Villain's Last Chance
Chapter 49: The Fall Into Shadow

Chapter 49: The Fall Into Shadow

The First Heir.

Alive.

I couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. The world narrowed to the figure before me, standing with the eerie stillness of something that no longer belonged to this world but refused to leave it.

Cairon shifted beside me, his grip on his blade tightening, but he didn’t strike. He was watching. Waiting.

For what?

For me to react.

The man tilted his head, his gaze locking onto me as if peeling back my very existence layer by layer. "You finally hear it, don’t you?" His voice was smooth, deceptively calm, but it carried an unnatural weight—like it didn’t just exist in the present but echoed through time itself.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out.

I did hear it. The Codex was pulsing against my palm, whispering, humming in a language I didn’t know, yet somehow understood.

Cairon stepped forward, placing himself slightly in front of me. "You shouldn’t be here." His tone was sharper than I’d ever heard it, edged with something dangerously close to fear.

The man’s gaze flickered to him, unimpressed. "Neither should you, executioner."

A shift in the air.

Not magic. Not power.

Pure, charged intent.

I had never seen Cairon tense like this. Not when we fought enemies, not when the Codex nearly consumed me, not even when we faced death itself.

I should have been terrified.

But instead—

I was drawn to the First Heir.

"Who are you?" I asked, my voice steadier than I felt.

The man’s lips curled in something that wasn’t quite a smile. "You already know."

No. No, I didn’t.

But I felt the truth settling in my bones.

"I thought you were dead," I forced out.

He let out a quiet chuckle. "I was." His gaze darkened, flicking to the Codex. "But you brought me back."

The Codex flared.

The forest blurred, the air crackling with something unseen but overwhelming. For a moment, my vision twisted—dark halls, flickering torches, chains rattling—a blade plunging through a chest—

I gasped, staggering back. Cairon grabbed my arm, steadying me. "Don’t let him in." His voice was low, warning.

But it was already too late.

I wasn’t letting him in.

He was already there.

The First Heir took a slow step forward. Cairon’s blade was at his throat in an instant.

"I won’t warn you again," Cairon said, deadly calm.

The man didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. He simply... watched.

Then—he looked at me.

"You’re stronger than the last." A pause. "But not strong enough."

My fingers curled into fists. "And what does that mean?"

His expression was unreadable. "It means the cycle isn’t over yet."

The cycle.

The same word the robed figures had spoken.

I felt the weight of it settle over me, pressing down like unseen hands.

"What cycle?" I demanded.

The First Heir’s gaze flickered past me. Over my shoulder.

Not at Cairon.

At the shadows moving behind him.

Too late.

The attack came fast—too fast.

I barely had time to react before darkness swallowed us whole.

Darkness closed in around us like a living thing—thick, suffocating, cold. I barely had time to register the figures behind Cairon before everything was consumed in black.

I couldn’t see him.

I couldn’t see anything.

The Codex screamed against my skin, its pulse like a frantic heartbeat, and I clung to it like it was the only real thing in this nightmare. I heard Cairon shout my name—sharp, raw—but it was distant, like it was coming from the other side of a wall that hadn’t been there a second ago.

And then hands—cold, clawed hands—grabbed me.

I fought.

Kicked. Bit. Screamed.

My magic surged wild and chaotic, answering not my command, but my panic. Shadows erupted in jagged waves, tearing through whatever tried to hold me. I didn’t know if it helped. I didn’t know if it hurt Cairon or saved us both.

I just wanted to breathe.

Suddenly, the darkness snapped—like glass shattering—and I collapsed onto cold, unfamiliar ground.

Alone.

"Cairon?" I choked out.

No answer.

I sat up, vision swimming. We weren’t in the forest anymore. The trees were gone. The sky above was a swirling storm of violet clouds and fractured stars. The ground beneath me was stone—ancient, cracked, covered in spiraling runes that glowed faintly with the same pulse as the Codex.

Wherever I was, it wasn’t real. It wasn’t natural.

But it was connected to the Codex.

I rose to my feet, clutching the artifact to my chest. "Cairon?" I tried again.

A whisper behind me.

Not a voice.

A memory.

"You don’t belong here," it said.

I spun around—and saw myself.

Not quite. Her hair was longer. Her face sharper. Her eyes... hollow.

She stepped toward me barefoot, clothed in tattered robes that fluttered despite the absence of wind. Her presence made the runes beneath us flare—not in welcome, but in recognition.

"Who are you?" I whispered.

The figure didn’t answer. She raised her hand instead, and from her palm, shadows bled, forming a mirror between us.

And in that mirror, I saw everything.

The Villain’s rise. Her betrayal. Her end. My beginning.

