Prologue

Eryndor’s POV

My boots squelch as I sink into the thick mud at the edge of Mirror Lake, the ooze suctioning me down when I stay too still. The usually crystal water no longer mirrors the sky above as its name suggests. Instead, faint ripples shiver across the surface.

The air feels charged, humming with static, and a shiver runs through me. In all my years as a guardian—centuries spent watching over the Vale—I’ve never seen even a breeze disturb Mirror Lake.

For years now, things have been changing. The fabric of this place grows less stable, small tears appearing here and there, each one needing to be woven shut. The mortals’ faith has been waning for centuries, but never more than in the last fifty years. More and more reject the mate bond, and fewer send prayers to the Goddess. As the ungrateful supernatural races turn their backs on Selene, her power weakens—along with her hold over the Vale, and the prison we guard.

I scent the air. The crisp, clean fragrance that usually marks this place carries a new taint, one I can’t quite place. It stirs memories I’d long buried from my mortal life.

I turn, boots pulling free from the mud with a wet slap, and head back toward the watchtower. The air shifts as I approach the rise where it stands—tall, unyielding, a sentinel in this otherwise flat realm.

The Vale is small. Usually peaceful. Still. The lake stretches wide before the tower, its glassy surface reflecting the faint light that never truly dies here. The meadow that borders it has always offered a strange kind of sanctuary, a quiet I never thought to pray for when I was mortal.

When I died, Selene blessed me with this calling—to stand eternal as one of her Guardians, watching over the Vale and the darkness we hold at bay.

This realm sits between worlds, an in-between, a pocket carved from creation itself. A gatehouse between the mortal and immortal planes. Selene built it as a safeguard, a seal to keep the mortal realm safe from the evil that festers beyond the veil.

As I start up the rise toward the gate, the ground shudders beneath me. I stumble, catch myself, and spin toward the sound. Nothing. Just the lake and the dark beyond it, silent and still as ever.

Then the Watchtower door slams open behind me, and voices call out into the night—my fellow Guardians, roused by the tremor, spilling into the open air to see what the hell just happened.

The wind gusts again. I shouldn’t call it a wind—there isn’t supposed to be wind here. The air in the Vale is always still. If there’s wind, it can only mean one thing.

Oh, Goddess. It must be a draft.

“There’s a breach!” I yell as the others close in around me. “Find it! We have to seal it.”

“From which side?!” Serit’s voice cuts through the rising noise from my left.

“The mortal realm,” I shout back, my own ears ringing.

“How can you tell?” Kalar demands.

“The smell,” I say, sniffing. “It smells of—”

“Incense,” Aien breathes, catching it too.

Kalea and I echo him in unison. “Incense.”

“Oh, Goddess,” Serit murmurs. “Selene help us.”

“Hurry. We have to find it and repair the breach. There’s not much time!”

We scatter in all directions, running across the Vale’s quiet expanse, searching for the tear. A single rift could unravel everything—one opening could unleash a series of catastrophes upon the mortal realm.

That’s what I’m here to prevent. What we’ve all guarded against for the last eight hundred years.

I sprint along the lake’s edge, the rippling water beside me a terrible reflection of what’s happening to my world. The once-smooth surface quivers and fractures, just as the barrier itself does. The air smells thicker now—cloying, heavy with smoke and ash. And underneath it, something else. Power. Foul and ancient.

Goddess, help me.

The scent grows stronger, the air warmer, and then I hear it: the low murmur of chanting voices. My chest tightens, and I push harder, lungs burning. The sound swells with every step, rhythmic and wrong, like something breathing through stone.

Up ahead, a dim glow pierces the darkness. A thin gleam floats in mid-air, a sliver of light like the crack under a door. It brightens as I approach, and the chanting rises to meet it.

Panting, I skid to a stop in front of the rift.

It’s not large—yet—but its edges shimmer and writhe, a wound in reality itself. Through it I can see shadowed figures, hooded and chanting, their hands raised in a circle. The glow around them pulses like a heartbeat.

Goddess. They’re summoning him.

Fucking idiots.

I snatch the weaving stone from my pocket, fingers trembling as I reach for the rift. The air around it is charged, pressing against my skin like static. I take a steadying breath and begin to weave, threads of silvery light coiling from the stone, ready to close the breach.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” a cold voice says behind me.

I spin, heart slamming against my ribs, as Corren steps out of the gloom.

“Why?” I ask, though my stomach is already clenching. He shouldn’t be here. He was on duty away from the tower today. He shouldn’t know, and he should damn well want me to weave this rift.

“What are you doing here, Corren?”

My palms are slick when I notice the knife in his hand. The blade shines with a strange purple iridescence. Nothing like that is allowed in the Vale.

My heart skips. “What have you done?” The words leave me as a whisper.

“What needed to be done,” he snarls.

He lunges. I flinch. For a heartbeat I think he missed. Then I look down and see my life spilling warm over my tunic. The unnatural blade must be so sharp I didn’t feel the cut.

The Vale shudders again. The chanting swells.

I reach for Corren, desperate to stop whatever he intends, but my legs give out and I drop to my knees.

Horror clamps cold around my ribs as he lifts the knife and makes a snagging motion in the air. Something catches with a bell-like clang. The ground rumbles. The breeze becomes a gale, screaming through the grass.

Corren drags the blade down. A dark seam splits open mid-air. A foul stench rolls out as shadows pour through, racing across the Vale and surging toward the mortal rift.

Oh Selene, I’ve failed. After centuries of watching, we’ve failed.

He carves again, widening the tear, and laughs, high and manic. Then he turns to the fissure from which light spills and sets the knife against its edge. He forces it in. Steel protests with a shriek. I flinch at the aural assault, but the widening wound holds me.

The shadows thicken, boiling through. A hand grips the edge from the other side. My breath turns shallow. My heartbeat staggers. My eyelids drag toward closing.

I can’t. I won’t let my goddess down.

I force my eyes open as a figure steps through. Darkness coils around him. His form seems less flesh than condensed shadow given shape. Eyes like polished onyx pin me. His mouth curves, slow and hungry.

Monvar.

My heart kicks wild. I can only watch as he steps through the man-sized tear and into the mortal realm.

Corren looks back at me as my head tilts toward the earth.

“Your goddess is finished. She’s ruled too long over a world that doesn’t want her. It’s time for change. Monvar has risen.” His smile splits his face as he follows his new master through the rift.

My heart gives out. My eyes close. With my last thought, I send up a prayer to Selene.