Elara paced the dimly lit chamber, her hands brushing against the cold stone walls. She had grown up in places like this—in the hidden temples of the Luminaris Order, where light magic was sacred and shadow magic was seen as the ultimate corruption. It had been drilled into her from childhood that the shadows could not be trusted, that those who wielded them were doomed to fall.
But then she had met Alaric.
She remembered the day they had crossed paths in the ruins of an ancient city, both searching for the same artifact: the Aetherium Relic. She had been a zealot back then, determined to destroy anyone who dared dabble in the dark arts. But Alaric had shown her something different. He had wielded the shadows not with malice, but with precision and care, as though he understood their balance better than anyone else.
He had saved her life that day.
Now, years later, Elara had become his closest ally—and his greatest fear. She had watched as the power of the shadows slowly consumed him. She saw it in the way his eyes darkened when he used his magic, in the way his voice took on a hollow echo. She feared the day when she would have to make a choice: save Alaric from himself, or stop him before he became a monster.