PROLOGUE
SILAS
Not right now,Maven’s alarmed voice echoes through our bond.
Smoke and ash fill the air, along with so much death that I can damn near taste it. I run through the battle, an ominous desperation tugging me in this direction as I use my remaining reserves of blood magic to hurl a group of Undead out of my path.
My back still bleeds from where a wendigo shallowly clawed it, but that hardly matters. My blood blossom needs me. She was asking for me to heal Everett before she went silent for too long—and now my every instinct is screaming at me to return to my keeper as fast as I can.
Godsdamn it, where is she amidst all this violence and bloodshed?
Just as I take down a hideous, scorpion-like Nether creature that I can’t put a name to, a deep, inexpressible dread sweeps through me.
Something just went wrong. I felt it in my very blood.
What’s happened? Where are you,sangfluir? I demand, nearly tripping over a dead ally shifter as I scan the battlefield for any sign of my keeper.
Above this symphony of screams and turmoil, the golden dragon arcs into a circle as Baelfire also searches for Maven, thunder crackling behind him in the tempestuous sky.
Mayflower? Answer us right the fuck now,he growls telepathically, his rising temper steeped in fear.
Crypt reaches out for her, too, but the hammering of my heart turns painful when his voice grows muffled before cutting out. It’s as if the bond that allows us to speak telepathically is glitching.
No—it’s altogether failing.
Which must mean…
Blind panic takes over. The next moments blur together as I avoid every confrontation, rushing toward the place where I see a large bubble of thick ice. Everett must be in there with her. If I can reach them in time and use whatever necromantic abilities I now possess to help my keeper?—
As if in slow motion, I see that damned formidable figure appear, cloaked in darkness itself and emanating primordial fear unlike anything I have ever experienced. None of the warring opponents near the ice shield notice her presence, but I freeze in abject terror as the goddess of reaping lifts her gleaming scythe.
No.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t witness this. It cannot happen.
The shadowy cloak still completely obscures the goddess’s face. As always, she does not acknowledge me—but one broken breath later, I feel it.
The severing. The loss.
Pain erupts in the emptiness left behind where the bond to Maven just vanished. I choke and fall to my knees. Overhead,Baelfire’s dragon lets out the ear-splitting roar of agony that every fiber of my being is making.
Maven.
I can just make out a hollow whistling above the lingering ringing in my ears. The sound of Syntyche reaping the beautifully twisted soul I fell so hard for.
No. No, no, no, no?—
I drag myself to my feet, stumbling to the icy enclosure with deathly power numbing my blackened fingertips. The ice shatters at my touch, falling to pieces around the bloodied elemental with tears freezing on his messily bandaged face.
Maven is lifeless in his arms.
Gone.
Permanently.
You’ll never see her again, a faint voice titters somewhere in the corner of my mind.
