Cassandra saw the precise moment of her death, the moment her soul left her body.
Tristan gathered her into his lap, letting out the loudest, most agonizing, most heart-broken wail she’d ever heard. She ached to return to him, to comfort him.
Wormwood approached, and Tristan tossed him aside like a rag doll.
Brethren swarmed Tristan, but he’d become a being of pure rage, ending his enemies with fists and feet, elbows and wings. In his feral state, no one could touch him.
His chest heaved, his features twisted into the cold, wrath-filled mask of a male determined to make the world pay for his bottomless grief.
A male with nothing left to live for.
He fought his way to the Koenig, who clutched the hammer against his chest. The centuries-old Windrider lookedterrified.Tristan ripped the hammer from him, then swung it twice. Once into the Koenig’s stomach, then once across his cheek, instantly breaking his neck.
Tristan approached the throne, then arced the hammer over his head.
“Don’t!” Wormwood croaked from the floor. “Don’t bring that hammer down! It doesn’t belong to you! If you?—”
Tristan slammed the hammer into the throne and a blinding white flash blanched out the pool.
“What just happened?” Cassandra asked, leaning over the edge.
“Tartarus is gone,” Reena whispered.
The coldest fear trickled down Cassandra’s spine. “What do you mean it’sgone? An entire city can’t just disappear.”
“It can,” Reena said sadly. “And it did. It has every time. In exactly the same way. Watch.” She directed Cassandra’s attention back to the pool.
Bile rose in Cassandra’s throat as she watched the same scene play before her over and over again.
Small details changed. Sometimes Tristan’s wings were another color—sky blue instead of iridescent black. Sometimes Cassandra’s facial features were different—her nose wider, her lips thinner. Sometimes Wormwood was a Deathstalker and not a Beastrunner. Sometimes the Koenig was female.
But in every single instance, the ending was the same.
Cassandra would die. Tristan would climb the dais. Wormwood would issue his warning.
And Tristan would end them all in a flash of blazing white.
The scenes blended together until there were echoes of Tristan rampaging through that throne room.
“Stop,” Cassandra whispered. “Stop. Please. I don’t need to see any more.”
Reena swept a hand across the pool and the water stilled, the churning boil giving way to soft ripples.
Tears blurred Cassandra’s vision. “Why are you showing me this?”
Reena shook her head. “It can’t end like this.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“No—” Reena grabbed Cassandra’s hand “—I mean itwillnot end like this. Not this time. The eight paths are coalescing. The specific convergence. You and I being here together proves it. He is coming for her. And it’s not just our world that’s at stake this time. It’sallworlds.”
Cassandra’s anxiety skyrocketed. “He who? Reena, what are you?—”
Reena cut her off with ashhh, then glanced back toward the dunes.
“I have to go.” Reena gathered Cassandra into a hug and clutched tightly. Cassandra never wanted her to let go. “We’ll see each other again. Sooner than you can imagine.”
“How?”
