The name tastes familiar.
Like a word I’ve spoken in dreams.
He takes a step toward me.
The asphalt under his boot heels doesn’t crack.
It settles.
“Alina Fawcett,” he says again, and my name in his mouth feels like the earth saying yes under a foundation test. “I’ve searched high and low, but the Fates have led me here. You are my viyella. My fated mate. The bond-key my brothers say I must find if I am to stand beside them in the final war.”
I blink.
“Okay. Right. Sure. Of course.” My laugh comes out a little high, a little wild. “This is, I mean, wow. This is a lot. Do you, like, practice this speech in the mirror first or?—”
“I do not joke,” he says.
No, he definitely doesn’t.
He steps closer.
The air around us thickens, humming with something that makes my tattoos prickle under my skin.
My boots buzz like there’s a live wire buried somewhere nearby, but I know there isn’t. I checked.
“You have been feeling the tremors,” he says. “Seeing things that should not be possible. You’ve heard the storms of war from another world.”
My throat goes dry.
“Have you been spying on me? How do you know about my nightmares?”
“They are not merely nightmares,” he says quietly. “They are bleed-through. Your soul reaching for mine across realms. Nightfall calls to you. You answer. You are already half-stepping between worlds. I am here to bring you the rest of the way.”
I want to tell him he’s insane.
I want to tell him this is impossible.
That I’m just a woman with student loans and a cranky Jeep and an overdeveloped sense of responsibility.
But the ground under my feet has gone very, very calm.
And when I look into his eyes—those green-gold, impossible eyes—I feel steady.
Aligned.
Like when you finally find bedrock under twelve meters of garbage fill.
He lifts a hand—not touching me, not yet—just holding it out, palm up.
“Come with me,” he says. “Your world will not survive if mine falls. Nightfall feeds every realm with dreams. Hope. The SoulTakers want to unmake it. To strip all worlds down to barren stone. My brothers have found their viyellas. They stand stronger with their mates beside them. I have searched alone long enough.”
“This is insane,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he agrees. “But it is also true.”
My heart is beating so hard I can hear it in my ears.
I stare at his hand.
