continues to shift around Ava, but its changes feel less predatory now, more like weather than deliberate malice. She walks with new purpose, each step more certain than the last. The light within her no longer flickers desperately—it pulses with steady rhythm, warming her from the inside out. She extends her hand, concentrating on that inner glow, and watches as illumination gathers in her palm—not the defensive sphere she used to create, but something more focused, more intentional.
The light condenses, brightening until it forms a small star in her hand, its edges clean and defined rather than erratic. Ava studies it with quiet wonder, feeling the connection between this external manifestation and the steady warmth in her chest. Before, her light responded primarily to fear—flaring with threat, dimming with exhaustion. Now it answers to something deeper, more sustainable.
"Let's try something," she murmurs to herself, voice steady in the watchful silence.
She lifts the light higher, then with deliberate focus, sends it floating upward. The small star hovers several feet above her head, casting gentle illumination in a perfect circle around her position. The darkness beyond that circle seems to hesitate, shadows pulling back slightly as if reassessing this new development.
Ava continues walking, her beacon following like a faithful companion. The terrain changes—walls of obsidian giving way to floors of what might be sand, then structures resembling trees made of smoke—but her light remains constant, a fixed point in the shifting landscape. When she reaches what feels like a decision point, a fork in the non-path, Ava concentrates again.
A second light forms in her palm, smaller than the first but equally steady. She releases it, watching as it hovers at the junction, marking where she's been. The Shadow Realm may rearrange itself constantly, but her beacons remain fixed, defying the chaos around them.
"Breadcrumbs," Ava says, a small smile forming. She remembers reading Hansel and Gretel in elementary school, Liam pointing out that birds ate the actual breadcrumbs, and Sophie immediately suggesting more practical alternatives—pebbles, bits of reflective material, anything birds wouldn't eat.
The memory comes with unexpected clarity, bringing with it Liam's face—serious even at eight years old, brow furrowed as he argued passionately that the children in the story should have fought back against the witch instead of tricking her. "If they worked together, they could have overpowered her," he'd insisted, hands forming fists on his desk.
That was Liam—always the protector, always seeing direct action as the solution. His shadows had manifested differently than Ava's light—not with gradual awareness but in a sudden surge when a larger boy had cornered Sophie on the playground. The darkness had gathered around his hands like gauntlets, solid and unmistakable. He'd been as surprised as everyone else, but even then, his first instinct had been to use this unexpected ability to shield his friends.
Ava creates another beacon as she reaches a new junction, the point of light steady and bright against the shifting backdrop. The Shadow Realm continues its constant transformation, but the beacons create something the demon can't easily erase—a pattern, a trail, a declaration of presence that refuses to be forgotten.
The ground beneath her feet changes texture again, becoming something that resembles black glass reflecting distorted versions of herself back at her. Ava doesn't flinch from these reflections as she might have hours earlier. Instead, she studies them with Sophie-like detachment, noting how the demon tries to make her light appear weaker in each reflection, how it subtly alters her posture to suggest defeat rather than determination.
"Nice try," she tells the watching darkness, creating another beacon that causes the false reflections to shatter and reform.
Sophie would be cataloging everything about this place, Ava thinks, smiling at the thought. Her notebook would be filled with precise observations—"Shadow substrate exhibits properties inconsistent with normal matter," or "Reflective surfaces demonstrate selective distortion suggesting consciousness rather than random manipulation."
A particular memory surfaces—Sophie at fourteen, glasses slipping down her nose as she argued with their science teacher about the proper classification of a specimen. "The taxonomic grouping is incorrect according to the latest research," she'd stated, pulling out three different reference texts she'd somehow fit into her already overstuffed backpack. The teacher had eventually conceded, more from exhaustion than conviction.
Afterward, in the hallway, Ava had found Sophie trembling slightly from the confrontation, the social cost of public disagreement nearly overwhelming her analytical certainty. Without comment, Ava had linked arms with her, providing silent support as they walked to their next class. Sophie had adjusted her glasses, cleared her throat, and said simply, "Thanks for the data point on emotional regulation techniques." But she'd squeezed Ava's arm in genuine gratitude.
That was Sophie—expressing connection through analysis, showing care through careful observation. Her echo abilities had emerged gradually, her heightened sensitivity to sound becoming something more—the ability to hear conversations long past, to filter through layers of acoustic memory that no one else could perceive.
Ava's path takes her through a section of the Realm that resembles a forest of crystalline structures, each one catching and refracting her light in unpredictable patterns. She leaves beacons at regular intervals now, creating a constellation of gentle stars that mark her journey through chaos. The demon still watches—she can feel its attention like pressure against her skin—but its approach has changed, become more cautious, less overtly threatening.
She thinks of her friends as she walks—not just isolated memories but the pattern they form together. Liam with his protective instincts, his shadows gathering around those he cares for. Sophie with her analytical mind, her echoes bringing forgotten truths back into awareness. And herself, light revealing what hides in darkness. Different abilities, different approaches, yet somehow forming a complete circuit when together.
"The Chosen Trio," she says aloud, testing the name Lucian gave them. It had sounded pretentious before, weighted with obligation and prophecy. Now it feels like recognition of something that already existed—not a burden placed upon them but an acknowledgment of what they mean to each other, what they can accomplish together.
A tremor runs through the ground beneath her feet, the demon's realm responding to her words. The crystalline structures shatter around her, raining down in fragments that dissolve before reaching the floor. The darkness beyond her beacons pulses with increased intensity, silver eyes blinking open and closed in the distance.
"I know you can hear me," Ava says to the watching presence. "I know you think you've won because you separated us." Her light grows brighter as she speaks, illuminating more of her surroundings. "But that's where you're wrong. Where Lucian is wrong."
She creates another beacon, larger than the others, and sends it floating ahead to light her path forward. "We're connected beyond physical proximity," she continues, voice steady and clear. "Liam and Sophie are part of me, just as I'm part of them. You can't erase that by putting us in different places."
The Shadow Realm shifts again, more violently than before, as if trying to disrupt her certainty. Pathways collapse and reform, spaces expand and contract, surfaces change composition with dizzying speed. Through it all, Ava's beacons remain fixed points, her own private constellation mapping a journey only she can follow.
She doesn't know exactly where Liam is in this fractured reality. She doesn't know if Sophie has found a way to reach them from the outside. But she knows with bone-deep certainty that they're still fighting, still searching, still refusing to surrender to prophecy or predator.
That knowledge burns brighter than any light she can manifest, fuels each step forward through the shifting landscape of the demon's domain. Ava walks with purpose now, leaving her glowing markers like declarations of intent. She will find Liam. They will return to Sophie. The Shadow Demon may have separated them physically, but the bond between them remains unbroken—a connection that transcends distance, that defies forgetting, that even this ancient entity cannot fully comprehend.
"I'm coming, Liam," she promises the watching darkness. Each beacon she creates strengthens her resolve, each memory of her friends reinforces her determination. Fear still walks with her—this place remains dangerous beyond imagining—but it no longer controls her path or dims her light.
Ava Montgomery moves deeper into the heart of the Shadow Realm, her private constellation of beacons illuminating a trail that even chaos cannot erase. Not running from shadows anymore, but walking purposefully through them, carrying light not just as a weapon or shield but as a testament to who she is and what she fights for.