I don’t want to say goodbye.
I promise myself it won’t be long before I see my sister again.
Forcing myself to move, I step back toward the chamber.
The older woman gestures inside it. “I’ve modified the symbols,” she says, pointing to one that sits lower than the others. “The dark magic should now take you to the wolf who holds your heart.”
She doesn’t sound confident.
“‘Should’?” I ask.
She grimaces. “Dark magic serves only itself. Even when you think you control it, you don’t.”
I consider this carefully. “Is that why Thaden’s hammer remained behind the first time he used this chamber?”
She nods. “Undoubtedly.”
I try to exhale my anxiety as the woman steps away. Anything could happen once this magic takes hold of me. I could arrive without my hammer, or worse, Galeia could end up in a different place than I do, or?—
I take a deep breath and stop my thoughts in their tracks because this is still the safest way for me to travel.
Thaden reaches for me. “Asha, thank you.”
“I will look after her, Thaden,” I say. “No matter what happens. I promise you. She will have the life you couldn’t have.”
I want to believe it, and, in this moment, I’m certain of it.
He swallows hard, giving me a nod, and that’s all before he rakes his forefinger against the small blade embedded just inside the entrance to the chamber.
His blood spills across the wall, splattering the side of the first symbol. It lights up, quickly followed by the second, each one seeming to trigger the next in sequence, all of them glowing and sharp.
But I’m unsettled to see that it isn’t a golden light this time, not bright and dazzling like the burst of lightning around Thaden when he first arrived in the wasteland.
A dark light presses in on me, growing blacker with every heartbeat.
I catch a glimpse of Thaden, where he startles outside the chamber before the light closes around me.
His eyes are wide with alarm and his shout is panicked as he lurches toward us. “No!”
Then, the magic takes hold.
I flinch against the freezing cold darkness, instinctively crouching low, holding Galeia close to my chest.
She gives a cry, filled with fear, a second before sharp pricks of pain across my arm tell me she’s extended her claws.
For the shortest moment, my heart stops.
So, too, does my ability to breathe.
Then the pressure lifts, and I open my eyes.
I take a breath, but in the next instant, the air is filled with ash, and all I inhale is dust.
A scream rises to my lips.
I’m crouched in the center of a vast plain. Tornados of dust whirl around me. Hard thingscrunchbeneath my boots and when I look down, there are bones protruding from the ash.
In the distance, monstrous forms crash against each other, the impact thudding through me.
