Chapter 1
Sabine
This is what it feels like to die.
I never imagined it—how could I? Who would dare? To feel darkness creeping around the edges of my mind, folding in around me like dirt closing in on my grave.
I feel the life draining out of me onto the punishingly cold stone floor, and no matter how I scramble, I can’t hold it in. Can’t catch it up in my fists.
And, gods, itburns.
Ice-cold lightning rips through my heart’s center, shooting into my bones, until I’m sure they’ll splinter from the pain. Bursts of light flash behind my closed eyes, lighting up the spider-web veins in my eyelids.
With all my strength, I try to breathe. But I’m a sieve now, so full of holes that I can’t capture a single gasp.
Panic crawls over my skin.
It’s getting dark.
Darker.
And I’m fighting, gods, how I’m fighting. I’m fighting with every human ounce of flesh, scrambling to cling to that tiny slip of light I see cracked beneath my eyelids.
I have reasons to live. People who need me. Someone I love more than life itself.
And yet no matter how I try, my fingers turn colder by the second. I try to wiggle my bare toes, but they feel stiff as a cadaver’s.
How…how did this even happen?
I remember leaning in to hug my father one final time. My birth father, who I didn’t know existed until a few days ago. It didn’t matter to me that he was Immortal Vale, King of Fae. The most powerful god to walk the ten realms. Because for once in my life, I had a family.
And then?
Oh, right.
He stabbed the Serpent Knife in my back.
For a brief moment, I manage to scrape together enough strength to focus my energy. It’s anger. White-hot and boiling. Fury that I was betrayed by a man I thought loved me as a daughter.
I was so, so wrong. There’s only ever been one man who loved me.
Basten.
I try to part my lips so I can murmur his name. He’s here. I can sense him, somewhere close by. He was with me only a moment ago, our hands clasped, our eyes full of love, as we finally were about to get the happy ending promised to us.
But even the thought of Basten slowly bleeds away.
Basten, I’m….sorry.
And just like that, my mind empties.
My heart thumps one final time. Spent, finished, drained. Slowly, coldness seeps in, frosty as the stone beneath me, frigid as the blood in my veins, icy as my lips.
My soul’s final scream comes out hollow.
Then, there’s nothing.
Nothing.
