Prologue
Down and down and down . . .
He couldn’t remember the light. Here, the deepest of shadows gave way to a murk that seemed only a little less menacing, a little less sinister. The sky never lightened beyond a bruised purple before it darkened to an impenetrable, inky gloom.
To think that he had reached for that gaping blackness instead of fleeing far, far away and never looking back.
. . . and down and down and down and down . . .
How many days had passed? How many hours had dragged by since that fateful moment when his heart had told his body to move, to move, you idiot, to hurl himself without hesitation into that swirling, infinite void—
. . . and down and down and down and down and down . . .
The portal had devoured him, and he had begun to fall. Ribbons of shadow entangled him, strangled him, laughing and singing and whispering to him in tongues he couldn’t understand.
He wouldn’t stop falling. Couldn’t stop falling. The shadows laughed and stole the screams right from his throat. He tried to keep track of the seconds, but he never made it past one thousand before losing count. He wondered when this would end, how it would end, if it would ever end at all—
The world flared white for the briefest second, and when he came to, the ground was moist against his bare face, filling his nostrils with the scent of rain and something he did not recognize.
Orion Galashiels pressed a kiss to the land and thanked the Immortals.
Then he rolled onto his back, closing his eyes as he sank into the wet ground, and breathed.
When he opened his eyes, he looked up into the dark heavens and thought them more beautiful than anything he had ever seen before.
With a smile, he lifted a hand toward the constellations scattered above as if to capture them.
The ground rumbled, low thunder in his ears. Orion had no chance to react when clods of dirt erupted skyward, slamming into his shoulder and arm, enclosing him in a death grip of mud and rocks before wrenching him down. He struggled to free himself as the ground began to swallow him. To bury him alive, one limb at a time.
Heart hammering, Orion let out a desperate cry. His fingers plunged through the roiling dirt, searching for his pocket and closing around his affinity stone. He held it aloft in triumph, but the moment he uncurled his fist, it crumbled to dust right before his eyes.
“No,” he choked out. Dirt filled his mouth and nostrils, suffocating him. No, no, no, no—
In a burst of blinding light, his magic exploded from every pore of his body. The ground shied away from his radiance, relinquishing its hold upon him at last.
Blood roared in Orion’s ears as he scrambled up the sides of the crater that had formed around him, clawing at straggly roots to haul himself out. Once clear, he ran for all hell’s worth, his skin still pulsating with magic, certain that the ground would seize him once more if he so much as faltered for a second too long. Only when he couldn’t bear the burning of his lungs did he finally slow—and thankfully, the ground didn’t try to gobble him up.
Resisting the urge to vomit, Orion took in his surroundings. Trees of silver towered over him on all sides, glimmering with iridescent bark, their filigree leaves tinkling prettily in the breeze. Still panting for breath, he braced himself against a trunk but recoiled immediately. His hand came away slick, coated in an oily sap that reeked like hot tar. Upon closer inspection, he realized with horror that the sap was moving, churning and writhing in agitation along his palm, lapping at his fingers like tiny maggots.
Once again, his magic surged forth, this time with a scorching heat that sizzled the sap right off his skin and sent it skittering back up the tree trunk.
Orion stared up at the sliver of sky just visible overhead through the dense tangle of branches. Ragged exhales tore at his lungs as he tried to calm the fear coursing through his veins.
Everything was alive here. The rocks, the dirt . . . even his magic. It felt almost foreign in his body, as if he had suddenly sprouted a new limb. Here, his magic needed not bend to his beck and call. It refused to be summoned, controlled. Gone was his loyal hound, his most reliable tool—replaced with something primal. Wild.
Something powerful had always dwelled deep inside him, his skin, his blood, his soul. But now, it was free. Orion could run from the forests and the monsters within, but he couldn’t run from himself.
And that was the most terrifying thought of all.
He still tried, though. He ran until his legs gave out, until he collapsed in an exhausted heap and hit his head on something sharp. White starbursts exploded across his vision. His groping fingers came away scarlet, and wherever the droplets fell, small red blossoms sprang forth.
As the world blurred beneath his half-closed lids, the shadows began to sing anew, their voices pouring over him in honeyed waves. There was no laughter this time, only a soothing, haunting melody filling his ears as the shadows wrapped him into their satiny midnight folds.
The ground shifted beneath him, and his consciousness faded as he heard the fwip fwip of something flapping.
He dreamt of flying, of being carried far away by great wings of darkness high above a city of daggers and blood.
So warm.
“Well, well . . .” a voice like syrup purred from above him, rich and full of sin. “What do we have here?”
Orion finally regained consciousness and let out a loud groan, his head pounding.
Whispers ghosted the air, fleeting and incomprehensible, but apparently the voice could understand them. There was a deep chuckle. “A present? How gracious of you all. And such a pretty one, too.”
Orion cracked open his eyes at that, blinking blearily before squinting in the direction of the voice, gaze tracing up the sharp edges of a suit outlining muscled arms and broad shoulders. The top two buttons of a pristine white shirt had been carefully and carelessly undone, revealing a smooth collarbone flecked with tattoos. He drank in the delicious slope of a neck and a chiseled jaw before finally laying eyes on the face of the most beautiful man he had ever seen in his life.
The man’s features could only have been carved by the hand of an Immortal. The blade-honed definition of his face was balanced by full brows and a supple pink mouth softer than chrysanthemum petals in full blossom. Coiffed hair the black of pitch gleamed beneath a jeweled circlet of silver ivy adorned with butterflies’ wings.
“Tell me your name, pretty thing,” coaxed the man, gloved fingers cupping Orion’s jaw, gentler than a summer’s breeze. His eyes were twin dark stars, luminous as the brightest constellation yet promising eternal night.
“O—” He coughed. “Orion.” It occurred to him that he was reclining in the man’s lap, his neck and the crook of his knees draped over velvet armrests. “Orion Galashiels.”