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Wiping the blood from the corner of her mouth, Thea spotted the sword of the fallen imposter lying in the snow. She limped towards it, picking it up with a wince. It was no Naarvian steel, that was for sure, but it wasn’t entirely useless.

Gritting her teeth, she sheathed her own weapons once more and took up her position. She didn’t hesitate, didn’t falter, didn’t let the biting pain of her wounds stop her.

Thea ran for the crater, springing up into the air at the last moment as her foot neared its edge. And then she was soaring once more, using the imposter’s blade to ground herself on the ice on the other side, pinning herself to the solid ground rather than skidding out of control into the next pool of darkness.

The first thing she noticed was the silence.

The screaming had stopped.

Her gaze snapped to the shore, where her sister and her friends were almost entirely obscured by darkness, just their boots twitching beneath the power of the reapers.

A ragged sob escaped Thea, but she remained upright. The lake creaked ominously beneath her, but she stood tall, using every ounce of willpower to keep her terror and panic at bay as she scanned the shadow portal for its dark warden. Only this time, there was none.

Instead, all around the edge of the chasm was something else.

Vines.

Not getting too close, Thea crouched to get a better look. They were the colour of dark seaweed, gnarled and twisted along the ice.

As the icy gale danced around her, Thea’s nostrils were filled with a putrid stench.

‘A vine blight,’ she muttered to herself, recognising it as the same thing she and Wilder had once investigated on the clifftops of Thezmarr.

As if in answer, the thing writhed, ice cracking beneath its grasp.

Thea shuddered. She could only see the tendrils of its limbs at the edge of the ice, but she knew that somewhere deep beneath the darkness, the monster was feeding off a host. More vines wriggled out towards her, the stench intensifying.

‘Those vines are poisonous. A mere brush against your skin will cause immeasurable pain. It can get into your brain, too – with the right point of entry, it can render you a husk of the person you were…’

Wilder’s warning came back to her, eliciting another shudder.

But the monster wasn’t attacking. Instead, it seemed to guard the border of the chasm, twisting over itself slowly, as though its mere presence could deter her.

Across the wavering lines of the portal, the reapers withdrew their shadows, enough to show her the damage they’d done to her loved ones.

Wilder was back, his skin and clothes bloody as he fought against the talons holding him in place. That was the Wilder she knew.

Wren’s eyes were wide, her brow damp with perspiration and her complexion pallid. Cal and Kipp fared no better; each of them bore the marks of struggle, while Malik seemed frozen in place, terror rolling off him in waves, so potent Thea could almost taste it.

‘I’m coming,’ she told them, though she wasn’t sure if they could hear her.

She took an extra long run-up this time, to avoid the vine blight covering the perimeter of the gate. Once she was across,she could free Wilder. Together, they could take on the reapers and free the others. They had faced worse odds before.

Thea threw herself into action, sprinting hard and flinging herself over the final chasm, hurtling towards the solid ice on the other side.

Her breath shuddered when she landed, the surface slippery but hard beneath her boots. The scent of burnt hair was nearly strong enough to make her gag as the first reaper set its evil gaze upon her.

But Thea was done. She was done with the Great Rite, done with the obstacles, done with the threats to her and those she loved. She palmed Malik’s dagger of Naarvian steel, and braced herself.

Thea approached the reaper that held Wilder captive, putting on a show of bravado, as though she might allow the monster a taste of the very thing it lusted after above all else, the very thing she no longer had.

‘Take it, if you dare,’ Thea taunted the creature, flicking her blades in invitation, praying to the Furies that it couldn’t sense her power’s absence.Let it come. Let it find out the hard way that I’m just as deadly without magic.

A screech erupted from the reaper, and it threw itself at her.

Thea ducked and wove between the swipes of its talons and the lashes of its shadows. She had been dancing with darkness long enough to know its rhythm now. Like a shadow herself, she fought back, no matter the ice beneath her boots, or the wounds littering her body. Determination blazing through her, she felt empowered, even as the other reapers sniffed the air and came towards her.

Five reapers.