Seren’s voice trembles as she whispers, “It’ll work. It will take us to Kryntar.”
Elyssara nods once, no hesitation, and the gold beneath her skin begins to pulse.
“Then use it,” she says, eyes locked on the horizon. “Let the wounds that hurt me be the ones that lead us to victory.”
The sigils around Seren flare, searing through the dark. The ground hums with power.
Seren draws the light from Elyssara’s veins through her scars, as threads of gold pull toward Seren’s palms. Thin filaments lift, alive, coiling around Seren’s hands.
Shadows bend. Air twists.
I canfeelthe magic—like a heartbeat, like a scream.
Seren gasps, her voice breaking. “It’s— It’s too strong?—”
“Then stop holding back,” Jax commands like the skilled Luminaar she is, her tone both grief and fire. “Let the magic move through you. Let it break you open.”
And Seren does.
The power lashes outward, wild and beautiful, turning night into a split in the fabric of the world.
Threads of golden Starlight move through Elyssara’s scars to Seren’s hands—a conduit—weaving and stitching together, forming into a Gateway between places.
Magic roars like a beast awakened, flinging debris and light in every direction. Trees bow. The ground fractures.
Seren’s body arcs with energy, the air shimmering around her as the Gateway blazes open—a portal in the world, bleeding silver and gold.
Her eyes turn to dark chasms, her hands stretch open like a sorcerer, and I see her for what she is: a pure-blooded witch.
Elyssara doesn’t flinch. She steps into it, her scars blazing like a thousand suns.
I reach for her hand as the wind howls, but it’s already pulling us in.
The light swallows her first, then me.
And the world disappears.
CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
ELYSSARA
The stenchof piss and unwashed bodies hits me first. Discarded moldy scraps rot against the stones, and the soft patter of vermin scratch through my mind like insidious nails.
Lillath chains still hang from hooks, and hardened, dried blood crusts on the slick floors—my blood. Images of Vessira and her blade of nightmares flood my mind in an overwhelming attack on my senses.
But none more than the nightmares she forced into my mind. The torment of not knowing the difference between dream, hell and reality.
I’m in Kryntar.
I’m back in fucking Kryntar.
The realization stuns me, seizing my mind, and stealing the air from my lungs.
But Kael notices. He always notices.
My love, I am with you. I will fight by your side. If I must, I will burn this place to the fucking ground when we’re done so you never have to look upon it again.You command the Sky.Kael’s words rush down the tether, laced with both reverence and brutality.
But Teddy stumbles through the Gateway before I can respond.
