Page 42

Chapter 41

E laine felt the second the energy from five hundred years of Purgatory’s life, stolen from thousands of souls, struck her. An explosion of light and raw, unbridled energy surged through her limbs.

Her physical body exploded into ash. She felt no pain. She was free.

She should’ve died, but her consciousness continued, sensing the moment her very soul was reforged.

Before her was all of Purgatory. From the great lake, to the rivers cleaving the forests apart, and the Dusk Quarter where frightened crowds gathered at the entrance. Terrified souls huddled together in the Inner District, vampires embracing humans, wolves leaning into syrens. All eyes on the now bare sky, the barrier gone.

All their marks vanished but no one noticed. She felt their fear, tasted it as if she still had a body, could hear their thoughts. Thousands of them tearing through her, a cacophony of sound and terror suffocating them all. She was there, with them among the streets, and in the trees as they stirred in the midday wind. She flowed through the running water as it leapt and crashed over rocks.

And Elaine…was everywhere.

She was unleashed.