More. Higher. Louder.

Ava’s voice rose in pain and anger. She screamed out against the voices in her mind.

The soldier holding her faltered. One hand came up to his ear as he stumbled. She saw others clutching their heads. Blood poured between their fingers.

The lights went on. Then off. On again.

Finally, the one holding Ava dropped her, and she splashed in the water as the soldier ran. Everything was dark and silent for a moment before she surfaced, spitting out the foul water that had filled her mouth. She blinked her eyes, looking for danger. The Grigori who had captured her was pushing for the exit even as Max cut him down. She couldn’t see Malachi, but she saw Max. Blood ran from his eyes and ears, but he kept coming toward her.

More Grigori ran past, two scrambling up the stairs as she brushed the damp hair from her face and blinked the mud from her eyes. Max finally reached her.

“You’re fine, Ava. You’re all right.”

“Where’s Malachi?”

A voice from the darkness. “I’m here, Ava.” He emerged from the shadows, wading through the waist-deep water with a crooked smile. “What was that, love?”

Ava burst out with a sobbing laugh. “I have no idea.”

She saw Damien and Malachi on the other side of the cistern. Damien smiled, even as he killed another Grigori with a dagger to his spine. The dust hung like a fog over their heads, wafting toward the exit where the rest of the soldiers had fled. Malachi stood, clutching his side, leaning against a pillar and panting. Blood ran from his eyes and nose, but he smiled anyway, staring across the water.

Come to me.

For a split second, she could hear the thought in his mind.

Ava stood and started running toward him as fast as she could, barely noticing the shadow moving in the corner of her eye.

The shadow rose from the water, blue eyes gleaming in the darkness and blade glinting in the light.

Ava’s heart stopped.

Silence.

Malachi stilled as the blade pierced his spine, his eyes locking with hers.

Grey eyes wide in the darkness.

She fell. Her knees gave out.

Cold water rose to her chest.

Her mate’s mouth dropped open with a silent cry as Brage’s blade plunged in, then his face shone gold.

“NO!” Max’s voice behind her.

Gold. He was gold. Shimmering in the darkness. Beautiful. Radiant.

Malachi’s visage flickered as the dust began to rise.

Ava’s heart beat once, then she heard another long scream.

Silence as her eardrums burst. Her vision went black as the gold dust rose like a ghost in the darkness.

Then the water enveloped her and everything was gone.

Blackness. Silence.

She heard groans and knew they came from her throat.

Her chest ached. Her ears hurt. Everything hurt.

Someone was carrying her, but it wasn’t him.

“What happened? What happened?”

“Gone,” she whispered when she heard his brother’s voice.

She saw it again. Her mate’s radiant face before it dissolved into gold dust and drifted to the sky. The hollow feeling in her chest rose and enveloped her.

She closed her eyes.

Ava ran through a dark forest, thick with fog. He was there. He had to be.

Where was he?

She tripped over roots in the path and the ground rushed toward her. Black leaves slapped her face.

Darkness.

“Do not fear the darkness.”

She slept.

She was in Cappadocia. She didn’t know how. They put her in a bed that smelled of him, and she slept.

Warm, wrinkled hands forced her up in the bed.

“Drink. You must drink.”

No.

“Please, Ava.”

Small hands led her through the forest. Soft hands clutched her fingers. Childish voices whispered in her mind.

“Come back.”

No.

“We need you to come back.”

Ava woke in the blackness, in the cave where they’d first made love. She was wrapped in his scent, but not his arms.

Everything was gone.

She lay still, staring at the chisel marks in the ceiling, wishing the mountain would close in and crush her.

“I know you’re awake.”

It was Rhys. She turned her head to the side and he was there, sitting in a corner of the room, staring at her with bloodshot eyes. They filled with tears as he watched her.

“Ava.”

He reached over and caught her when she started to sob. The cries wracked her body, wringing her out as he held her. She shouted into his shoulder, beating at his back, but he only gripped her closer, rocking back and forth.

She cried for hours, and then the blackness enveloped her again.

Damien was there the next time she woke.

“You need to eat, sister.”

“I don’t want to.”

“He wanted you to live.” Damien continued, even when she curled into herself, trying to shut out the words. “More than anything, he wanted you to live.”

“Go away.”

“Not till you’ve eaten.”

“No.”

“It’s been over a week. You’re dehydrated. Evren is hours away from putting you on an IV if you don’t drink something.”

“I don’t care.”

Damien knelt beside her, holding out a soft roll and a cup of water.

“Do not let his sacrifice be in vain.”

She started to cry again, silent tears rolling down her cheeks, but she sat up. Damien helped her, placing more pillows behind her back after Ava took the roll from his hands. She bit down, and it tasted like dust.

Whispered thoughts circled her mind as she stared at the mural in the library, the bucolic scene of families in the village. The ancient scribe she remembered sat across from her, staring silently with pale blue eyes.

She was his companion now.

Ava sat in the library for weeks, staring at the painting as the scribes fed her, forced her to drink. Her body grew strong again.

She slept in the bed she and Malachi had shared. The sense of him lingered for a time, and when it started to fade, Rhys showed up at the door with a blanket that held her mate’s scent. Ava silently took it and wrapped it around her before she shut the door.

“You grieve,” the ancient scribe said one afternoon as the sun lit the rich colors on the wall.

“Yes.”

“As do I.”

She glanced over. “How long?”

He shrugged. “Just a little while longer.”

“You’re immortal.”

“She was supposed to be, too.”

Ava whispered, “We’re all immortal, as long as our stories are told.”

The old scribe smiled, nodded, and turned back to the painting.

She stared at the fire someone had started in the sitting room. It didn’t warm her. She was cold to her bones.

“Brage?”

“Gone,” Max whispered. “You fell in the water, and you didn’t come up. He escaped when we ran for you. He’s not in Istanbul. We don’t know where he went. But we have his weapon. He lost it in the fight.”

“I want to kill him.”

“Good.”

“You don’t sound fine,” Lena said.

“I am. Or maybe I’m not.” She twisted the phone cord around her finger as she sat. “But I will be.”

“I want you to come home.”

“No, I’m fine here. I like it here. I’m staying with friends.”

“Do you need—?”

“I’m not the only woman in the world who’s had her heart broken, Mother.” She didn’t try to stop the tears, knowing her mother believed the lie. “Give me some time. I’ll be fine.”

It wasn’t a lie. He’d left her.

She told the truth. Just not all of it.

Damien came to her room one night. She was looking through the pictures on her laptop, which had miraculously survived the fire at the scribe house in Istanbul. Pictures from her time with him before. When she’d still been human, and he’d still been her bodyguard.