The silence in the training hall was like a morgue at night—absolute. Not the kind you find at night in a forest, where every rustle of leaves can be heard. And not the kind that presses against your ears in a soundproof room. This was the silence of a vacuum. Of absence. A deafening muteness that made my ears pop.

  I stood in the epicenter of the destroyed space, and the world around me looked like it was painted on an old, faded canvas. The walls, the floor, the ceiling—everything had lost its volume and color, turning into a gray, flat decoration. Where just a minute ago dummies made of alloy steel had stood, there now yawned... a void. Not a hole in space, but simply "nothing". Reality in this place had worn thin and snapped, leaving behind only the smell of dry, dead dust and the taste of ash on my tongue.

  My hands trembled. Not from fear—from the cold coming from within, from the very core of my essence. It wasn't the Morozovs' ice, biting the skin with frost. It was the cold of deep space. Absolute zero. The cold of entropy.

  "Anya."

  Adrian's voice sounded muffled, pushing through the cotton in my ears. I blinked, trying to focus my vision. The image before my eyes swam, reluctantly regaining its colors. The gray retreated, crawling into the corners, giving way to the familiar black granite of the floor and the chrome gleam of the surviving equipment.

  Adrian stood three steps away from me. Alive. Whole. But his face... The usually impenetrable mask of the Prince of Darkness had cracked. In his eyes, as black as the Abyss itself, splashed a strange expression. A mix of awe and primal terror. Even his Shadows, which usually fawned at his feet, now pressed against the walls, avoiding coming near me.

  "What... what did I do?" my voice broke into a whisper, scratching my dry throat. It felt like I had swallowed broken glass.

  He didn't answer. Instead, he stepped toward me, crossing the last few meters dividing us. His movements were sharp, erratic, devoid of their usual grace. He grabbed my shoulders, and his fingers dug painfully into my skin through the thin fabric of my sports top, checking if I was real.

  "Are you breathing?" he asked, peering into my face with a manic intensity.

  "Y-yes..."

  "Pain? Where does it hurt?"

  "Everywhere... and nowhere. It's cold. Very cold."

  Adrian cursed—dirty, elaborately, in an ancient dialect I had only heard in moments of his extreme anger. Emotions broke through the dam of his control. He jerked me to him, pressing me to his chest. Hard. Possessively. That's how you hold the most precious thing you almost lost.

  "You're an idiot, Belskaya," he growled into the top of my head, the vibration of his voice echoing in my body. "I said 'test'. I didn't say 'annihilation of the sector'."

  I buried my nose in his shirt. He smelled of darkness, expensive perfume, leather and... ash. My ash. This smell calmed me, grounded me.

  "I didn't mean to... It happened on its own... I just pulled the thread... I wanted to remove the dummies..."

  "You didn't pull the thread," his hand rested on the back of my head, fingers digging hard into my hair, massaging my scalp. "You brought down the vault of reality."

  The hall doors slid apart with a hiss, breaking the intimacy of the moment. Victor appeared in the doorway. The healer looked exactly like a dead man risen from the grave—pale, disheveled, in a lab coat thrown over silk pajamas. In his hands, he clutched a tablet; on its screen, hysterical red graphs danced.

  "Adrian!" he barked, not looking at us. His gaze was glued to the instrument readings. "What the hell is going on here? The sensors are recording a level four reality breach! The ethereal background is jumping like an epileptic's pulse!"

  He looked up. And stopped mid-sentence.

  The tablet slipped from his weakened fingers and thudded dully against the shock-absorbing floor. Victor didn't even notice. He was looking at the wall behind my back. Specifically, at what was left of it.

  A perfectly straight semicircular cut went through a load-bearing column, part of the armored wall, and a weapons rack. The edges of the cut were not melted, like from a laser or plasma. They were... gray. Porous. Matter in this place had simply grown tired of existing and disintegrated into atoms, leaving behind only a haze of non-existence.

  "Motherfucker..." breathed the highly intelligent scientist Victor, forgetting his manners. His glasses slid down to the tip of his nose.

  Adrian slowly let me go, but didn't step away, staying close, shielding me with his body from his friend's gaze.

