Chapter 1
I’d always wondered what dying would feel like. Turns out, it’s loud as hell.
Death had finally caught up with me, and this time Pearl wasn’t here to intervene.
The Voices were building a fortress of madness in my skull, each cry laying another brick in the wall of my closing tomb. The pressure mounted behind my eyes, a gnawing heat that ate away at the edges of reason until even my own thoughts began to scream.
My body betrayed me. Blood gushed from every pore, turning my skin into a canvas of crimson rivers. The metallic tang filled my nose and drowned out the acrid smoke that clung to Brasov’s ruins. It sought to suffocate me, perhaps bury me.
Through the haze of agony, I clung to the glimpse of moonlight filtering through the skeletal remains of the clock tower.
The structure that had dominated the square since fourteen-twenty now lay twisted across the ground, its clock face shattered.
Fire magic had melted the stone spires of Lucian’s Temple.
Down the alley, a shop sign creaked on rusted hinges from what had been Petrov’s Blood Works.
The Council Square reduced to nothing.
Just like I’d become another pile of ashes scattered across these war-torn cobblestones by dawn.
My intestines twisted into knots, my body trying to squeeze itself into a fist, desperately preserving what little life remained. The Deep Sleep kicked in—a pureblood’s last defense against complete exsanguination.
Or the ‘death box.’
All because I’d trusted him.
The Voices infiltrated my mind deeper—Harbinger’s precious secret—tearing through my mental barriers like acid through paper.
High-pitched wails stripped away layers of my sanity.
My identity dissolved. Blood bubbled past my lips, the last cavity it hadn’t been pouring from, and the wet heat felt final.
Then—
CRACK!
Something shattered inside my skull. The monster chorus died, but the damage was done.
My soul ripped free as my spine arched off the stone.
This wasn’t agony anymore; this was existence becoming undone.
I reached for something—anything. A memory.
Meaning. Mercy. And found only the echo of my unraveling clawing its way out of me.
In the void that followed, my screams were captured in infinite loops until understanding dawned.
Harbinger had saved me. He had severed the harmonization, knowing it would hurt like hell. Why would a traitor show mercy? Was this how Projector Olaru had met his end, driven mad by these Voices?
He should have let me die.
The thought jump-started my failing heart. Because the alternative meant a reckoning. I’d extract every truth from his lying throat, even if it killed us both.
I was done with his games. Done letting him call the shots while people died for his secrets.
Fire erupted from my nape and threaded through my spine. Each breath felt like inhaling broken glass. The hunger wrung my insides, turned my veins to liquid lead.
My fingers slipped against the blood-slicked metal at the back of my neck.
The Bloodthorn Nexus burned my skin, but the pain dimmed beside my flaring rage.
I twisted onto my knees, clawing at the device.
Then my head knocked against the wall as I tried to scrape the Nexus off against the rough stone.
A scream ripped from my raw throat, carrying all my fury at Harbinger, at the Republic, at my own stupid trust.
“Aurora, stop!” Selena’s shadow fell over me, her obsidian hair catching starlight, sharp cheekbones set in determination. The fear twisting her elegant features reminded me of Sibiu—of finding out Harbinger was one of them. A varcolac. “You’ll hurt yourself!”
“Get it out!” I slammed my fists against my temples. “Get this fucking thing out before it fries my brain!”
“Hold still.” She locked my shoulders between her thighs, tangled her fingers in my hair, and yanked my head forward. Her other hand clutched the Nexus. With a soft click, my harmonization link to the Black Guild died. “This is going to hurt.”
I lurched forward onto my hands. “Just rip it—”
My words dissolved into blackness as she pulled, vision failing. The Nexus clung like a parasite. With each tendril that disconnected, white-hot bolts shot through my brain.
Then, something snapped, and the burning vanished.
Without Selena’s support, I crumpled forward, blood dripping onto stone.
“Easy.” She braced me as I pushed up on shaking legs. “Did that bastard do this to you?”
My mind was already putting pieces together. “Sel, Harbinger can communicate with them. The Stalkers. I heard them—hundreds of Voices screaming through our mental link.” My voice cracked. “I heard Phoenix.”
‘I don’t want to die…’
Her eyes narrowed to slits. “Phoenix is dead, Aurora. Everyone saw—”
“I know what they saw!” I snapped. “I watched her die. I heard her heart stop. But that was her voice. The same desperate plea from that night, before the Ignises got to her.”
Selena’s grip tightened on the Nexus until her knuckles went white and my blood pooled between her tight fingers. Panic flickered in her eyes. She thought I was losing my mind.
An explosion rocked the ground. Battle sounds crashed in as if someone had uncorked my ears—screams, blasts, bodies hitting stone. Through the gaps between buildings, I caught flashes of combat: Ember’s flames painting the night orange, earth magic reshaping the landscape.
The outliers were still fighting.
It wasn’t over. I almost doubted it ever would be.
Selena’s ice-cold hands gripped my face. “Aurora?” Her pulse spiked, and the sound made my mouth water. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
The emptiness in my gut was getting harder to ignore. Every cell screamed for blood, and Selena’s proximity wasn’t helping.
Her lips thinned into a grim reprimand. “That’s bullshit!” she snarled. “The Nexus stays with me.”
“On that, we can agree. Give me your Transmitter.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” she said, her voice suddenly honed to a razor’s edge as she yanked away. “You almost died again. And by the way, your veins are showing, so stop lying to me. You really want to keep fighting like this?”
I raked bloody fingers through my hair, feeling the raised black lines snaking from my hairline. A searing cramp almost doubled me over.
“I need to do this. Yes, I need to sate myself. Yes, my head feels like it’s going to explode.
” I met her eyes. “But we have minutes, an hour at most. If we don’t act, we’re both dead.
