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LIORA

T he altar looms before me, carved from stone so old it looks fused with the ruins around it. Ancient symbols snake across its surface, whispering forgotten secrets, their meaning foreign, except it isn’t.

I understand them.

The realization unsettles me, makes my skin prickle with unease. The symbols hum in my bones, call to me. The book I touched before, the one that had nearly devoured me, left something behind. A hunger, a whisper. It urges me forward, tells me this is meant to happen.

Dain doesn’t share that belief.

He steps in front of me, his wings flaring slightly, broad frame casting deep shadows over the altar. His glare is sharp, warning. “Don’t touch it.”

I lift my chin. “Why?”

His tail lashes, his stance rigid. “Because I said so.”

Heat curls in my stomach, twisting with my frustration. He always does this, pushes, demands, commands as if I belong to him. As if he decides what I can or cannot do.

I take a step around him.

He moves faster, blocking me again, his expression darkening. “I mean it, Liora. This isn’t for you.”

But the magic inside me says otherwise.

I don’t think. I don’t hesitate. My fingers press against it.

The world fractures.

A woman, standing where I stand now, her hands glowing, magic flowing from her like an unrelenting tide.

Power radiates from her, thick and suffocating. Her dark hair lashes around her face, wild like the storm she commands, eyes filled with something vast, something unyielding. The force of her will burns.

She chants, voice steady, calling forth something ancient. Her hands press against the altar, her body rigid with effort. She is sealing something away.

Suddenly, I see him.

Dain.

But not as he is now.

He is younger, wilder. Unchained. Raw magic crackles over his skin, his eyes burning bright with fury and something desperate. His wings are torn, blood streaking his arms, his chest heaving as he fights against the spell wrapping around him.

He is trapped.

The woman steps closer, murmuring something so softly, so gently, it makes my chest tighten. She reaches for him, her fingers brushing his cheek, not in cruelty, not in hate.

In sorrow.

His lips move.

A name.

“Amara.”

The memory shatters.

I stumble back, gasping, body trembling violently. A sharp, wet heat drips from my nose. Blood.

I lift a shaking hand to my face, my breath ragged. The vision lingers, branded into my mind. That woman, the Purna, was the same one I saw before. The same one who sealed away the dark presence.

She sealed Dain.

Dain.

My gaze snaps to him.

He stands as still as stone, but his expression betrays him. His hands tremble at his sides, his wings rigid, his chest moving too fast. He looks shaken.

No.

He looks terrified.

I swallow, my voice hoarse. “Who is Amara?”

His entire body locks up. His pupils slit, his lips pull back in something close to a snarl. His fear turns sharp, turns deadly.

His next words are a growl, low and vibrating with something dangerously close to rage.

“Don’t say that name.”

My heartbeat pounds against my ribs. “Why? Who is she?”

His hands clench into fists. “ Don’t say it again. ”

But I don’t stop.

I step closer, my body still trembling, my fingers curling around my arms as if that will stop the shaking. “She was the one who sealed you away, wasn’t she?”

Dain flinches. A barely-there reaction, but I see it. Feel it.

I press further. “What was she to you?”

Silence.

He turns away, shoulders tight, his entire body drawn like a bowstring. “This isn’t your concern.”

“The hell it isn’t,” I snap, anger and something else clawing at my throat. “She’s in my head, Dain. I see her. I feel her magic. And that thing out there—” I gesture toward the ruin’s entrance, where the shadows still pulse, where the darkness is waiting “it’s after me for a reason. I need to understand why.”

“You don’t need to understand anything. ”

His voice is too rough, too sharp. His control is fraying.

I step in front of him, forcing him to look at me. “Then tell me why the mere mention of her makes you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

His jaw locks.

The space between us is thick, suffocating. I can feel the tension in his muscles, see the war raging in his eyes.

Just when I think he might actually say something , the ruin shudders.

Dain moves instantly , shoving me back. His wings flare, his claws out as the darkness that had been lurking at the edges lunges forward.

A sound like splintering bone rips through the chamber.

The dark presence has found us.

A roar bellows through the ruins, shaking the stones beneath our feet. Shadows twist, thick and wrong, stretching from the corners like ink spilling into the air. The torches flicker, then die , leaving only the void, thick and hungry.

Dain curses , grabbing me by the arm and hauling me back.

“Run.”

The shadows leap.

I don’t hesitate.

We bolt deeper into the ruins, the thing behind us screeching, clawing at the walls, the air, at us. I can feel it in my heart, pressing in, pressing through.

I hear whispers.

A voice not my own.

You were not supposed to live.

My blood freezes.

Dain yanks me forward, his grip bruising, his breath ragged. The ruins twist ahead, narrowing, spiraling down into some deeper, unknown chamber. He doesn’t hesitate—he leads me down.

Something inside me screams no.

This is wrong.

This place is wrong.

But I don’t get a choice.

We descend into the darkness.