Page 166
Fabian, who’d cared for me as his own and raised me with Don, the two best fathers I could ever ask for.
Emelle, whose friendship had never wavered since the moment I’d said hi after our Branding when we were both lonely and in need of a friend.
Lander, Rodhi, Wren, and Gileon, who would always have my trust even when others tried to break it.
Felicity and Willa, who had made me laugh time and time again, who would be waiting for me in my Wild Whisperer room forever now.
Dazmine, who would tell me to hold on for as long as I could, to keep my chin pointed up no matter what.
And Coen. Oh, how I wished I could have had more time with Coen, who had loved me even when he didn’t think I’d ever love him back. Who had served up the darker parts of himself in order to preserve the light of mine. Who I never wanted to forget again no matter how Dyonisia burned and battered me and tried to forge me into something even worse than herself.
I could not, would not, lose our love again.
The crack in my mind yawned wider, crashing down upon me. I gripped my subconscious with an iron-tight fist, squeezing my eyes shut…
“Rayna!”
My head whipped up at the sound of Coen’s voice. Was my mind giving me one last gift by imagining him calling my name with such vivid clarity?
“Rayna!” he bellowed again, and this time I scoured the crack in disbelief because… because his voice wasn’t coming from my mind at all, but the gap slicing through it. The void that landed before me like a cave splitting wide open.
“Coen?” I whimpered out. Soft. Not daring to hope.
It wasn’t Coen who answered. Instead, a creature emerged from the shadows of the cave, her entire being made of swirls of light and dark quartz. She paused on the threshold of my mind as if she couldn’t step any closer and scraped her gaze over my hunched figure still holding onto my subconscious.
“Who are you?” I asked, knowing whatever this was didn’t come from me.
“Fate, of course.”
I stared at her through wisps of rising mist: my memories rising like a shell around me, trying to protect me from the changes rippling over my body somewhere in the physical world.
“I don’t understand. Am—am I dead?”
“No. The day of your death lies on a murky horizon, but it is not today. At least, I don’t think it is.” Fate lifted her hand in a grinding screech, and I gaped as the top of the cave spiked with five steeples, just like…
“The temple,” I breathed out.
“Yes.” Fate nodded. “You may accept or decline entrance, but you must make a choice soon. I cannot hold this opening for much longer.”
Urgency had spiked in her voice. I couldn’t be sure if this was real or if this was death—or something worse—trying to lure me away from my own mind. To join the void hovering right in front of me.
“Go,” my subconscious said suddenly from beside me. She released my hand and gave me a gentle push. “Go before it’s too late.”
Coen’s voice bellowed out my name again, and a ghastly, otherworldly shriek that didn’t belong to him followed it.
I didn’t hesitate any longer. Even if there was only the tiniest shard of a chance that he was actually calling for me, I’d answer. Always.
“Coen! I’m coming, Coen!”
Pushing myself up and away, I hurtled into the opening just as Fate herself blinked out of existence. The second I crossed the threshold, the pain I’d been dampening melted off of me. A soft, scarlet dress slithered down my skin, replacing the tattered, bloodstained one I’d been exiled in, and my crescent knife formed in my hand out of nowhere. Columns unraveled before me, spreading down an infinite hallway. Not real, exactly, but not merely a figment of my imagination either.
Something in between. A space between worlds.
Only this one was nothing like Coen’s darkness. All the black amethyst before me swelled with shimmering, colorful light, an ocean wave of it rolling my way. From somewhere far beyond, Coen roared my name a fourth time.
I screamed his back.
The light kept coming, and I knew with a sudden punch to the gut that I had to get through it to make it to him. Just as he was trying to get through it to make it to me.
