Before me, a glowing fissure appeared in the center of the wall, spreading toward both the ceiling and the floor. The crack increased in size, opening as rock ground against itself. It shuddered to a halt when the space became large enough for me to walk through.

“Um, thanks?” I said as if the cavern could somehow understand me. Maybe it could. What did I know?

Wanting to get back to Ash and make sure he was okay and hadn’t, well, overreacted, I moved forward. The moment I entered the opening, the wall closed behind me.

Cold, inky darkness enveloped me, wrapping itself around each of my senses until all I could hear were those distant, haunting moans. I sucked in a sharp breath. “Damn it.”

My steps slowed. I couldn’t see anything as I forced one foot in front of the other, but I could feel a faint humming in the very core of my being. A spark of power—eather—ignited inside me.

“Thank the gods,” I murmured, taking a deeper, longer breath.

Feeling a little better about the fact that I wasn’t actually weaponless, I reached out blindly. My vision, as improved as it was, wasn’t adjusting to the utter absence of light. Finally, I felt the cool slickness of a wall. Using it as a guide, I picked up my pace. Every couple of feet or so, I treaded across shallow puddles I absolutely refused to think about.

I followed the winding tunnel that twisted and coiled like a serpent, lost in the darkness until an orangey-red glow appeared in the distance. The scent of brimstone increased as I hurried toward the light, breaking into a run.

I burst out of the tunnel, and for a heartbeat, all I saw was fire—mountains of fire and winged creatures flying above the flames, shrieking as they carried thrashing bodies.

I knew what those creatures were. They were the ones Ash’s friend believed had been visiting him at night and stealing his breath.

The sekya.

But I also knew their other names. Shrew. Ni’mere. Furie.

One of them dove, catching some helpless soul in its talons. Screams tore through the air—

Everything went dark.

I threw out my hands, coming into contact with smooth stone.

I jerked back, stumbling. My hip knocked into something hard. I looked down, recognizing the glossy shadowstone railing. The hem of my borrowed shirt snagged my attention. Confusion erupted. The material was worn but pristine, free of gore. Lifting my hands, I held them under the silvery glow of…stars. My knuckles weren’t stained from blood or swollen as they should’ve been.

“What the…?” I spun around.

Open doors were in front of me. Open balcony doors. Heart thumping, I pushed off the railing and crossed the balcony. A sudden awareness pressed down on me, one that reminded me of the feeling I got when Primals were near, but this was different. The sensation didn’t center only in my chest. It echoed throughout my body as I shoved the heavy drapes aside.

The bedchamber was dark, but I saw Ash asleep on the bed, his chest rising and falling with his steady breaths.

I had no idea how I’d ended up here from a tunnel in the Abyss, but in that moment, I didn’t care. All that mattered was that Ash was safe. A shudder of relief went through me. I started forward.

A gust of air whipped across the balcony, sending strands of hair flying across my face. I caught a glimpse of a scaled underbelly. The largest draken and the first of his kind.

Shoving the hair from my face, I stepped back and looked at the roof of the palace just as Nektas landed with a shockingly quiet thud. Massive wings were spread wide, and the crown of horns along the top of his head glinted under the starlight as he dipped his broad nose to look down at me with vibrant blue eyes lit with the otherworldly glow of eather.

I gave him a rather jaunty, and definitely weird, wave.

The thin, vertical pupils constricted. Stretching his graceful neck, he tucked his wings back and then leapt from the edge of the rooftop.

Nektas shifted.

No matter how many times I saw a draken change from their true form to their god form, a breathtaking mix of awe and exhilaration consumed me. It was like he’d captured the stars from the sky and wrapped thousands of them around him. His body transformed as he fell, shrinking in mass while the shimmery spectacle faded. Arms appeared where wings had been. Fingers replaced talons.

My jaw unlocked as Nektas landed in a crouch on the railing, his long, crimson-streaked black hair slipping over coppery-toned flesh that was faintly ridged in the shape of scales.

Loose black pants appeared out of absolutely nowhere as he lifted his head. His eyes, their vertical pupils full of histories I couldn’t even begin to comprehend, met mine. “Meyaah Liessa,” he said in that rough, gravelly voice of his. “It is good to see you.”

I started to cross the distance between us and embrace him, but I stopped myself. For starters, I didn’t want to knock him off the railing. I’d also already offered an odd wave. I didn’t need to add an awkward hug to the list.

But I wanted to.

Because there was a bond between us that I didn’t even share with Ash, one forged on the trip to and from the Pools of Divanash. He’d heard the secret I’d whispered into the still, clear waters. That when I’d taken too much sleeping draft, it hadn’t been an accident. I hadn’t wanted to wake up. Nektas had heard that and hadn’t judged me. He hadn’t looked at me differently. All he had asked afterward was if I was okay. And then he’d said and done something I would never forget.

“Not everyone can always be okay, and if you happen to find that you’re not, you can talk to me. We’ll make sure you’re okay,” he’d told me, and he’d done it while staring forward.

Giving me space while letting me know he’d noticed. Making sure I was comfortable so I could actually hear his words and know he cared.

It meant the world to me.

It always would.

I cleared my throat. “It is good to see you, too.”

Eyes now the shade of polished sapphires flickered over my features. With everything that had gone on, I’d forgotten how their eyes had only turned the color of crimson after Kolis took the embers. “Are you all right?”

“Yes.” I paused. “I think. I’m not entirely sure…” I glanced back at the bedchamber. “Something weird just happened. Or I think it did.”

A breeze tossed strands of long hair across his chest. “You were tested.”

“You know—?” I stopped myself, lowering my voice as I glanced back to the bedroom. “I don’t want to wake Ash.”

“You won’t. He will sleep until the morning,” Nektas explained, drawing my attention back to him. “All who inhabit the palace will. It was the same when Eythos completed the trial by blood.”

“But Ash is fine, right? So is everyone else—wait.” I frowned. “What did you just say about Eythos?”

“Yes, Ash is fine, as is everyone else. It is like…a spell. A harmless one.”

I arched a brow. “A harmless spell?”

“Yes.” A grin softened the hard lines of his face. “You were summoned by the riders, were you not?”

I nodded. “Yeah, they wanted me to prove myself worthy.”

“The spell is to ensure that they’re not prevented from testing the true Primal of Life,” he said. “Eythos had to do the same.”

I was a bit relieved to learn that I wasn’t a special case. “It would’ve been nice of them to explain what they were doing instead of knocking me unconscious.” I crossed my arms. “Because there’s nothing like waking up in some dark cave in the middle of the Abyss.”

“I doubt you were in the middle of the Abyss. You were likely on the outskirts,” he said, as if that made a difference. “I would’ve warned Ash that this could occur, but it happened so long ago that it slipped my mind.”

“You getting forgetful in your old age?”

Nektas chuckled. “I’m not considered old. More like…” He tilted his head. “Middle-aged.”