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A low sound shivered through the stone beneath Taly’s feet—like breath drawn in by walls that hadn’t lived in centuries. Dust stirred in the corners. Cracks bled gold.

The creature reached out a paper-white hand tipped with black claws. “I have been waiting…” Taly flinched as those claws grazed her cheek. “You have no idea how long I have been waiting for you, shan kairó. How I dreamed of this moment. I did not mean for you to be frightened, but he is always watching, always listening. I was lucky to get away.”

The creature rose, towering over her. “Come. We must use our time wisely. His actions defile the sacred, yet I do not seek vengeance this night. Only to right the wrong thathas been done.” Golden eyes glowed with an eerie light. Anger simmered beneath the surface, but there was an undercurrent of something else—desperation.Hunger. “I bring you gifts. As is the tradition.”

The creature retreated. Taly breathed a bit easier being out from underneath that looming presence.

Lanky and ethereal, its long limbs moved like tendrils of mist. It knelt beside the body of the grimble.

Black claws closed around its bare skull.

A twist.

Acrunch.

The head came free.

“For my first gift, as is the tradition, I give you the blood of your enemy. For this one dared to prey upon that which was already claimed.”

Black blood leaked onto the temple floor, trickling from the grimble’s neck, from the mouth that was still frozen in a tortured scream.

The golden creature held out its head, claws dripping black ichor.

Bile surged up her throat, and Taly swallowed hard against it. Refusing would be foolish. But to take it... “Uh, thanks? I think.” Gingerly, she took the head, holding it as far away from her body as she could manage. It was slick. Still warm. “It’s... um... a very nice... head.”

She forced a smile, not sure why everyone seemed so keen on gifting her severed heads lately. Was there some rumor going around that she was into that sort of thing?

The creature’s shadow stretched as its hand rose to point. “For my second gift,” it said in that voice that wove every word into music, “I give you that which you’ve yet to realize you seek.”

Taly followed the gesture, her gaze settling on a stone figure towering over the main altar, a silent sentinel. She couldn’t makeout the features. A veil of unseen water still blurred the edges of the world. Its hand stretched out in offering, palm bare.

Taly swallowed, her voice hesitant. “I don’t understand?”

“Find me, and you will. Seek the place where to defile would be an affront beyond all others. For he seeks to corrupt that which he could not claim and planted his decay like a seed of spite.” The music cut out as the monster’s glowing eyes narrowed. Her face lifted to the wind, lip curling like she’d caught an unpleasant scent. “The impediment is here. You must—”

There was no warning—just the ground giving way in a violent, jagged tear. Taly tumbled, the air rushing past her as the dream shattered into fragments.

She awoke with a sharp inhale, heart pounding against her ribs. It took her a moment to realize where she was—solid ground, the faint scent of smoke and stone, and Skye’s face hovering over her like a storm cloud.

Behind him, Sarina shrugged apologetically, Calcifer in her arms.

“I cannot believe—” Skye began.

“Not now,” Taly said and pushed past him. “I have to go somewhere.”

Before the dream faded and she lost the certainty, theknowing.

Her hand throbbed. Taly glanced down at the bruise spreading across her skin. It wasn’t broken, not like in the dream, but the ache was real.

She tucked it close and kept moving.

Skye wasn’t happy, but he didn’t try to stop her. He just muttered something sharp under his breath and stomped after her, out of the townhouse and across town.

Sarina and Calcifer trailed behind like shadows drawn to the scent of drama.

Taly knew exactly where to go. The blue light when the grimble first pulled her under—she recognized it.

There were ten rainwater cisterns that supplied drinking water to Ryme, all of them built after the Schism when the rain became a more reliable force than the magic. Serpent’s Well was the largest, built over the remains of a time temple after it was destroyed.