Death Before Daylight by Shannon A. Thompson

gave you her powers, they never
left.” His words shot out. “She activated you.”
    Camille. The Light realm. She had been here
before, and so had I. Even I couldn’t deny how she had been in
pain, and I hadn’t felt a thing. The Light realm had felt familiar
from the start.
    “She began the absorption process. Not me,”
he continued to rant. “I never forced you.”
    Until now.
    “Absorption,” I repeated the word I had heard
too many times, the word the Dark knew nothing about. The prophecy
always said the Light could absorb the third descendant, but it
never explained what it meant. It only proved I was Eric’s
weakness. “What do you mean—the process has started?”
    Darthon sat down in the nearest chair. His
hands landed in his lap, opening and closing over and over again.
“Think about it,” he began, “Just think.” He tapped his forehead
like he meant to break it. “Your bloodline was created when the
Dark and the Light separated. There are two of you and one of
me.”
    So, I was still a shade.
    “You’re the reason we’re unbalanced,” he
said. “You can’t just be a shade. You have to be both.” Breath shot
out of his lips in a hiss. “You are both.”
    “I’m not—”
    “Shut up,” he growled, laying his head in his
hands. “Just shut up.”
    I stepped back, glancing around the room as
it shifted. The doors were gone. The horns were gone. The furniture
remained. I couldn’t escape, but Darthon didn’t seem to notice I
was looking for a way out. He was too busy rocking back and
forth.
    “How brainwashed are you?” His whisper broke
the space between us. He stared at me through his fingers. “What
did those dimwits convince you of? That Eric would win and you’d
ride off into the sunset together?” His tone rose. “Life doesn’t
work that way, Jess. Only movies do.”
    I couldn’t fathom a response.
    He grabbed his seat. “Let’s say they told you
the truth,” he spoke. “Let’s pretend you’re only a shade. Let’s say
Eric wins,” he stuttered over the last part. “Why would balance
mean only one side survives? Why would balance result in the Dark
having complete control?”
    That wasn’t balance at all.
    “It doesn’t,” he was the only one who could
say it out loud. “That’s why your bloodline exists. You’re supposed
to lead the new Light—as the light you already are—and you know
what happens then?” His pause was deafening. “They’ll kill you,
too.”
    “The Dark would never kill me.” My words
manifested on their own.
    “I,” Darthon pointed to his chest, “I would
never kill you. My people would never hurt you. The Dark? They
will.”
    “You’re wrong—”
    He slapped his chair like he had to hit
something. His knuckles were white. “Your death would mean the end
of the Light forever, and that’s all the Dark wants.”
    When I didn’t respond, he stood up, and I
stepped back.
    His body froze feet away from me, but I could
feel his energy seeping into me. My veins were vibrating. “Stop
it,” I hissed, knowing he was the cause of it.
    He didn’t stop. “You feel that because you’re
connected with me.” The electricity inside of me grew. “Your death
will cause the Light to die, and that’s why your death would kill
me,” he repeated the worst sentence he had ever spoken during the
Marking of Change.
    “That was a lie.”
    “No, it wasn’t.” Darthon took a step forward.
“Don’t you remember the first time we fought?”
    I did. It was a memory that returned with a
vengeance. My powers were new to me, but I had broken Darthon’s
neck. I had killed him, and then, he had stood back
up—alive—revealing only Eric could kill him. Unless I died. Then, I
could kill Darthon.
    “I ran because I didn’t want to hurt you,”
his voice dropped to a whisper. “I would’ve been killing myself if
I took your life.”
    My powers. The faulty prophecy. The
absorption. The bloodlines. It all made sense now.
    “You’re Eric’s