The chamber swallowed her in its vastness, stars glinting overhead like they had been trapped under glass and set on display. She pivoted again, her boots scraping against the hard surface beneath her. It felt unreal, as though a wormhole had exhaled and left them suspended in its hollowed-out lungs.
“What is this place?” The words escaped in a breath.
“The Heart.” Mira’s lips pursed as if the answer were obvious. “Is that not what I said?”
Behind her, Kaelith groaned, drawing himself up by Rynna’s arm.
“Mira.” Rynna rolled her eyes, bracing her stance. “You know that’s not what I meant.”
“It’s what you get.” The woman shrugged, stepping aside with a sweep of her hand, revealing a circle of villagers, adults only, shoulder to shoulder and layered three deep.
Their faces were half-shadowed by the glow above, expressions unreadable, and though Rynna recognized some, too many remained strangers.
“Why are we here?” The words tore through clenched teeth as Kaelith lifted a hand to cover his mouth.
Rynna glanced sideways at him.
Poor baby didn’t like portals. The words were on the tip of her tongue when the air condensed around them and a voice crashed through it, not from one throat but from all of them at once.
“The enemy returns,” it said.
And pain cleaved through Rynna’s skull as her hands shot up, palms pressing hard against her ears, though it did nothing. The sound wasn’t sound. It ripped straight through her, reverberating against her bones in a roar booming against the inside of her mind. Beside her, Kaelith doubled over with a grunt, matching her flinch.
“Oh! Oh my dear.” The voice broke through again, carried only on Mira’s tongue this time. “Much too loud.”
Rynna could have sworn she heard feathers stir, a faint nervous rustle at the edge of the silence, but the high-pitched ringing in her ears drowned everything else.
“There, how’s that?” The voice was quieter now—sweet, matronly, coaxing.
The world blurred when she tried to focus, her vision swimming as her fingers came away wet from her ears. Blinking at the smear of red on her palm, she shoved the blood into her mouth and wiped the sides of her head and neck with the other hand.
“How’s what!” The words sprang free louder than she meant.
Then—
A dull thud split the space. And her head whipped around just in time to see Kaelith sprawl onto the ground, blood trailing from both ears and his nose.
“What?” She scrambled to him, hands clumsy, as she hauled him into her lap. “Kae?”
No answer. Just the faint drum of his heartbeat against her chest when she pressed him close.
Anger surged low in her gut as her nails lengthened.
They had hurt him.
“Oh, no. No, no, my dove.” The voice came from Mira’s mouth, sing-song and gentle, even as it wrapped around her, smothering the rage pouring through her. “We shall have none of that. Not here.”
Rynna’s eyes snapped up, heart pounding as she chased after that dark power the other had doused so easily within her.
Protect him.The thought screamed through her mind as Mira knelt beside them, reaching toward Kaelith.
“Don’t you touch him.” Rynna jerked back, clutching his form even closer.
The hand froze, and Mira’s mouth opened. “And a piece long hidden has been found.”
The words drifted out, threaded with something too heavy to name.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Rynna scooted backward, stone biting her palm. “And who the fuck are you? The Mistress, I presume?”
