PROLOGUE
5 Hours before Basilisk took the Sun from Humanity…
Ayana did not know how she came to be. She did not know her mother or father; that was the fate of many other children… but at least they felt their presence. At least they knew that they came from somewhere. Where a familial bond was supposed to be, she felt nothing but a hole. No matter how broken other families were, she would prefer that than to have come from nowhere.
Though she was beautiful, that hollowness in her heart separated her from her people. The forest was her stomping ground. Whether the time shifted into day or regressed to the night… the forest was where she’d stay. The forest was where she found him.
A being beyond man. A God. The God of Fire. A being she was never meant to meet but met. A being she was never meant to love… but loved with all her soul.
So much so that their love created dragons. Beings of the sky who reigned down fire. Giants of the day. Light bringers in the night.
But their love did not just bless her with dragons. It blessed her womb as well.
“Basilisk… I think it’s a girl,” she said as he got ready to depart.
The God of Fire was stunned beyond belief. That was something even he couldn’t tell. Basilisk rested his palm against her belly as though he were touching something sacred. It was barely there—a gentle swell beneath the light orange fabric, so small that another might have missed it entirely. But Basilisk was not another. He could feel the secrets hidden beneath flesh, could sense the smallest shift of heat in a living body, the faintest flicker of energy struggling toward existence.
And there it was.
His child.
A tiny pulse of power answered the warmth of his hand.
He could tell that his child would be glorious. It would be powerful. It would shake the delicate balance of fate. But he could not tell that it was a girl.
Basilisk went utterly still.
For a being who had commanded the sun, the sensation should have been insignificant. Instead, it struck him with the force of a divine revelation.
Heat.
Life.
His blood.
His thumb moved slowly over the curve of her belly, almost reverently, as if the gentleness of his touch could somehow protect the fragile life growing within her. Beneath his palm, the energy stirred again—faint, but unmistakable. Like an ember buried beneath ash. Like the first spark of a flame that would one day become a raging inferno.
His child was alive.
Growing.
And somehow, impossibly, the tiny spark seemed to recognize him.
Basilisk’s breath caught.
The flames that forever danced beneath his skin quieted, bowing to something greater than even the God of Fire himself. His forehead lowered until it rested against hers, his eyes closing as he remained connected to the little soul inside her.
“My little flame,” he whispered. His voice, usually capable of shaking kingdoms, broke into something softer. Something dangerously close to wonder. “She will be the most powerful female to ever live…”
His hand spread protectively over her belly.
“My brother and sister will not be pleased. Humans were supposed to rule this land. But it will be her… unless they try to harm her.”
He had burned enemies to ash. He had walked through rivers of molten earth. He had been worshipped and feared for centuries.
But this—
This tiny, barely-there heartbeat of power—
This was the second thing Basilisk had ever loved that he knew he could not survive losing. Ayana was his first.
And for the first time in his immortal existence, the God of Fire understood what it meant to be afraid.
Not of death.
But of anything that might dare to extinguish his child’s flame.
Seeing his distress, Ayana gathered his beautiful face in her hands and nudged him to look into her eyes. “As long as we have each other, our child will not be harmed. She is strong. She will survive. And she will thrive. And you know what… I am sure that the people of your world and mine will love her.”
Her optimism stunned him. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because she was conceived with love. The truest and purest energy this world will ever know. How could they not love her?”
Basilisk laughed, though with nerves bundled in his breath. “You have a brighter look on this world than I will ever have.”
Ayana laughed, “Brighter than the creator of the sun? I doubt that. You just like to pretend you don’t see the world as I do.”
“All I know is that I love you. I love our dragons. And I love our child. If I see the world differently, it is because of you.”
Ayana kissed him like she had been waiting an eternity to do it.
Basilisk froze.
Not because he didn’t want her.
Gods, no.
He wanted her with every blazing piece of himself. But there was something different about this kiss. It felt like the first. Like every kiss they had ever shared had merely been a prelude to this one. Like Ayana was rediscovering him with every press of her lips, pouring every ounce of love, desire, and reckless devotion she possessed into the kiss.
Basilisk’s hand tightened against her belly while his other arm swept around her waist, drawing her impossibly close.
She kissed him harder.
And the God of Fire surrendered.
His eyes fell shut as he kissed her back, his mouth moving against hers with a hunger that made the flames beneath his skin flare. Yet beneath all that heat was something gentler—a tenderness reserved solely for her.
For his woman.
For the mother of his child.
When Ayana finally pulled away, Basilisk remained utterly still, his forehead nearly touching hers, his golden eyes burning with the aftermath.
Ayana smiled. A wicked little smile.
Then she placed one hand over his chest.
“Now,” she whispered.
Basilisk blinked.