  "Victor. I need a full analysis. Now."

  The healer shifted his gaze to me. In his icy blue eyes, usually glowing with cynical intellect, now froze a pure, unclouded fear. He looked at me not as a patient. Not even as a friend's woman. He looked at me like a live bomb whose timer was stuck on one second.

  "My diagnosis is confirmed," his voice trembled, but it carried the grim satisfaction of a scientist whose theory turned out to be correct. "Adrian, this is what I warned you about in the operating room. This isn't magic. Magic is energy, transformation. Fire is plasma, Ice is structure. But this..." he waved a trembling hand. "This is pure Anti-Matter. The channel necrosis I treated... now I see the source."

  He broke off, and an understanding of the scale of the catastrophe flashed in his eyes.

  "Wait... At the Trial. When she destroyed the column. You told the Council it was Entropy! High school, but legal!"

  "I lied," Adrian answered calmly.

  Victor choked on air.

  "You... lied? To an Inquisitor? To the Sleepless? Do you understand that if they had run a spectral analysis of that dust cloud..."

  "They wouldn't have found anything. Back then, Anya used a spell whose structure I layered over her gift like a filter. It looked like Entropy. Smelled like Entropy. But here..." Adrian looked at the perfectly straight cut in the wall. "Here she used no filters. She struck with pure essence."

  "And this essence is the Void," Victor finished in a whisper. "God, Adrian. We are hiding not just an illegal. We are hiding Living Death."

  "I know," Adrian answered dryly. His calmness was more frightening than Victor's hysteria.

  "What am I, Adrian?" I whispered. "What you said in the Archives... Victor confirms it. 'Inversion'. My magic doesn't create, it destroys. Is it true? Am I... a monster?"

  Adrian was silent for a long time. Too long.

  He sat next to me on the sofa. Close. So close that I smelled his perfume—tart, with notes of smoke and expensive tobacco, mixed with the metallic smell of blood.

  Victor watched the scene in horror. "Anya, you're not just a mage! You're an unclassified supreme threat object!"

  He laughed hysterically, adjusting his glasses. "The whole Estate defense is screaming about an 'Apocalypse' level invasion! The Central Crystal almost cracked from the overload! If I hadn't intercepted the signal and rerouted it to the local circuit, a Council Inquisition squad would have landed here in five minutes! With 'Suppressors' and a license to kill!"

  "You intercepted the signal?" Adrian clarified, squinting.

  "Of course! I jammed the external circuit as soon as I saw the entropy readings. But I won't be able to hide this for long. The ether is radiating so strongly that it feels like a portal straight to the Dead Lands was opened here!"

  Adrian stepped toward Victor. His shadow darted across the floor, covering the healer like a dark, thick blanket. The threat became tangible.

  "No one must know," the Prince of Darkness's voice became quiet, insinuating, and because of this, even more frightening. "Not the Council. Not Eliza. Not your lab assistants. No one. Understood?"

  Victor took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes. His hands were noticeably shaking.

  "Adrian, you don't understand. This can't be hidden by a simple illusion. The traces... they don't fade. This isn't mana. This is the radiation of the Void. It eats into the structure of the world, changes the very essence of matter. Any Class A sensor, any Inquisitor will understand what happened here as soon as they cross the threshold of this hall."

  "Then we must destroy the traces," Adrian cut him off. "Pour concrete over it all. Burn it. I don't care."

  "How?!" Victor threw his hands up in despair. "You can't 'wash' a vacuum! You can't paint over a hole in reality! It's like trying to patch a breach in a submarine hull with a band-aid!"

  "I can fill it with Darkness."

  A heavy pause hung in the air. Victor stared at his friend, mouth open. Even I raised my head, surprised by this proposal.

  "You... you want to shield the Void with your Darkness? Are you crazy? That's like putting out a nuclear reactor with gasoline! Your Darkness is active destructive energy! Her... power... is passive destruction! They will annihilate! The explosion will blow away half the city!"

  "It won't," Adrian turned to me. A cold, crazed determination burned in his eyes. "If we create a Resonance. If we merge our auras before we touch the structure."

