She crashed into my throne room like a spark thrown into oil—defiant, trembling, but unbroken. Creatures like her don’t survive Vincula’s air, yet she breathed it like a challenge. Blood on her hands, fury in her eyes. I could taste her grief before she spoke; it reeked of vengeance. I’d seen killers and saints, but she was something else—vengeance wearing skin.

They call me the Umbra King. The thing nightmares are made of. But I’m just another ghost in chains, a king without a kingdom, feeding on rage to stay alive. And when I looked at her, I saw the same hollow hunger. We weren’t opposites. We were echoes of each other—both forged by loss, both too far gone for redemption.

She met my gaze, unflinching, like she already knew the monsters that lived here—because she’d met her own. I rose from the shadows, my voice sharp as steel. “Tell me, little vengeance,” I murmured, “are you here to survive… or to burn?”