Page 31 of Aryn

Then, all at once, the pressure releases.

Before us is an opening.

Shimmering. Shifting. But solid and real.

A cold breeze slips through, carrying the scent of home so achingly familiar that tears prick my eyes. My heart is still pounding, still galloping in my chest. It wants to go so badly I’m surprised it hasn’t thrown itself free to crawl through the opening, the rest of me be damned.

“Go,” Sovran says, voice full of quiet wonder. “You must go quickly.”

“Sovran—” I start.

He shakes his head. “Go. We will meet again. I am sure of it.”

“Have you seen it?” Ronan asks, staring at the faint red hues glowing from the other side.

“I see very little these days,” Sovran answers softly. “But I am sure. It has to be you, and it has to be now. You must go, my friends.”

“Khraeth hív, sén magam neki,” I whisper.

Home is calling, and I surrender to her.

I take a step forward, goosebumps rising against the heat burning off my skin.

One more.

Another.

I glance over my shoulder and meet Cato’s warm brown eyes. “I’ve got your back,” he says, softly enough that only I hear.

I nod once.

Take a deep breath.

And step forward into darkness.

Aryn

Freezing air wraps around me in a giant fist and squeezes tight, punching the breath from my lungs in a cloud that drifts towards the crimson sky. Before my mind can even process the shift from hot to cold, the sweat on my skin forms ice crystals so sharp they feel like they might slice me right open. My inhale fights against the frigid night as I suck in a shaky breath and brace myself.

There’s no cataclysmic shock.

No shifting of the world beneath my feet.

No lightning tearing across the heavens in the Fates’ fury.

There’s only silence and the thick, floral bouquet of scents my nose had almost forgotten. The lush, intoxicating sweetness of blood-orchids reaches me from a patch of them waiting just ahead. Petals push through the snow, so deeply red they look nearly black in the night, though they wilt beneath the weight of the cold. Electric blue thraeva vines wind between their stems, adding the scent of velvet smoke and the dark honey that drips from their thorns.

It’s more powerful than I remember. Sweet and bitter, sensual and rotting all at once. Elyra feels like a vast, breathing flower slowly bleeding perfume from every torn seam of reality. The wind blows again, the air pulsing around me as if to welcome me home.

Home.

Relief hits me so hard my legs nearly fail. After nearly a century of concrete walls and sterile air, I’m finally home. Joy hits me so sharp it borders on pain, and right on its heels comes the bittersweet agony I knew would follow.

This place is no longer the one I left. The air tastes of loss as much as memory, and the weight of every year I spent away presses down on my chest until it’s hard to breathe. I draw in a shuddering inhale, fighting the tears prickling behind my eyes.

Snow crunches behind me, and I turn to find Cato staring, slack-jawed. Three faint dots reflect in his eyes as he gawks at the sky, taking in the moons hanging high above the distant mountains.

The crimson glow bathes him in shades of blood and rust, turning his copper hair into living flame and casting deep shadows across the planes of his face. It makes his scars stand out in stark relief and catches in his wide, awestruck eyes. He looks almost otherworldly in this light—rugged and beautiful in a way that steals the breath I just managed to catch.