Adytum: A Fairy Tale Reimagining (The Darkly Dreaming Duet Book 2) by Amarah Calderini

Author:Amarah Calderini [Calderini, Amarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ELC Literary LLC
Published: 2026-03-03T00:00:00+00:00

I lay Willa down gently on the stone shore of the heart of the Letum. The will-o-wisps float carelessly around Skull Rock, their soft lights winking out over the dark water of the lake. My death slithers above my head, and a chill skates over my skin that has nothing to do with the cold of the cave, nor the ancient magic hanging heavy in the air. Rather, it is the memories embedded deep in the stone that ice over my veins and squeeze my lungs.

The moments after waking beside the Aeternalis’ corpse to find my death no longer lived behind my heart where I could hide it away. The physical pain of it had been unimaginable, but that was not what sprawled me out on my belly, unable to do anything but retch and cry. It was that there was no more pretending my heart was made of anything but desiccation and rot; no more pretending any life could exist alongside my death.

In this, I understand the pain of Willa’s shadow. She believes her darkness is on display for the world to see, and that no one is capable of loving it. And in my lifetime of failures, that is the worst of them—that I hadn’t loved her well enough for her to know that even her darkness is exquisite.

I trace the lines of her face, drinking in the slight pout of her lips and the little furrow between her brows. The longer I look at her, the softer the memories of everything before her become. Like in the glow of her vibrancy—in the light of the colors between us—the agony is now merely an echo. The remembrance of a wound rather than a fresh laceration.

Because every moment, no matter how terrible, culminated in my loving her. I used to bury my sentimentality beneath layers of determination, cover it in layers of rot so that it could not be touched. But as I gaze down at my queen, it is threaded into the fabric of my skin, the rush of my blood, the beat of my heart.

I will chain myself to this godforsaken island for the rest of eternity if it saves Willa from giving up one more piece of herself. I will damn the whole fucking universe to a slow death if it means she lives.

Villain or hero makes no difference. I am hers.

I slice my blade through the center of my palm and press it gently against Willa’s mutilated throat. Onyx blood leaks from the wound, and I brace for the accompanying wave of disgust. The sight of it—the rot of my sins made physical—has always turned my stomach. But tonight, I only study the way our blood mingles in the creases of my palm with morbid fascination. The scarlet of hers is so bright against the inky black of mine, a reminder of the vitality she stands to lose if I don’t act.

Death swirling above my head and determination around my heart, I kneel beside the heart of Letum and plunge my hand into the sacred waters.

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