  ***

  Victor's laboratory was on the minus third level of the Estate, in the most protected bunker. It was cold, sterile, and smelled of alcohol, metal, and static electricity. Shadowless lamps flooded the space with a harsh surgical light that hurt the eyes. The hum of the devices grated on the nerves, drilling into the brain with a fine bit.

  They seated me in a diagnostic chair, more like a spaceship pilot's seat or an instrument of torture. Dozens of sensors attached to my skin—on my temples, neck, wrists, in the area of my heart and solar plexus. They were cold and sticky.

  Adrian leaned against the wall, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn't take his eyes off me for a second, afraid I would disappear if he blinked. Victor darted between monitors, muttering something under his breath, clicking the keyboard and nervously tousling his already disheveled hair.

  "Incredible..." snatches of his phrases reached me. "Pathology... Anomaly... Simply impossible... The readings are off the charts..."

  "Diagnosis, Victor," Adrian's voice sounded like a whip crack. "Stop admiring. Stick to the point."

  The mage-doctor flinched, turning one of the huge holographic monitors toward us. A detailed 3D model of my body rotated on the screen. The nervous system glowed blue, the circulatory system red. But in the center, where normal people have their solar plexus, pulsed a black sphere. It was surrounded by a silvery, jagged halo that looked like a corona during an eclipse.

  "See this?" Victor pointed his finger at the sphere. "This is her core. The Spark. Usually, a mage's core looks like a star—a stable source of light and heat, radiating energy outwards. But Anya's... is a black hole."

  I swallowed, feeling everything inside me tighten into an icy knot. A black hole. I am a void, devouring light. I always knew there was something wrong with me, but to see it like this... visually...

  "She doesn't radiate energy," Victor continued, his voice picking up speed, entering the rhythm of a science lecture. "She absorbs it. In a passive state, when Anya is calm, the sphere soaks up background Ether like a sponge. This explains why she was considered a 'blank'. Any diagnostician saw that there was no radiation in her. But in reality..."

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  He paused, changing the slide. An explosion simulation appeared on the screen.

  "...in reality she accumulated a charge. For years. And when she activates the gift... an inversion occurs. The sign changes. Instead of creation, decay begins. She creates an area of local entropy. The destruction of interatomic bonds. Matter in the area of effect simply ceases to exist. It decays into quarks and gluons, which immediately vanish."

  He went quiet, looking at us over his glasses. The lenses glared, hiding the expression in his eyes.

  "Adrian, she's not an Anti-Mage. She is the Anti-World. If she loses control... truly loses it... from pain, from grief, from fear... she could erase Eridia. All of it. Down to the foundation. Start a chain reaction of matter decay."

  A heavy, oppressive silence hung in the room. I looked at my hands. Ordinary, thin fingers. Pale skin, under which blue veins showed through. A neat manicure. How could these hands be a Doomsday weapon? How could the death of all living things live in this fragile body?

  "Can it be fixed?" Adrian asked. His voice was absolutely even, devoid of emotion. He was already calculating scenarios.

  "Fixed?" Victor laughed hysterically, throwing his head back. "Adrian, this isn't a runny nose! This isn't a curse! This is her nature! Her DNA! You can't 'cure' gravity! You can't 'fix' time! She is what she is. The bearer of the Primordial Spark in the Inversion phase. 'The Destroyer of Worlds', if you want pathos."

  "Then we will learn to control it."

  "Control it?!" Victor jumped to Adrian, grabbing him by the lapels of his shirt. His face twisted with fear. "You're not hearing me! It's unstable! Any emotional outburst—fear, anger, pain, orgasm—can trigger an uncontrollable emission! Do you remember what happened at the Market? And the murder of the Assassin, he just disappeared! Erased! And today? She destroyed the hall, just 'pulling the thread'! What if she has a nightmare? We'll wake up in a crater?!"

  "You already tried to control her gift... And I see the sad outcome. Control is a gamble!"

  Adrian slowly, carefully removed Victor's hands from his shirt. His movements were smooth, but restrained power could be felt in them.

  "Calm down."

