CHAPTERONE
Golden light explodes around me, tearing Roman away before his outstretched hand can close around mine.
“Nova!” His furious roar is drowned in the blast, his deep-amethyst wings pushed back in the explosion. Bright purple runes flare across his body as he’s whipped away, the light of his magic flaring within the golden haze before he disappears into it.
The world spins as I’m thrown backward.
I tumble across the ivory ground, blasted through the white dirt so hard that it rises in clouds of sparkling white around me.
I don’t know where my sisters are right now. Or my wolves. Taniya and Malia were rushing toward me when Esta’s power exploded—Taniya in her harpy form, Malia trying to cast a protective spell. Three of my wolves—Temple, Luca, and Blitz—were also racing to help me. My fiercest demon wolf, Ace, was lying on the battlefield, wounded, beside the ruby-eyed wolf that was forced to attack me during the final battle.
I can’t see any of them now.
I also can’t locate Crone, the ancient woman with black eyes and pure-white skin who heralded Esta’s return from the dead.
Now, Esta’s power wrenches me to a stop as suddenly as it hit me, pinning me to the ground on my back. Even though I’ve come to a halt, I can’t seem to get my bearings. Up is down and down is up and all I can do is scream with pain.
A scream that sounds far away.
One of my eardrums is burst. My ribs are fractured, my right cheekbone cracked, and several of my fingers are broken. But nothing compares to the pain Esta’s power causes me as the glowing light thickens and sharpens across my chest.
She is seeking the darkest part of me:my soul. And she intends to rip it out.
Esta’s silhouette appears through the intense haze. Her hands are raised as she steps in my direction, her power akin to blazing sunlight filling the air around her and dripping from her fingertips like honey.
Her skin is light brown and her blonde hair billows around her face. She’s wearing simple black pants and a crossover top that brings out the darkness in her midnight-blue eyes.
She is the reason my father disappeared.
She tore his soul from his body and sent his body to the angels’ realm, leaving the Underworld in chaos and triggering the Elimination—a fight to the death between the King’s seven children to determine the new ruler of Pyra-Mortem, orHell, as I used to call it. It’s a fight I was forced to join.
She is triumphant as she strides toward me.
“Give up,” she cries, her voice a soothing croon. “Stop fighting, Nova. You’ve lost. Accept it.”
I don’t have the strength to reply. I’ve used up the last shreds of my physical strength in screaming. I try to make myself move, to shift, to fight back. Anything other than to lie here and accept my fate, no matter how broken my body is.
With a cruel twist of her lips, Esta plants her feet mere paces away from me and strikes again. This time, her power forms directly over her heart and leaps across the distance between us.
It hits as precisely as a sharpened blade, cutting through my mind and my body. I’m wearing armor that Roman conjured for me, which covers every inch of me from my neck to my toes; it’s strong and flexible, but it can’t protect me from her.
My soul screams as her power rakes across it. Sharper than a wolf’s claws. More painful than a burning knife.
The impact is like being sliced into two, but at the same time, the force of the attack is so great that I expect to be thrown backward again under its intensity.
There’s sudden movement beside me and I’m shocked when I jolt in place, my thoughts clearing for long enough to realize that I’m being anchored by a single hand around mine.
Koda’s hand.
“Koda?” My focus flashes to him, to his bright, cobalt-blue eyes that match his hair. To the blood running down his face and the angry tears dampening his lashes. His navy-blue armor fits across his broad shoulders, chest, and thighs, but it’s cracked from the battle and his black clothing beneath it is torn.
He is stretched out toward me across the stained earth as if he’d leaped in my direction to catch hold of me, his large biceps bulging as he fights against letting go.
“No!” He roars back at Esta. “We won’t give up!”
I’m suddenly acutely aware that Esta’s power is not only trying to cut through my soul but is also trying to separate me from Koda, the glow around our hands increasing with every passing second and a pressure building between us.
She needs to separate us because we’re stronger together.
