Elarra’s hands moved fast—too fast—as she lifted the chalice and poured the mixture across the stones beneath the Rift.
The runes ignited.
Now she would leave us. I would undress my new bride, claim her here, in the ritual chamber, our magic would bind us to the runes, reseal the Rift. But Lunaterra needed time. Time to train more Death Mages. Recruit more Vampires and Necromancers. Find more mates for our people. More power.
The runes burned. But not with gold, nor the violet flame of my magic. Not with light.
They turnedblack.Veil-black. Rift black.Voidblack.
Wrong.
Cleo flinched beside me. “Something’s not right.”
The Rifthummed. Deep. Hungry. The kind of sound you felt in your ribs before it reached your ears.
“Elarra?” I stepped forward. “What are you?—”
She straightened and shed her disguise like a snake sloughing its skin. Gone was the hunched old woman in velvet robes and bird-skull pins. In her place stood a goddess of ruin. Queen Solenna.
Her robes shimmered with runes that moved like serpents across the fabric. Her hair fell in silver waves, her skin pale as moonlight, her lips blood-red. Her eyes…
I remembered those eyes. Eyes that once watched me with love. Now, they burned with something far colder. Hatred. The kind of disdain one could only feel after a broken heart. Betrayal. She’d wanted me to open the Void for her. Instead, I’d tried to kill her. That was more than a hundred years ago.
“Hello, my love,” she purred.
Cleo gasped beside me.
I stepped forward, shadows coiling around my hands. “Solenna.”
“Still so handsome,” she murmured. “Still so broken.”
“Who are you?” Cleo’s voice sharpened. “Solenna? I thought your name was Elarra?”
Solenna turned, and her smile widened. “This, little star, is the truth you’ve been too naïve to see. You were never meant to seal the Rift. You were meant toopenit. Starborn blood. Death Mage soul. A bond of light and shadow? The perfect key.”
Cleo’s eyes widened. “You lied. You trained me. You showed me where to find the book. You knew I’d read it. You wanted the king to die.”
Solenna cackled, hysteria and insanity in the sound. “I taught you how to reach your power. Fed you tales of legacy and hope. All so you’d walk willingly into the jaws of destiny.”
The runes flared brighter. Pain bloomed in my chest. My knees buckled.
I reached for Cleo—found her shaking. Her light waspouring outof her. Not in controlled flares. Not with intention. With power.
In loss.
Cleo screamed.
The Rift drank it in, greedily, hungrily, veins of gold and black lashing out from the stone like lightning.
“No!” I tried to cast—but the magic slipped through my fingers like water. My link to the Veil…fractured.The spell draining me wasold.Older than Revenants. It had my soul by the throat. Our blood bound us to Elarra’s dark spell.
Cleo dropped to one knee, breath ragged. “I… I can’t…breathe…”
“You’re killing her!” I roared.
“I’mfreeingher,” Solenna snapped. “From the lies of balance. From the shackles of false gods. From you.”
I forced myself forward—each step a war. My body feltunmade.“Why didn’t her light burn me?” I gasped.