  "I won't calm down!" yelled the healer, backing away. "As a doctor responsible for Anna's safety, I am obligated to do something! This is a 'Code Red'! Even 'Black'! She must be isolated! Put in a Stasis chamber, placed in an artificial coma until we understand how this works! Until we find a way to seal this madness!"

  "Try it," Adrian said softly.

  There was so much threat in this "try it" that the temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. The shadows in the corners of the lab came to life, detached from the walls and reached out to Victor with predatory, writhing tentacles. The lamps flickered.

  "Adrian..." Victor turned paler, pressing his back against the control panel. "You're protecting her? You're putting the life of one woman above the safety of the whole world? Above billions of lives?"

  "Yes."

  The answer was instantaneous. Simple. And frightening in its honesty. Adrian didn't even hesitate.

  Victor looked at his friend in horror, seeing a stranger in him.

  "You're... you're crazy. Resonance... it clouded your mind. You're not thinking logically. You don't see the threat."

  "I see the threat," Adrian stepped forward, backing Victor into a corner. His aura pressed, filling up all the space. "The threat is the Council. It's Eliza. It's anyone who tries to touch her. Anya isn't a weapon. She is my True Mate. And if the world can't exist with her... then this world is rotten, and it's time for it to burn. Chaos has always been a part of order."

  I sat in the chair, unable to move. His words... they should have been frightening. He was declaring war on the entire world for me. But instead of fear, I felt... warmth. A strange, dark warmth spreading in my chest. He was willing to become a villain in human history for me. A monster protecting a monster.

  Victor sighed heavily, slumped his shoulders and took off his glasses, wiping them with the hem of his robe. He surrendered.

  "Fine. Fine, to hell with you, Chernov. But we have to do something. If the Inquisitors check her aura, they will see the Abyss. We need a disguise. A perfect disguise."

  "Suggestions?" Adrian immediately switched to business mode. The shadows retreated, the lamps stopped flickering.

  "An artifact?" Victor offered uncertainly. "'The Veil of Isis'? I have a prototype in the vault."

  "Weak," Adrian waved it off. "They'll punch through on the first deep scan. Eliza will be looking for an excuse. She'll bring the best mentalists."

  "Then the 'Aura Fusion' ritual? You can 'share' your Shadow with her. Cover her Spark with your background. Create a cocoon."

  Adrian thought about it. He looked at me, weighing the risks.

  "It's dangerous. For her. My Darkness is aggressive. She's parasitic by nature. She can suppress her will, damage her mind."

  "We have no choice," Victor spread his hands. "Either we hide her under your Shadow, or we hand her over for Council experiments. There is no third option. Decide, Prince."

  Adrian turned to me.

  "Anya?"

  I raised my head. Adrian's gaze was heavy, expectant. He didn't pressure. He gave me the right to choose. The only choice I had left. To become his shadow or to become a lab rat. To live under his protection or to die on the Council's operating table.

  "Do it," I said. My voice trembled, but I forced myself to look him straight in the eyes. "Do what's needed. Eliza won't get me. No one will. I'd rather burn in your Darkness than let them touch me."

  Adrian nodded. In his look flashed something akin to pride.

  "Good. But not here. In my chambers. The protection is stronger there, and there is an altar. Victor, prep the stabilizers."

  ***

  We went up to the penthouse in silence. The elevator felt like a cage carrying us to the scaffold. I saw my reflection in a mirror panel—pale, with dark circles under my eyes, in torn red silk covered in gray dust. What was left of the "Queen of Ashes" dress now looked more like bloody rags. I didn't look like a threat to the world. I looked like a victim who escaped the underworld.

  But inside... Inside, in the place where viscous fear used to beat, now lived a cold, sated Void. She slept, curled into a ball, like a well-fed beast, but I felt her heavy presence. She waited. Waited for me to give her free rein again.

  The doors opened right into Adrian's bedroom. A spacious room, decorated in harsh dark colors. A huge canopy bed, a blazing fireplace, panoramic windows spanning an entire wall with a view of the night city sparkling with lights. The city that I could erase with a single thought, if I believed Victor.

  "Take your clothes off," Adrian said, locking the door with a magical deadbolt. The click of the lock sounded like a gunshot.

  I froze. My breath caught.