Either the Stalkers will kill the Black Guild and come for us, or I’ll lose control and you’ll have to deal with both me and them. Your choice.”
Her jaw hardened as she slapped the Transmitter into my palm. “Fine. But take my blood first.”
My insides twisted. I couldn’t refuse.
“Just a little,” I warned, grasping her arm. The pulse beneath my fingers jumped like a trapped bird. “If I take too much—”
“—It’ll be me who slips into bloodlust. I know. It won’t get to that. Now, feed!” She thrust her wrist at my mouth, the scent of jasmine and vetiver filling my nostrils.
I pierced her skin with measured care, but nothing could have prepared me for the rush.
Her blood hit my tongue, ancient and powerful, and I hummed in pleasure.
My knees almost buckled as the first swallow blazed down my throat, igniting every depleted cell in my body.
The world transformed. Darkness gained texture, colors bled into impossible new shades, and even the stone walls seemed to pulse with life.
Five swallows. That was my limit. Any more and I’d risk pushing her over the edge. I forced myself back, licking the wounds closed with trembling lips. Her blood crackled through my veins, but it was barely a drop in an endless void.
We couldn’t risk two purebloods in bloodlust. Not with the growing Stalker numbers I sensed gathering in the square.
“Better?” Selena asked.
I wiped my mouth, tasting the last copper traces of her blood. “It’ll do. Let’s go finish this so we can call it a night. I know I need it over yesterday.”
My fingers shook as I positioned the Transmitter beneath my ear. The device latched onto bone with a sharp bite. “Black Guild,” I commanded.
The device hummed to life, connecting me to the outliers fighting in the square.
Another cramp twisted my gut, hot as a knife and sharp enough to blur my vision. On a scale of one to for-the-love-of-god-this-hurts, I would’ve given this a twelve. I was running on borrowed time.
But the others needed us. Even Harbinger, the lying bastard.
“Ready?”
She fixed me with a flat stare. “No.”
Despite the pain, I snorted. Neither was I.
“Love the spirit. Let’s go kill some Stalkers. Then we’ll deal with me.”
The alley squeezed us between crumbling buildings, barely five feet wide. I stumbled over debris, my elbow cracking against stone. The little blood in my system might as well have been water for all the good it did.
The alley mouth opened to chaos.
Three fireballs—Ember’s handiwork—streaked across the sky. My Blood Manipulation reached out, categorizing the seven essences around us: clear blue auras of outliers against the dark presence of Stalkers. Everyone was unharmed. But that knowledge came at a price.
Their scents slammed into me, and my gums split open.
My fangs descended without permission, so I clenched my jaw to stop myself from giving in.
A gust of wind carried the reek of decay and ashfall, temporarily clearing the red haze creeping at the edges of my vision.
But the smell of spilled mortal blood was hard to ignore.
Selena halted in front of me and shot me a knowing look. “You okay, partner?”
“Never better,” I muttered through tight lips.
In the square, agonized wails splintered the night. Through the gap between the ruins, I glimpsed dozens of Stalkers swarming Harbinger, his silver hair flashing as he moved between their ranks. He’d sheathed his mysterious sword in favor of a more effective weapon.
Where his portal-born blade slashed, Stalker parts disappeared.
Somewhere in another realm, it was raining severed monster limbs and heads. The surrounding air rippled with temporal distortion as his strikes tore holes between worlds, feeding Stalkers piecemeal into the void. His Chronoportal was as terrifying as it was majestic.
He took a sharp turn, slid beneath a Nebula, and hamstrung the four-armed beast with a quick movement of his hand. Gore sprayed the cobblestones from the stumps he’d left of its legs.
My breath caught, and bile rose to my throat. Why fight them if they’re his allies?
On the other side of the square, thirty feet from where Harbinger danced with death, four Limuses crouched on their forelegs.
Twice as wide in the shoulders as an average pureblood, the hellhounds almost matched my height.
Some very old ones even did. Their maws gaped to reveal endless rows of yellowed fangs, sharp as sickles and strong as steel.
The barrier of sand writhing from their ridged spines wavered like heat mirages, thick enough to blind.
They were preparing to attack.
My body moved before conscious thought could intervene.
I launched myself into the fray, hunger forgotten. Harbinger’s eyes locked with mine, ice-cold and furious. How dare he? The bastard had lied, manipulated, nearly killed me, yet he was upset?
My fangs dropped fully. This time I welcomed them.
Then he vanished, leaving empty air where the Stalkers’ jaws snapped shut. Black ichor sprayed as the Limuses collided, their own momentum turning them against each other in a tangle of claws and fangs.
“Goddamn, he’s quick,” Selena breathed behind me.
The Transmitter buzzed with a chorus of shrieks, whimpers, and groans, not as overwhelming as before but enough to splinter my focus.
I tried to adjust the device, but the Voices only grew clearer.
Each cry distinct and urgent. Though only an echo of the torrent Harbinger had channeled through our link.
And where I’d collapsed in agony, spewing blood and sanity, he moved without the slightest sign the Voices affected him. No nosebleeds. No screaming. Just another normal day in his rampage.
My fingers curled into fists, nails cutting crescents into my palms. I would immobilize him, send him to his knees again, and—
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die!” Phoenix’s voice rose above the noise, clear as the night she died.
A whisper of fear fluttered in my belly, my knees buckling.
“Holy shit,” Hummingbird’s voice echoed through the Transmitter. “That—that was Phoenix!”
My head snapped up. They heard her too.
“Aurora?” Selena gripped my elbow. Her keen eyes scanned for wounds she wouldn’t find. “What’s happening? Are you hurt?”
I shook my head. “Phoenix is out there somewhere.” I forced myself to voice the horrifying thought. “And if she is… what about the others? All our dead—where are these Voices coming from?”