Chapter 465
It was too sudden. Too complete.
Edward had been an admirer of the Harpies and the twilight-born people of Crepuscular. His kingdom’s very culture, its structure, its philosophies—so much of it had been shaped by their influence. For him to turn away from them so decisively, to cast aside admiration so easily, raised silent alarms among the godlings.
Something had changed within him.
The war with Silas had been the turning point. Everyone could see that. But what had truly happened in the aftermath?
Edward spoke to no one about it. The Sun Kingdom could only speculate, and the godlings could only observe. Yet those who knew him best saw the shift in his eyes, the way his thoughts seemed heavier, the way his certainty had turned to quiet suspicion.
Only Edward knows what he was going through, because Edward knew Silas.
Silas, the schemer. Silas, the manipulator.
His downfall had come too easily. His death had been too simple. And as the years passed, that seed of doubt grew in Edward’s mind. Had they truly defeated Silas? Or had they merely stepped into the next phase of his design?
Edward could not shake the thought.
The war was over. The world moved forward. But something had been left behind in the ruins of that battle—something that had followed him home.
At first, it was subtle. A flicker in the corner of his eye, the faintest shift in the darkness beneath him. A shadow that seemed too still at times, and too fluid at others. Some nights, he could swear it stretched and twisted on its own, curling in ways that did not match the angle of the light.