Page 7

T he crystal tower had no door. The shimmering vertical wall of crystal was completely flawless and reflected the massive golem standing before it.

Then, as I watched, it reflected my surprised face after the golem had walked straight through it.

I blinked. “Did it just…?”

“Looks like it,” Kai replied as the second golem began walking again, forcing us to move toward the tower.

“I guess we’re just… going through,” I said as I squeezed my eyes shut. I kept my feet moving, taking comfort in Solstice squeezing around my neck as a resonance hummed through my entire body as if I had stepped into the belly of a harp.

When I opened my eyes again, all I saw were brilliant crystals and colors. I had expected a room, but I was inside the prism. Panic seized my lungs as I struggled to breathe, but then the floor shifted out from under me and my stomach dropped as the crystal sucked me in.

No, not in.

Upward.

I drew in a deep breath as I arrived in a vast, circular chamber high above the village. There were no windows, but I could see through the glassy walls as if we were trapped inside a multi-faceted gem.

The room continued to materialize, or maybe my body was still climbing, until furniture appeared.

Then a figure in the center wrapped in crystal chains.

His head was bowed, leaving white hair to drape over his forehead. A glowing blue tattoo burned on his right arm as a small, azure dragon wound about his neck, weakly glancing up to keen at me.

Solstice strained against my neck, immediately recognizing who we had found.

“Killian!” I screamed as Solstice cried for Topaz. She tried to grow. I felt her push of magic into her limbs, but something suppressed her and made her cry.

Killian’s head snapped up and our eyes met. Terror burned in his whitewashed eyes that I loved so much.

That’s when our bond pulsed with a hard thump to my chest, sending me to the floor. Kai made a strained sound behind me, but I couldn’t turn around to see what had happened.

“Viv,” Killian rasped. “You shouldn’t be here. She used me to get to you. You need to?—”

A second shimmer of light rippled across the chamber and a woman with broken shards for skin stepped forward.

Silky rainbow-like wings that broke the light fluttered softly behind her. Her eyes glowed with a pale, unnatural swirl of color that seemed to draw the light inward, as if her body drank in all the brilliance around it, leaving shadowy footprints in her wake.

It reminded me of the village and the darkness that spread out everywhere—except for this very tower.

“So predictable,” she said with a sickly-sweet tone.

One that I would recognize anywhere.

“Nera?” I hissed.

I didn’t know how, but this was the Avalon Queen I had vanquished. And she had come back to haunt me.

She hadn’t been reborn already, had she?

“You’re dead,” I said, assuring myself of what I distinctly remembered. “I ended you.”

She gave me a toothy smile. “You ended a version of me,” she replied as she splayed open her palms. “I’m a dragon, sweet child. I cannot be ended .”

“You know her?” Kai whispered, but Nera wasn’t done talking.

“I’m more than one life,” she said as she approached Killian, making me stiffen.

She drew her pinky down his jawline as the chains forced him to look up at her.

The crystal tower itself seemed to be alive and it bent everything to her will.

“I’m more than one song. And the Wrath here… it’s been so very welcoming.”

Behind her, two pedestals appeared in a shimmer of rainbow.

She wanted me to see all the treasures she had collected. Not just my fated mate and his dragon, but the innocents I was trying to protect.

Two eggs.

One pink, and another that glowed with deep orange and red hues.

The same colors that Kai’s compass indicated , I realized, but my thoughts were instantly cut off by a stab of pain.

My bracelet flared with heat that had me whimpering, because this was a third soul.

One under Nera’s influence, and it was about to awaken.

“Three queens,” Nera whispered, stepping closer as she eyed my bracelet. “Three voices inside one vessel. Let’s see if you can carry their tune… before they break you.”