“Make them,” I snarl.
“They’re a legion, Dreven. The combined will of every slayer who ever lived. They think her duty is done. They’re welcoming her home.”
Home.The word is an obscenity. Her home is with us, a thorn in our side, a fire in our beds, the anchor that holds our fucking worlds together. Not in some spectral retirement home for dead heroes.
Dastian grunts, the red-gold shield around us shuddering as the realm outside batters against it. “Whatever you’re doing, Voren, do it faster. This place is getting pushy.”
My shadows lash out inside the dome, striking nothing, achieving less. The raw, impotent fury is a poison in my veins. I am a god, and I can do nothing but watch as another tries to bargain for the soul of the only thing that has mattered in centuries.
I grip the cold, unyielding stone of the floor. “You promised her,” I say, my voice a low growl that is more shadow than sound. “You swore on your soul. So, I will ask you one more time. Can you bring her back?”
His eyes meet mine over her still form. The sorrow is gone, replaced by a chilling resolve. “They won’t give her up without a fight.”
“Then fight them.”
Chapter 2
Nyssa
“She has been called.”
The voice, a rough, grating voice, sounds around me, and the spirits clap, murmuring their well-wishes.
“Who has been called?” I ask, but no one answers me.
But then it hits me.
Rynna.
“Fuck!” I roar and curse myself into the bowels of hell. I was so busy trying to save myself and the gods that I totally forgot that if I die, Rynna will be called. “No!” I shout. “She isn’t ready!”
The spirits around me shimmer, their forms indistinct but their judgement clear. They don’t understand my panic. To them, it’s just the turning of a page, the passing of a torch.
“It is the way,” a new voice says, calm and ancient. A woman with a stern face and hair the colour of old iron steps forward from the crowd of ghosts. “The line must not be broken.”
“The line can go fuck itself,” I spit, but my voice has no substance here. It’s just an echo in a sea of placid acceptance. I try to move, to push past them, to claw my way back to the living world, but my limbs are smoke. There’s nothing to push against.
“Voren,” I growl. “What’s taking so fucking long?”
“She is strong,” the iron-haired woman continues, her tone maddeningly serene. “She will serve, as you did. As we all did.”
Serve.The word is a brand. I spent my life serving a lie, and now they want to chain Rynna to it. My little sister, who thinks getting drunk and fucking the nearest guy is a good time. The reckless, hothead, who will dive in without conscious thought and get herself killed without the proper control, without the proper organisation she is incapable of.
“You give her so little credit,” the woman says witheringly. “Your aunt wasn’t as sceptical about you.”
“How dare you?” I hiss, looking around for Ciara, but I don’t see her in the sea of slayers past. “I was prepared. I knew what I was up against. My nature is to be methodical and sensible…” I trail off because all that went straight to hell the second I laid eyes on the gods.
“Her path is her own. As yours was.”
A cold thread, fine as a spider’s silk, brushes against my subconscious. It’s faint, but it’s there. A promise made in a realm of bone and shadow. Voren.
“My path isn’t over,” I say, focusing on the chill, trying to grasp it. I push against the collective calm of this place, against their serene acceptance of my end. “He’s coming for me.”
The spirits shift, a tide of disapproval. “He cannot take what has been given freely,” the woman states, her voice ringing with the finality of a tombstone. “Your duty is done. Rest, slayer. You cannot undo what has already been done.”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead,” I snarl, and a few of the spirits actually recoil. “Oh, wait.”
But fuck. Rynna has been called. The Order will be wondering what the hell happened to me. Rynna will be beside herself. Even if Voren gets me out of this fucking mess, Rynna is the slayer now. Will I still have that edge if I go back? Or willI have to resort to leading a normal life like our parents always wanted?
