Court Of Shadows and Lies

49. The Other Serene

It's so cold.

"They can't do it."

Whose voice is this?

"I will kill them."

"I will destroy everything."

I opened my eyes, heart hammering, struggling to understand what I was hearing. The voice felt like it was seeping into my skin, spreading through me like poison.

Who's this speaking?

Serene?

I shot up from the bed, panic clawing at my chest. The covers were cold, the warmth of his presence long gone. I swung around, desperate to see him, but the bed was empty.

A chill swept through the room, colder than the dead of night, colder than any wind that could ever touch these walls. It felt like the world had gone still, as if the very air had frozen, waiting.

Serene? Where did he go?

My breath quickened, and I could feel the hairs on the back of my neck standing, prickling like a warning. The room... something had changed. A dark, suffocating energy twisted in the air, crawling up my spine.

I couldn’t see it. But I felt it.

I whipped my head, eyes darting to every corner, my heart thudding like a drum. There was nothing... nothing but shadows, stretching across the walls like they were alive, reaching for me.

Then, my gaze snapped toward the window, my heart skipping a beat as I saw it—my desk, the papers scattered across the floor, the book thrown carelessly aside, its pages ripped open like someone had torn into it with rage.

And standing there, so still, so unnervingly silent, was him.

It was Serene. But it wasn’t.

Don’t tell me it’s the effect of the ritual Aunt and Tiberius are doing?

A sickening dread washed over me, a wave of cold, unnatural power rolling off him in waves. This wasn’t him. This wasn’t my Serene. The presence in the room felt... twisted, as if something darker had latched onto him, sinking into him like a parasite.

I didn’t think. My hand was already under the pillow, fingers wrapping around the dagger. My instincts screamed at me to run, but I knew better. If it wasn’t him... if it wasn’t Serene anymore, I needed to protect myself. I couldn’t let my guard down.

“Ser… Serene?” My voice cracked, a tremor I couldn’t hide running through me. “Are you hurt?”

He didn’t turn. His silhouette remained, unmoving, his back to me as if I didn’t even exist.

Then the voice came. It wasn’t his.

“Hurt?” The words slid from his lips like ice, a low growl that seemed to scrape the air. Wrong. This is wrong.

The voice... the tone... it was all wrong. Cold. Dead. "I'm angry."

I couldn’t breathe. The air in the room felt thick, suffocating, pressing in on me like hands around my throat. The shadows in the corners of the room seemed to twitch, to writhe, almost alive, and I could feel them crawling towards me.

“I’m hurt that they’re trying to suppress me.” The words slid out like poison, every syllable laced with venom, twisting the air between us. His voice was deeper now, distorted, almost like it was coming from someone else. Someone dark.

My heart thudded in my chest, louder than the silence that had swallowed the room.

I couldn’t speak. My throat had gone dry. The weight of the atmosphere was crushing me, squeezing every last bit of air from my lungs.