Of Hollowed Stars (Fate of the Embered #3)

Prologue

Maya and Melina ~ Back Then

The room was closing in on Maya Vawn. Or rather—Nightshade. A quiet snort slipped from her. In her twenty-eight turns of survival, she’d run from her lineage for so long that the feel of its tethers clung to her like chains, wrenching on her limbs.

She exhaled slowly, her heels pushing into the floor as she squared her stance. A flicker of memory stirred—Morpheus, slipping into her dreams like moonlight through fractured prisms.

It had been nearly a decade since her fated had first discovered the golden thread binding their souls, tracing it across the void of his prison. He had clutched it desperately, dragging himself through nightmare after nightmare to reach her.

He had been the one who spoke of the Fates’ prophecies.

Who had urged her to escape.

To erase her name.

To become no one.

For her safety.

For the safety of her unborn children.

So, she had. With fear and regret fueling her, she had fled from the Perilous Bogs. Burrowed into the woodlands of Evergryn and buried her longing for home deep within her.

With every full moon, he had returned to her beneath the veil of sleep. And while he’d saved her—as nightmares bled in and dreams decayed across the realm—she had saved him, too. Held his sanity together. Kept his soul from shriveling into the darkness.

Their secret love had unfurled slowly, impossibly, in the shadows of the dreamscape, the Somnis. And three turns into their quiet, unseen devotion, they had made it real—consummated not in the waking world, but in that sacred place between souls and slumber.

Seryn was quite literally a dream come true.

Maya blinked hard, banishing the warmth of those memories as dread seeped into her bones.

In front of her, a feral grin dripped off Melina Harrow’s incisors, her lips the color of fresh blood. The Elder relished this—the moment her prey realized they were cornered. Like a forest mouse scurrying between her talons, only to feel them close.

Maya’s world narrowed to a single pinprick. Her fists clenched at her sides as she stood before Melina. She wouldn’t be leaving this room a free woman, which she had known the moment she’d saved her daughter from Balor Drent earlier today.

Her time had come.

Melina watched the other female squirm, drinking in every flicker of resistance. Pets always thought they could flee. But their efforts were futile. No one escaped her—not when the game commenced.

She had learned to play hard. Long ago, she’d been caged, helpless beneath the torment of Gryvak Leystaes’ attention. Even now, the mere thought of her fated khorda infuriated her. But under that rage, a thin sheen of fear lingered, and it had nearly broken her.

Carved her into what she was now.

Now she was the one with the blade, and she would never let it go.

Maya swallowed down the bile rising in her throat, eyes flicking over the black silk and stone of the Elder’s quarters.

She knew it was too late for her. Melina had seen her power; there would be no mercy.

But it was never too late for her children.

They were so young. Seryn only seven, and Letti just four turns old.

Her fingernails dug into her palms.

They would survive.

She would make sure of it, even if she had to claw her way back from the aether.

And Gideon. He’d do as she asked. He’d do his best. Watch over both his daughter and Seryn, despite knowing she wasn’t his and unaware of who fathered her.

She cared for him deeply, but he knew her heart had already belonged to someone else. Nonetheless, he took her in when she’d been pregnant. Because he loved her and had from the moment he saw her in the Evergryn village.

Maya clenched her fists as if she could squeeze out the guilt seeping into her chest and then let her frantic thoughts shift.

She hoped the rune stone she’d embedded in Seryn’s nape as an infant would hold.

That her ember, if it ever awakened, would stay dormant.

Regardless of whether either of her daughters were Druiks, Seryn was part Ancient, and her celestial gifts would have surfaced early on if not for her mother’s precaution.

She would have been a target. Something for the Elders or the Ancients themselves to use. To play with as they saw fit.

“Sit,” Melina cooed, her voice as silky as the settee she poked. The fabric threatened to split where the sharp tip of her nail dug in. Behind her, Balor licked his dry, cracked lips, already savoring Maya’s pain.

“I’ll stand,” Maya replied coolly, lifting her chin. She wouldn’t allow the Elder to break her. Just beneath her skin, her ember simmered, dark and twinkling like a star-strewn midnight sky.

Melina’s head tilted, something between curiosity and trepidation flickering across her face.

“Ah, that’s quite the backbone you have, Maya,” she purred. “It’s been a long while since I met someone with gifts like yours.” Her gaze scraped over Maya’s form. “I can almost taste it. Reminds me of home.” She dragged her top teeth over her bottom lip. “Why don’t you show me your bite?”