  "What?"

  "I need access to your skin, Anya. To the meridians. The ritual requires direct contact. Fabric will interfere with conductivity."

  He was already taking off his jacket, tossing it carelessly onto an armchair. The shirt followed, revealing his body. I looked away, feeling the heat of embarrassment flush my cheeks. His body was... a perfect weapon. Scars crossing his chest and back—the marks of old battles—didn't ruin it, but only added danger, telling a story of survival. Cast muscles rolled under dark skin with every movement. On his left side, where the wound from the assassin had been, was a fresh bandage soaked in blood.

  "Anya. We're short on time," impatience slipped into his voice. "The energy signature in the hall is still radiating. We need to close your aura before dawn."

  I took a deep breath, gathering the remnants of my courage, and pulled at the edge of the ruined corset. The fabric slid to the floor with a quiet rustle, baring my shoulders and chest. The skirt followed. I was left in only my underwear—lace grayed from dust, which felt like a laughable, pathetic defense against what was to come. I felt naked, defenseless, exposed.

  Adrian approached me. There was no lust in his eyes, no desire. Only extreme focus and... darkness. Living, pulsing Darkness, which swirled around him like a royal mantle.

  "It will hurt," he warned honestly. "I have to inject my energy into your aura. Your Void will resist. It will try to 'eat' my Darkness. We must create a balance. Symbiosis."

  "How?" I whispered.

  "Trust me. Just... open yourself. Don't build barriers. Don't block the pain. Accept it."

  He reached out and touched my chest, right over my heart, where the Spark pulsed. His palm was hot, almost searing, contrasting with my icy skin.

  "Close your eyes."

  I obeyed, yielding to the victor.

  In the next second, the world exploded.

  It wasn't like sex. It was like an armada invasion. His magic flooded into me in a dark, viscous, hot stream. It filled my lungs, pushing the air out, making me choke. It flowed through my veins, mixing with the blood, turning it into liquid fire. It was heavy, domineering, suppressing. All-consuming.

  I screamed, throwing my head back, but there was no sound. A spasm gripped my throat. My body arched, muscles cramping.

  Inside me, the Void awoke. She hissed, sensing the stranger. Slowly, lazily she uncoiled and... bit.

  I felt Adrian flinch. His fingers tightened on my shoulder to bruises, keeping us both in reality.

  "Endure it!" he growled in my face. "Don't push it away! Accept her! Become her!"

  "It hurts!" I exhaled along with the remnants of air.

  "I know. It hurts me too. We share this pain. We share everything."

  His Darkness didn't attack. She... enveloped. She covered my gray, hungry Void in a thick, velvet blanket of night. She hid her, wrapped her, lulled her to sleep. The Void resisted, tore this veil, but the Darkness was infinite. It kept flowing, filling the cracks, smoothing edges, filling all the voids.

  "Look at me, Anya! Look into my eyes!"

  I forced my eyelids open. Adrian's face was an inch from mine. His pupils widened, completely flooding the iris. Violet fire in them burned so bright it hurt to look.

  "We are bound," he whispered, and his voice sounded not in my ears, but directly in my mind, drowning out the rush of blood. "Darkness and Void. You are my doom. I am your shield. We are one."

  He leaned down and kissed me.

  This wasn't a kiss of love. It was a seal. Bloody, hard, possessing. His lips crushed mine, his tongue invaded my mouth, demanding complete capitulation. I tasted metal—my bitten lip.

  In the moment of the kiss, the magic locked.

  The circle closed.

  The pain disappeared, dissolving into euphoria. Only power remained. Massive, pulsating might that flowed between us in a closed loop. I felt his heartbeat as my own. I felt his rage, his passion, his fear for me, his insane devotion.

  And he... he felt my hunger. My Void. And he was not scared.

  We broke apart from each other, breathing heavily, like after a long run. Our chests were heaving. The skin burned.

  Adrian pulled back, scanning me with his "magical" sight.

  "Did it work?" I asked hoarsely. My voice was a stranger's.

  He nodded, wiping blood from his lip with the back of his hand.

