I take a deep breath and, with my sisters and my wolves at my side, I step into the fog.
Our surroundings blur as we drop and my heart shoots up into my throat.
A heartbeat later, a force takes hold of me, wrenching me sharply to the left before the air compresses around me. Then I’m sliding through biting magic that feels like it’s forming some sort of tunnel that leans farther to the left before it slopes downward. It amplifies the pounding beats of my heart and my harsh breathing echoes in my ears.
The stream of magic is wide enough that my sisters are right beside me and my wolves are below me, somehow falling faster than we are. I can just make out their outlines within the white haze, the crystals clinging to their bodies turning their fur from black to ivory.
Through my heightened senses, I feel Malia’s magic growing around her and the rage of Taniya’s harpy. Both of them must be fighting their instincts to protect themselves with their power right now.
My own wolf’s hackles rise within me.
Mortem is a place of illusion, where darkness hides right in front of me, but this magic feels out of place. It’s like the mist, but alsonotlike the mist, and I’m startled to realize that it reminds me of the first time I saw the angel cowering in the back of the shipping container where Koda had trapped her.
She was bait to draw us in.
I didn’t trust my demon side then. Kept a tight hold on it. I’d only allowed myself to sense a little of her warm energy. It was like sunlight but not dangerous like Esta’s magic. Calming. Perfect warmth.
The glow within the tunnel of magic reminds me of her energy.
Koda insisted there’s a crack between worlds ahead of us. If it’s a large one, it’s possible some of the angels’ realm light is seeping through into Mortem’s air. It only serves to deepen my fears that time is not on our side.
The worlds are breaking.
We plummet through the magic and then, suddenly, darkness swallows us. It’s colder than my nightmare power, triggering a deep desperation to escape it, and a scream rises to my lips as it wraps around me, sucking me down into its depths.
A second later, I hit the ground. My knees buckle beneath me on impact, and I land on all fours on hard rock. I’m aware of Malia and Taniya dropping beside me, each exhaling with a quiet ‘oomph’ that tells me they experienced the same hard landing I did.
The only light around me is coming from my wolves, whose fur is still covered in brilliant, white crystals. They leap toward us, shaking off the snowy substance at the same time.
The light disappears the moment the mist falls from their bodies and I’m left with bright spots in my vision.
Before I can consider shifting and using my wolf’s eyes to see in the dark, a silhouette moves on my right.
A sapphire rune flares in the darkness and Roman plows toward me. The blue light glows across his chest and face, highlighting the tightness around his eyes and the tension in his shoulders. “Nova!”
I rise to my feet, stumbling upward, trying to breathe in the cold darkness. Shivers track across my skin beneath my armor and even Roman’s light can’t break through the gloom for more than a few feet around us.
“Where’s Koda?” I ask, trying to locate him in the dark, but he’s nowhere in sight.
Roman reaches me, pulling me close. Not only me, but my sisters as well, drawing them into the circle of light. “Stay within the rune’s light,” he orders us, his arm slipping around my waist as he scans our surroundings. “Don’t step beyond it or the dark could swallow you.”
My sisters’ wide eyes tell me they weren’t expecting him to be so protective of them, but they huddle close.
“What is this place?” Malia asks, visibly shivering. “Where are we?”
The vehemence in Roman’s snarl strikes at the growing sense of danger within me.
“We’re in the Scourge,” he says.
I freeze where he holds me. The Scourge is the deep pit that forms a defensive barrier around the Citadel—the royal palace. I nearly fell into the Scourge when I first stepped inside the palace. Roman warned me it’s a place I never wanted to go.
I look up, wondering if I might see the interior of the palace far above us, but the magic seems to have brought us directly into its depths. A rock ceiling yawns above us.
“What the hell is the Scourge?” Taniya asks.
I remember the way Roman described this place all those days ago, and I catch the growing tension in his expression before I answer Taniya. “A place filled with all the hellish thoughts, fears, and physical pain imaginable.”
CHAPTERNINE
