Prologue
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As consciousness threatened to slip from her grasp, the stifling confines of the dungeon warping her sense of reality, Evalynn drew each breath with quiet defiance. Refusing to give in to the growing despair, every gasp demanded what little strength she had left. Her chains bit into her wrists as she hung with arms raised, shoulders aching while fresh blood trailed from the raw wounds.
Another blow to the stomach. Eva gagged, iron coating her tongue.
“Your boldness must know no bounds for you to think you could invade the Citadel and leave unscathed.” Her torturer’s voice was deep, matching his hardened, middle-aged appearance—made all the more menacing by his black leather armor and the network of scars etched across his face.
“Save the speech,” Eva said between gasps. “I just walked right in. Turns out the great spire has lax security.”
Eva’s vision blurred as another punch found its mark, her head recoiling at the force. The chains rattled, biting her wrists as a new layer of crimson dripped to the stony floor.
Breathe
Stubborn strength rose from within, and she willed herself to endure—refused to betray her secrets. She focused her mind beyond her cell, outside the cold stone walls, away from the prison’s suffocating darkness.
A hand grabbed her jaw, wrenching her head upwards, her torturer now inches from her face.
“Tell me why you’re here,” the man drawled, a promise of pain in his tone.
Eva breathed in and spit in his face.
Her torturer closed his eyes, wiping the blood and saliva away with his free hand. He shifted his grip on her left arm, driving his elbow down onto it and unleashing a sickening crack. Pain tore through her chest, her vision filling with stars at the fresh fracture.
A gut-wrenching cry drowned out her scream.
“Help!” a male voice shouted.
She squeezed her eyes shut again, clenching her jaw as tears formed at the sound of his voice.
“He’s going to die because of you,” her torturer said, his breath hot in her ear. “It’s your fault.”
“Evalynn! Help me!”
***
Mar swallowed her disgust, watching the heir of Sylvara sleep. The thought of depending on a lesser being turned her stomach, but Mar had little choice. Gevir not only tied her hands, he had dug his own grave and asked her to bury him in it.
She hovered unseen, her ethereal form flickering, half visible, near the white drapes of his medical bed. His chamber was still, the ward quiet. Blue light of the mage stones glinted off the sweat along his brow.
He stirred with a grimace, then stilled.
The memory was lost to her—the sensation of rest. After so long, she couldn’t even fathom what it felt like anymore. Watching mortals sleep had become a fascination, studying them in the cradle of their dreams.
But this one—this one made her pause.
Not because of what he was, but because of what he offered.
His presence at the Citadel was no accident. Threads had been pulled. Names whispered. Gevir would call it fate—the fool.
She did not believe in fate.
Destiny was for the broken. The weak.
Mar believed in power. In will. In forging the future with blood and fire. And if that future now depended on a boy, battling the nightmares in his own mind, unaware of the war around him, then so be it.
Even now, the armies of Adiel bled themselves dry across distant valleys for reasons they claimed were noble, seemingly unaware of their own mortality. The Farron Gap alone devoured dozens of warriors each day, yet their two nations continued the onslaught, leaving so few left to fight.
Mar reached out, her essence curling toward him like smoke, pressing against the air above his sleeping form. Over his chest, she felt it—a flicker of something buried deep.
It resisted her touch—recoiled with slumbering power.
Interesting
“You don’t even know what you are,” she murmured, her voice no more than a thought on the wind.
She lingered for a moment longer, before drawing back into the Veil, her form dissipating like fog before the sun.
Let Gevir dither in his caution, pretend he still held the leash. The time was nearing. And when this boy—Elijah Danon—finally awoke, he would be the key to destruction.
One step closer to opening the door.
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