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“Skye!” Taly screamed as panic—true fear—wormed its way inside the dazed indifference that still muddled her senses. Something was pulling her forward, like a tether, some sort of invisible rope.

“Behind you!” she screamed again, even though a part of her knew it would do her little good. She was a wraith, nothing more than a spectator, and all she could do was watch as Skye ducked to grab at another scrambling mage—only to take a dagger straight to the gut.

His armor tempered the blow, and even though he was already recovering, rapidly turning on his heel as he adjusted his grip on the staff, that slight blip in his attention had cost him. Another shade leaped onto his back, clawing at his face just as a third grabbed at his legs. He struggled, still swinging that staff that glowed both red and blue, but more began to pile on top of him, eventually wrestling him to the ground.

“Serves you fucking right,” a familiar voice said from somewhere behind her. Kato. She glimpsed a flash of brassy hair. There was shame in those amber eyes.

Then he was gone, swallowed by the crowd.

A scream. A flare of magic.

“Skye!” Taly was still reaching for him, still struggling against the crowd that seemed more solid and real with each passing moment. This couldn’t be happening. Skye couldn’t die. She refused to believe that there was a reality that existed where he could die and leave her behind.

When she was thrown to the ground, she began to crawl, blood staining her hands, her nightdress, her hair. It felt warm and sticky and far too real—same as the pain she felt as she was trampled and kicked from all sides.

By the time she reached the place where Skye had been, the shades had moved on, already on the bridge. It was chaos behind her, the screams growing louder as people began jumping into the canyon, choosing one death over another.

But Taly didn’t care. About any of it. Not as she began to dig, wrenching away the bodies—some she recognized, others she didn’t—until she found him. His breaths were coming in gurgling gasps, and his eyes stared at the sky.

“Em,” she tried to say, but she couldn’t breathe over the great shuddering sobs that broke out of her. One of his eyes was gone, the entire left side of his face destroyed. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Not nearly as bad as the gash that split him from sternum to hip, so deep that blood and entrails were leaking out of him.

“Skye, please,” she tried again, but he didn’t turn. He just stared up at the clouds as the rain began to fall.

As she began to scream his name and grope at that giant, gaping wound, fingers twisting in his innards as she tried to piece him back together.

His blood soaked her skin. The light in that single green eye began to fade.

She knew the moment that he was gone, and that something of her had gone with him.

Taly was still screaming when the world grew dim.

Still screaming when she wrenched awake.

She screamed until her voice went hoarse, and she became aware of soft sheets and the smell of flowers and the lack of screaming outside her own.

She stopped, her entire body shaking as she cracked open her eyes.

The soft violet light of the first moon spilled through the windows, punctuated by the occasional flash of blinding white as the world outside rattled and shook.

The palace. She was at the palace, not Crescent Canyon. And Skye…

“A dream,” she rasped. “It was just a dream.”

A horrible, terrible dream that had felt far tooreal…

Taly pulled the blanket firmly around her shoulders, curling on her side as she willed the images to fade. “It was just a dream,” she whispered, too afraid to close her eyes.

She’d always had bad dreams. For as long as she could remember.

“It was just a dream.”

So, why could she still smell blood?

“Just a dream, just a dream, just a dream,” she chanted.

But her body continued to shake.

Skye stood at the edge of the cliff, a reckless thrill shooting through him as he peered into the yawning expanse. Pebbles knocked loose as he shifted his weight, and the wind whipped at his hair and clothing, howling, pushing him closer to the edge.