Maya’s tense jaw twitched. Her energy pulsed, eager to oblige. But she stood her ground, urging her ember to hold steady.

Wait.

Endure.

Let her strike first.

Smoky tendrils crept around the Elder’s silhouette, slithering toward Maya, testing, taunting, and prodding at her. Disgust churned in Maya’s gut at the intrusion.

Melina’s lips curled. “Come now. Do you need some encouragement?” She raised her hands. “We could bring your little ones in to play. Would you like that, pet?”

Fury ignited; Maya stepped forward.

Melina moved faster. With her palms thrust outward, shadows burst from her fingers and coiled around Maya’s head in a billowing cloud.

With a garbled cry, Maya unleashed her gift. It flew outward, seizing the shadowy haze like fingers clutching a wrist, and ripped away the Elder’s power.

Maya’s ember was rare.

Born of something older.

Something more.

It could touch other auras as if they were solid.

Manipulate them.

Twist them.

Break them.

“Scion,” Melina hissed, balking as her gaze snapped toward Balor.

The Akridai’s power lashed out next, oiled and writhing.

Maya’s ember swatted it aside as if it were a bothersome gnat.

The image of Seryn dangling above a raging river flashed behind Maya’s eyes. Pure rage surged up her spine. She hurled Melina’s aura back at her; the force slapped the Elder across her face, making her stumble and cough on her own creation.

Maya charged toward Balor. Her energy clamped onto the edges of his and twisted, winding it around his dough-like neck.

Tight.

Tighter.

His eyes bulged. His mouth bloomed a sickly shade of blue.

Maya narrowed her eyes. Loathing, grief, and fury all poured into her ember as it turned Balor’s fluorescent tendrils against him, strangling him with the gift he used to hurt others.

But then—

CRACK.

A sharp blow collided with the back of Maya’s skull. Searing pain sliced down her spine as she collapsed, her aura crumpling with her. Her grip on Balor’s power faltered. She could have sworn she heard her lover’s roar shatter through her mind.

Balor fell backward, gasping, dragging in broken, desperate inhalations. His fingers clawed at his throat, as if her hold still lingered there.

Maya lay still, her breath coming in shallow shudders. Shadows crept in at the edges of her vision as she stared up at Melina, whose halo sputtered before sinking into her flesh. A metallic clatter rang across the floor as Melina dropped whatever weapon she had struck her with.

The Elder straddled Maya’s waist, platinum strands falling around her face like polished guillotine blades.

“My, my,” she murmured. “I didn’t think we’d have quite so much fun, but you didn’t disappoint.” She sniffed delicately. “As much as I’d love to keep playing, I can’t risk it. Not with you so clearly being my Scion.”

A slow, languid sigh slipped from her lips. “And a deal with Phobetor tends to ruin the mood.” She leaned in slightly. “It’s a shame I can’t send you to the aether … but a Scion’s power is too tempting for him to resist, and he wants you imprisoned. No use to him if you’re dead.”

Blackness crowded the edges of Maya’s vision.

Melina straightened with a shrug and flicked a hand at Balor. “Take her to the dungeon,” she barked, smoothing her hands over her hair. “Prepare her for the Epiales Tombs. I’ll be down shortly.”

That name alone made Maya’s faint pulse stumble.

She remembered the lore of Epiales. The personification of nightmares.

Phobetor’s favored demon, long ago destroyed during the Nightbloom Sundering, had once been the Ancient’s chosen companion.

The shadow beast who suffocated dreamers with torment and madness.

Perhaps the demon’s spirit lingered still, because horror was already creeping along the edges of Maya’s fading consciousness.

The Elder traced her forefinger down Maya’s cheek, grinning at her. “Don’t worry. I’ll keep an eye on your girls for you.”

Weakly, Maya lifted a trembling hand, but Melina smacked it aside before she leaned in once more. Her aura poured over Maya’s face like liquid smog.

Yet, even with the threat of unconsciousness stealing away reality, Maya’s ember refused the Elder’s invasion. Perhaps Morpheus was there after all, helping her gift deny access. Her eyelashes fluttered with effort.

With a frustrated growl, Melina bent to one side, and metal scraped across the stone before a cold, solid mass crashed against Maya’s temple.

Then everything—light, sound, and any flicker of hope within Maya Nightshade—went utterly, violently dark.