Maris did not sleep. She tossed in the vast bed, her skin fevered and restless beneath the silken sheets. Her body ached — throbbing beneath her bones. It was as though her blood was singing in a language she didn’t know how to speak.
Her magic —once a whisper —now thundered beneath her skin. Something changed.
Kael’s absence felt like a split in the world. But in that silence, something else bloomed.
And when sleep finally claimed her —it dragged her under.
The dream began with starlight.
Not the soft, silver shimmer of night, but a violent cascade of white fire from a sky that didn’t belong to this world. She stood on a glass-like plain, black as ink and reflective as still water. The sky above cracked open like a wound, pouring light into her chest.
She gasped and felt no breath.
Then she saw her.
A woman formed of brilliance and shadow, her hair flowing like liquid dusk, her skin veiled in constellations, glittery. She moved with the grace of moons, each step leaving golden ripples in the air. Her eyes were galaxies, and her voice...
“I’ve been waiting to meet you.”
Maris didn’t speak. Couldn’t.
The figure stepped closer, the hem of her silver robes whispering secrets across the ground.
“You were not made by accident. You were not stolen. You were called.”
Maris’s pulse roared in her ears.
The figure touched her cheek, cool, gentle, eternal, and leaned in. Her lips pressed to Maria’s temple in a kiss that burned like a brand.
And in that searing moment, she saw:
A Veil cast over the world like a spider’s web, fragile, fraying, holding back horrors no one remembered how to name. A curse spun of fury and distaste. Of Fear.
Five gods, thrones crumbling, one missing.
Darkness, a crown, a child born of four bloods: human, vampire, fae, divine blessing.
The dream shattered, as quickly as it began.
Maris woke with a scream ripping from her throat, heart galloping like a hunted thing. Her skin shimmered faintly in the dark, the starburst in her eyes glowing softly for one terrible moment before fading.
She stared at her trembling hands.
This was the change she had felt looming beneath her skin. A blessing. A curse. A fire she could no longer put out.
Valea rushed to her side from the apartment entrance.
She took Maris into her arms and held her tightly.
Chapter twenty-five
A Rage Unleashed
-Kael-
The borderlands knew war. But they had never known Kael like this.
He crossed into the cursed edge of Nythra beneath a sky choked with bruised clouds, his cloak unraveling in the wind like a dying star. The air was thick with rot and memory burnt wood, dried blood, and the sour tang of ancient magic that hung heavy like smoke no wind could carry. And still, he moved forward. Fast. Silent.