The same face through time, through versions of the same cycle. Each one ending in blood and fire and silence.

And at the center of it all—the Codex.

A prison.

A key.

A curse.

"No," I whispered. "No, that’s not me."

The figure finally spoke. "But it was. And it will be again, unless you break the pattern."

The mirror shattered, the fragments lifting into the air like stars.

And then—Cairon’s voice cut through the space like a blade.

"Elara!"

I turned and ran toward the sound, but the ground beneath me fractured, collapsing into spirals of light and dark. I didn’t fall—I was pulled—sucked back into the world with a force so violent it felt like I was being torn apart.

And then—

Light.

Air.

Pain.

I hit the ground hard, gasping. Cairon was there, crouched over me, his hands gripping my shoulders. His eyes were wild with something between rage and relief.

"You were gone," he said, voice low, almost broken. "For a moment—I thought—"

"I saw her," I breathed.

Cairon froze. "Who?"

I met his gaze. "Me. Or what I could become."

His jaw clenched. "We’re getting out of here."

He helped me up. We were in some kind of ruin now—an ancient temple swallowed by the forest. The air was heavy with old power, and the Codex was glowing brighter than ever, humming like a living thing.

Cairon kept one hand on his blade and the other around my waist as we moved through the shattered stone corridors. His protectiveness was almost possessive now—like whatever had happened had shaken him deeper than he wanted me to see.

And it should have. Because it had shaken me, too.

The figure hadn’t threatened me.

She had warned me.

And I didn’t know what terrified me more—her power, or the part of me that understood her.

We stepped into a large circular chamber, and I felt it before I saw it.

The First Heir.

Again.

But this time, he was not alone.

Another figure stood beside him—tall, feminine, cloaked in a deep red that shimmered with every move. Her face was masked, but the presence radiating from her was colder than death.

"You returned sooner than expected," she said, voice silken and sharp. "The Codex must like you."

Cairon stepped in front of me. "Step aside."

The masked woman laughed. "Oh, I’m not your enemy. Not yet."

The First Heir said nothing. He simply stared at me.

Not with hostility.

With recognition.

"You’re further than the last," he said quietly. "Much further."

And I realized something then.

They weren’t here to stop me.

They were here to watch me fall.

_____

The First Heir took a step forward.

Not threatening. Not aggressive.

Just curious.

That, somehow, was worse.

"You feel it now, don’t you?" he said, his voice carrying through the air like smoke. "The weight. The stirrings. The Codex recognizes you as more than a bearer. It remembers you."

I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because he wasn’t wrong.

Ever since the last vision, the Codex had felt alive—not just reacting, but responding. As if my very thoughts shaped its pulse.

Cairon tensed beside me. "We’re not here to play word games."

The masked woman tilted her head. "But that’s all the Codex is, isn’t it? Words twisted into fate. Power woven into prophecy. And the poor fools caught between."

The First Heir’s gaze sharpened. "You’re close, Elara. Closer than you think. But proximity to truth is dangerous when you still carry illusion."

My fingers tightened around the Codex. "Speak plainly."

"Then listen clearly," the woman said. "The villain you remember—she wasn’t born. She was made. Forged by the choices of others, by betrayal, by fear. You may carry her face, but you don’t have to carry her end."

My throat was dry. "You’re saying I can break it."

"You must break it," the First Heir said. "Or become her."

Cairon stepped forward, voice like thunder. "Enough riddles. You appear, vanish, reappear—are you allies, enemies, or just bored immortals?"

The woman’s laugh was like ice cracking. "We’re witnesses, Cairon. And watchers only interfere when the scale tips too far."

A pulse ran through the floor.

The Codex flared violently in my grip.

The chamber shifted, the runes spinning faster beneath our feet. The First Heir’s expression flickered—just for a second—into something like concern.

"You need to go," he said. "Now."

"But—"

"Now!" his voice snapped like a whip.

A rumble echoed through the temple. The runes began to lift from the ground, spiraling upward like fireflies pulled into a cyclone. Cairon grabbed my arm, yanking me backward as the masked woman raised her hand and carved a sigil in the air.

A portal tore open behind us, a jagged spiral of violet and silver.

"Take her!" the woman commanded Cairon.

He didn’t hesitate.

We leapt.

And the world fractured behind us.

We landed hard—again—but this time in a place that smelled of damp stone and old blood. My vision cleared just enough to see broken cages, rusted chains, and carvings that looked disturbingly like us.

"This isn’t a sanctuary," Cairon muttered.

"No," I said slowly, staring at a carving of a cloaked figure holding the Codex. "This is where they kept the others."

Cairon turned to me sharply. "Others?"

I nodded. My voice was barely a whisper.

"The ones who came before."

And from the shadows behind the bars—something moved.