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The ship appears around me. I gasp in air, sucking in deep, filling my lungs as reality coalesces around me. I feel like every atom in my body was pulled apart and put back together again.

I haven’t shifted since my first year in the Aurelian army, before the place between worlds became corrupted, before we started losing Reavers and warships to the endless void.

The communication link is still open to our leader, Obsidian. I never believed the War-God was real. I never prayed for his return. I was always logical. Practical.

Now he has the keys to surviving through Orb-Shifts. He is the fist that will guide our sword into the heart of the Aurelian Empire.

He stands in the tower above the Arena of Blood where I saw his first appearance, when every Fanatic knew he was more than just a superstition. I stare at him through a holographic display of our sector, thousands of stars separating us, and his black eyes open too wide. I feel like I’m being sucked into them. Behind him are his two massive shadows, the dark, smoky versions of him with skin darker than the emptiness of the void.

He told us we were his pack. If the rumors are true, he was born suckling from a wolf’s teats. When I saw him shift into a black wolf bigger than a horse, I believed it.

I saw the horror of our soldier, Krazak, when he held the bones of his Mate.

Obsidian has a different kind of pain. He found his Mate and Bonded her…

Only to have her snatched up by the Human Queen Jasmine and the Emperor Raegan.

“We’re alive, my God,” I say, my voice cracking. I can see the white knuckles of Aurelian technicians clenched against anything solid they can find. One man looks down and rubs his legs, as if he can’t believe they’re still attached to him. I know how he feels.

That shift was nothing like the first time I did it. Not that Orb-Shifting is ever pleasant. Rushing through reality, I felt like we were walking on a tiny bridge with an abyss on either side, and there was a dark presence there, lurking, waiting for me.

Ignore it. There is only the mission.

There is only my Mate.

Obsidian doesn’t seem to hear me. His eyes are wide and focused on nothing, black, endless pits. The message is being relayed from our ship to stations set up between here and Obsidious. It’s fast. I calculate the delay quickly in my head. Less than twenty seconds.

Twenty seconds is too much! We barely made it here!

“Good. Prepare for the next jump.” His voice is cold steel. His twin Shadows growl behind them, wolfish looks in their black eyes. Obsidian’s veins bulge, filled with black oil and pressing against his marble skin. He’s bare-chested showing the birthmark that I have tattooed on my own chest. It was the most extreme agony I had ever felt when the Priests tattooed me, ink meant to mimic his pain.

He lives in it. Every waking moment is agony for the War-God. I pray that agony can be used to pierce the Aurelian Empire and end it before the war takes trillions of lives.

I could barely press the button to start the Orb-Shift. I thought his coordinates would put us in the gravity well of a black hole. Instead, we’re in empty space, stars glittering through the viewport

He guided us. We made it through—but now there’s a delay. If we’re off by even a single percent, we could end up a month’s journey from our destination…

Or we could end up in the middle of a sun, burned to a crisp. Would we see it? Would there be a flash of fire, or just darkness?

I’d take burning up to whatever lurks in the void, whatever awful presence is growing. My hand shakes. I can’t start the drives again. I just can’t do it.

“General Kriz. I can see her. She’s standing in a tower. She has only a rifle to go against a horde of Scorp. She smells terrified.” Tears of exertion stream from his eyes, and his lips curl back against his bright white teeth.

I press the button, starting the drive up. “As you command, my God,” I say, my resolve steeled.

I saw my mate in a vision. When the Bondthrummedthrough our species, I saw her.

Every action since then has had one purpose.

To have her by my side.

“We might not make it through the next shift. There’s a nineteen point four second delay. Obsidian says she’s in grave danger.”

I don’t have to say who she is. My triad knows.

“Shift.”Ra’al has no fear. It died on Abascus. He used to be a light-hearted man. He used to dive into battle then drink mead and swap war stories.

He lost part of himself on Abascus. The Tomb, is what we ended up calling it. The weakness was stripped off him. Only an iron core remains.