Chapter One
OSIRDAN
High Falls, Southern Province, Chucha
Ota’ano
Why was I standingin front of this fucking gate?
It hadn’t budged in over three thousand years. There was no reason for my boots to be planted here right now.
There were times when I would stand in this exact location, hoping the gate would swing open, hoping I could cross freely to the other side again, aching for the connection of my blood that was shuttered away from me.
But my home planet’s magic was stronger than even I was. Nothing I did would allow me to pry those doors open and cross to the bridge that is S’Kir, a small island I used to enjoy gallivanting through, a realm of serenity and peace.
The door looked nothing like it used to.
Far in the past, when I stood and stared and hoped, it had been a glimmering, dark black stonewood. Nothing could have burned it; nothing could have broken it. The only way to shape it was the effects of age.
Time had ravaged these doors. Pockmarked, dulled, now a muted dark brown, they looked the way I felt: exhausted.
Why was I here? What had called me?
I never disobeyed Ota’ano’s magic. Not ever.
But this was downright cruel to call me here.
I inhaled heavily and turned my dark amber eyes away. I should leave. Iwantedto leave. I pivoted to walk away, my boots taking me where I wished to go. There was nothing in this place of desolation. Nothing I could use, nothing I could study, nothing I could understand.
Desperation once burned through me frantically—if only those gates would open. I was numb to it now. It had been too long, and my desire dwindled to a lonely, tired sadness.
Kharini. I did miss my soul mate.
She would have known what to say right now.
I was a sad sack of pathetic apathy.
My boots dragged on the grass, raking up mud.
Ahmnsep gasped. My manservant wasn’t looking at me, though. He raised his hand and pointed. “Sire…”
I spun back.
The lock was glowing. Brutal red and harsh gold.
I stared, transfixed. After all these millennia…
After all this time, was it finally…
The doors shook and shivered, and a great rusty groan rose from between them, trembling through the wood. The rusted hinges screamed in protest but finally started to turn.
One door jumped away from the other as the strain grew too great. Then, slowly,ever so slowly, the two separated more. The right creaked and shivered its way open toward me, the left the same, away from me.
A blast of icy, dry air shot through the widening crack, bringing the salt taste of an ocean I’d long thought I would never see or feel again.
Light flashed as the doors peeled back and clattered open, wide enough for a small contingent of armored men to walk through if they wished.
Ahead of me was the clear sunset of a place I had been barred from for more than three thousand years—The Shroud in S’Kir. Fog and mist rolled and stirred along the ground, obscuring the grass and rocks just beyond. This was nothing like the tiny island I remembered as the gate’s home.