Ayana’s smile widened. “Go pull up the sun.”
Silence.
The God of Fire stared at her. Then his gaze drifted toward the heavens. Then back to her.
“You’re ordering me to move the sun?”
“Yes. The night has been here too long.”
“Maybe I should let it stay dark forever and roll around this bed with you forever.
“Come now, don’t be lazy.”
Basilisk narrowed his eyes.
Ayana leaned closer, her lips brushing teasingly against the corner of his mouth. “Unless,” she murmured, “the mighty God of Fire does not want the reward of hard work… that sits between my legs.”
The flames in his eyes erupted.
Ayana laughed.
And Basilisk—ancient deity, lord of flame, destroyer of worlds—looked at his pregnant woman with the long-suffering expression of a man who had just realized that eternity itself was not nearly long enough to prepare him for her.
“Very well,” he growled.
Basilisk walked out of their cabin. Out of their garden. He casted her one last look before he reached out to the sky and conjured a magical engulfment of fire. It carried him far away. It felt cold without him there.
Ayana hid it well, but sometimes she wished he could abandon the sun. she wished she could let him without a guilty conscience. She wished that they could go somewhere the world would never find them and make that place their new home.
Her saving grace was that he would always find her.
And she would always wait for him.
She turned to walk into their cabin, but she felt something before she heard it. A chilling fear before a piercing yell.
And then another.
Followed by hundreds.
Her smile vanished.
From beyond the trees came the thunder of approaching footsteps, followed by the furious roar of villagers spilling into the clearing. Torches bobbed between the trunks, their flames flickering like angry eyes in the darkness.
“THERE SHE IS!”
Ayana’s blood ran cold.
The villagers surged toward her.
“Monster!”
“Dragon-maker!”
“Whore of darkness!”
“Kill her!”
Her hand instinctively flew to her barely swollen belly.
Her child.
Basilisk’s child.
She couldn’t stay.
Ayana turned and ran.
Branches clawed at her arms as she tore through the forest, her breathing ragged and panicked. Behind her, the mob chased with murderous fury, their voices growing louder as they crashed through the undergrowth.
“Don’t let her escape!”
“She created those beasts!”
“She’ll bring destruction upon us all!”
Ayana stumbled over a root but caught herself before she fell. Fear gave her strength. She ran faster.
She had helped create dragons.
She knew that.
But they never hurt anyone who didn’t seek them out. They were more than bringers of fire. They were loving. They could live together, but humans didn’t want to. Ayana had never imagined the villagers would come for her life because of them.
A roar sounded behind her.
Too close.
Ayana glanced over her shoulder—
And nearly screamed when she saw the mob emerging between the trees.
But then she saw it.
Water.
A murky river cutting through the forest, dark and sluggish beneath the moonlight. There was nowhere else to go. Ayana plunged into it. Cold, filthy water swallowed her up to the waist as she fought against the current. She ducked beneath the surface just as the villagers burst onto the riverbank.
“Where did she go?”
“Search the water!”
Ayana held her breath. Her body pressed against the muddy riverbed, one trembling hand cradling her belly.
Please don’t find me.
Above her, shadows moved across the water. Torches swept dangerously close. But no matter how close they got, Ayana remained perfectly still. Even when it got nearly impossible to breathe. She held her breath for a long time. Until the mob finally moved on.
Slowly, painfully, she lifted her head above the surface.
The villagers were gone.
Ayana dragged herself close the opposite bank, soaked, shivering, and covered in mud.
But alive.
The young woman looked up and saw the sun rising to the sky. It wouldn’t be long before Basilisk came back for her. She would just need to survive a little longer—
“Ah!”
Ayana barely had time to drag in a breath before the water beneath her exploded into motion.
Something seized her ankle.
She screamed.
A hand emerged from the murky depths, its fingers wrapped in thick, swirling darkness. Black mist coiled around its wrist like living smoke, twisting and writhing beneath the surface.
Ayana clawed at the riverbank. Her fingers dug into the mud. “No!” She kicked wildly, but the hand only tightened.
The current dragged her backward. She reached for the roots of a nearby tree, her fingertips scraping desperately against the slick bark. Her nails broke. Mud filled her palms.
Still, the darkness pulled.
Ayana’s body slid inch by agonizing inch into the river.
“HELP! BASILISK!” She screamed until her throat burned.
The hand dragged her beneath the surface. Cold water rushed over her head. She fought with everything she had, thrashing, kicking, clawing at the invisible force dragging her deeper. But the dark mist wrapped around her legs, her waist, her wrists.
There was no escaping it.
No matter how fiercely she fought.
No matter how desperately she reached for the surface. The darkness wanted her.
And it took her.
Down.
Down.
Into the blackness beneath the river… and the dark realm that would become her prison for over a century.
