“In every shadow of fate, there is truth you cannot yet see, daughter of flame.” Her eerie voice sounds as old as the night itself. “Free will cannot be taken. But as the drachen and Narc have proven, it can be caged. There are those who perceive which path you will choose. That is how prophecy is written.”

I’ll choose to be buried? To die?

That thought puts a whole new spin on what I thought I once knew. Just months ago, I would have fought to live. No matter what. Now I know there are people I would die for.

Chills dance across my skin, and the world tips on its axis. She knows why I stand before her, why the threads of my life weave through the tapestry of Tirene’s future. But understanding still eludes me, slipping through my fingers like smoke.

Pull yourself together. Ask questions. Nyc could disappear any second.

“You mentioned shadows of fate. Are you saying there are multiple paths? That anything could happen in the future?”That I’m not about to die?

“Tell me, Dragoncaller, do you understand why you have been summoned to my realm?”

Wow. She just blew off my questions. “I think so.” My torrent of thoughts shifts to what led me here today. The drachen’s rampage, the terror they spread, the lives they claim. The tapestry of fear that blankets our kingdom growing larger and stronger. Yet beneath that, a deeper ache throbs. The raw wound of loss. “My mother…”

“Ah, little mortal.” Her reassuring whisper is a phantom touch upon my brow as soothing as a mother’s kiss. I want to lean into it. “Take comfort. Lynnea has been delivered unto my embrace. Soon, she will join the dark, resting among those who have passed before.”

A sob claws its way up from my chest, longing and despair intermingling.

Would I glimpse her smile one last time? Hear her gentle reprimand laced with love? It’s a fool’s hope. I know this. The living do not traverse the shadowed veil to parley with shades. Once surrendered to Nyc’s vast dominion, no soul returns until their kin unite in death’s eternal slumber.

“Seeing is not for the dark,” Nyc intones, her voice carrying the weight of eons. “In the absence of light, it is essence and deed that define us. Forms are meaningless where sight cannot reach.”

But then how will I find them, Mother and Father, in that endless expanse? Doubt coils within me. “How will I recognize them when my time comes to search the next world for them?”

“Such knowledge is not for the living.” Her voice holds an edge of mystery, an unspoken note that hints at secrets yet unveiled. “I am not able to tell you that.”

Not able? Or won’t? I don’t dare voice that thought.

“But that is not the question you should be asking.” Her reprimand reminds me of my mother so much I immediately straighten. “And you might want to hurry. Your lover is worried about you. Even now, he’s calling your name.”

At the mention of Sterling’s fear for me, I blurt out the first question I think of. “Are there any living phoenixes?”

“Living.” Nyc hums. “It depends on what you mean by that.”

Is it too hard to just give me a straight answer?

Another one of Nyc’s echoey, moonbeam laughs washes over me.

“Phoenix tears.” I change the direction of my queries, determination sharpening my tone. “I need them to stop the corruption. Do they still exist? Where can I get them?”

“Indeed, phoenix tears are required.” Sorrow coats her words like dew on a summer morning. I can nearly taste the water on my skin. “You will find them in the Hidden Valley.”

Hidden Valley? The name means nothing to me. “I don’t know where that is.”

I wobble, suddenly adrift again, as though unmoored from the world itself. Did something happen? Something I can’t see? The goddess’s grief pricks tears in my eyes.

“Directions can be given…” Nyc tapers off as if deep in thought. The longer the silence stretches on, the stronger the uneasy pitching of my stomach grows. What could possibly give a goddess pause?

I’m just about to gather my courage and ask if anything’s wrong when she speaks. “I will require a favor in exchange.”

The uneasy pitching in my stomach expands into full-blown somersaults. My pulse throbs in my throat.

A favor?

For a goddess whose very essence surrounds me, cradles the world? What could I, a mortal fire wielder, offer to Nyc? How could I possibly possess anything she wants, or accomplish a task she can’t?

The story of Narc whispers through my head, causing my legs to tremble.