  "Yes. Your aura... changed. Now to an outside observer you radiate Darkness. Thick, dense Darkness, characteristic of the high mages of my Clan. Approximately level B, maybe a weak A. The Void is hidden deep inside, under a layer of my energy. A dormant volcano, covered with snow."

  I looked at my hands. The skin seemed slightly darker, barely noticeable shadows running over it. The cold inside retreated, replaced by a pleasant, heavy warmth given by his magic. I felt... protected. For the first time in a long time.

  "And how long will this last?"

  "While I am alive," he answered simply. "My magic now fuels the disguise. I am your source. If I die... the veil will drop, and the Void will break out."

  "So, you have no right to die," I tried to smile, but my lips trembled. "I forbid it."

  Adrian smirked. It was his usual, arrogant smirk that made my knees weak, but now I saw the exhaustion behind it. He had given me a lot of strength.

  "I don't intend to die, my queen. We have too much to do. First, we need to figure out how to explain the damage in the hall to the Council. Second..."

  Someone knocked on the door. Sharp, demanding. Three short raps. Pause. Two long ones. The coded knock of the head of security.

  Adrian instantly tensed. The mask returned to its place. The relaxed lover disappeared, the Prince returned.

  "Who?" he barked, without opening.

  "Urgent report, my Prince," Cain's voice from behind the door sounded alarmed, even frightened. "From the Council of Seven. Eliza Ogneva's personal courier."

  We exchanged glances. Eliza's name hung in the air like a curse.

  "Open it," Adrian commanded, throwing on his shirt but not buttoning it. I hastily pulled on my top and leggings, trying to hide the tremor in my fingers.

  The door opened. Cain didn't dare to enter—he stayed on the threshold, respectfully bowing his head, and handed over a black velvet envelope with a wax seal in the shape of scales wrapped in flame. Eliza's personal crest as Head of the Judicial Department.

  "The courier said to open it immediately."

  Adrian took the envelope. Broke the seal. Pulled out a heavy sheet of paper with gold embossing.

  He read it in silence. His face hardened to stone with every line. The muscles on his cheekbones twitched.

  "What is it?" I asked quietly, walking closer.

  Adrian crumpled the letter in his fist. The paper burst into violet flame and crumbled into gray ash onto the expensive carpet.

  "They know."

  "What?!" My legs buckled, and I grabbed the back of the armchair.

  "Not about the Void," he added quickly, noticing my panic. "They know about the 'ethereal spike'. The city sensors picked up the anomaly. Eliza demands an emergency assembly of the Clan Heads. Tomorrow. High noon. In the Council Hall."

  He walked over to me, took my chin, forcing me to raise my head and look him in the eyes.

  "They want to interrogate us, Anya. A public flogging. Eliza will push. She smells blood. She will try to prove that you are dangerous, and she'll demand either your execution or your transfer to the custody of the Fire Clan."

  "And what will we do?" I whispered. "We can't fight the whole Council."

  Adrian smiled. But there was nothing human in that smile. Just the predatory snarl of a cornered beast ready to tear the throat of anyone who approached.

  "We will go there. And we won't make excuses. We will give them a show they will never forget. You're a Shadow mage now, Anya. My apprentice. My lover. And my executioner. Tomorrow, you will officially enter the Chernov Clan for the first time."

  "As what? A secretary? A bodyguard?"

  "As my Bride."

  The world tilted and turned upside down.

  "Bride?"

  "Only the True Mate status gives you immunity from direct Inquisition interrogation without the Clan Head's consent. Only as my future wife are you under the full, absolute protectorate of my House. No one, not even the Council, has the right to question Lady Chernova without me present. Tomorrow we announce the engagement."

  I looked at him, trying to grasp the meaning of the words. Engagement. Wedding. With a monster. To escape other monsters. It was madness.

  "Are you ready to do this?" I asked. "To marry... a mistake of the universe? Tie your life to the Void?"

  Adrian pulled me to him, kissing my temple.

  "I've dreamed of this since the moment you walked into my office, Anya Belskaya. And to hell with the universe."

  Dawn was breaking outside the window. Gray, cold, lifeless. Just like my soul. But now this grayness had a shadow. And this Shadow promised to protect me until his last breath...