Page 1 of Song of Night

Chapter One

ZARA

I have dreamed a thousand times about what lies beyond the Waste. Ten thousand times, even. But never, in all those imaginings filled with desperate longing, did I envision it like this.

Asher standing a few feet away, his hatred of me forgotten in the moment.

Kieran’s men, hands locked around my arms as they stare in shock.

The air, thick with dust and a shimmer of wild magic from the explosion. The explosion that blasted a rift through the never-ending gray mist surrounding the City of Night. Never-ending, that is, until now.

After more than two hundred years we know the answer to the question that has haunted us all: is there anyone alive on the other side of the Waste?

I wince as another blast of sound cuts through the sparkling violet light, a sound that this time is unmistakable. Horns of battle, several blown in unison. The answer to our burning question, traveling now at great speed through the rift.

Whatever it is coming toward us is still two or three miles off, a dark blot in the distance, causing the mist to swirl skyward as it passes. How long had Asher and I been unconscious after the blast? It must have been longer than I thought, for someone—something—to be approaching the city so quickly.

Asher turns, his eyes catching mine for a moment, a fire of such intensity it makes my stomach flip. I want to go to him, to stand at his side, but in the next moment he wrenches his gaze from mine and locks it on his brother.

“We need all warriors to the rift immediately,” he growls.

“You don’t give orders around here anymore,” Ellielle says, landing next to Kieran in a whoosh of blue-gray wings. “You are no longer Lord of Night.”

Asher’s face twists in anger. “Are you willing to forfeit the city because of your conceit?”

“Houses Animus, Angelus, and Syreni can face this threat without your help,” Kieran says, arms crossed over his chest.

Ellielle’s eyes are cold and deadly as she pins her gaze onto Asher. “Your forces are all but decimated anyway.”

The emotion drops from Asher’s face and my gut does another somersault. Is she bluffing?

Kieran and Ellielle bark orders to their warriors and within minutes, the courtyard where Ellielle’s weapon detonated is filled with not only crumbled stone and debris, but several hundred angels and shifters. The hum of their magic fills the air, reminding me that mine is gone. Mine and Asher’s both, somehow stripped from us when the explosion occurred. It feels like a part of my soul is missing.

Without my connection to my magic, to Night, and with Asher’s withdrawal at what he perceives as my betrayal, I feel a cold emptiness spreading through my body, like I’m filled with nothing but icy spiderwebs.

How did everything go so terribly wrong?

An eternity seems to pass as we wait. Slowly, the thing moving down the rift gains shape until I see what appears to be four galloping horses with riders carrying white flags. As they come closer, I can make out additional details: the strangely glowing bronze coats of the mounts, the red tunics of their riders, some sort of white emblem across their chests.

They head straight for us without slowing in the slightest as they pass into the city and cut through the path of collapsed buildings. When they get fifty feet from our position, they rein in their horses hard. The beasts are all foaming at the mouth, their chests covered in flecks of it. But these are no ordinary horses, they stand at least a foot taller at the withers. Their coats aren’t the only thing with a metallic tint, their eyes are the same color, liked melted coins.

My hands itch for a weapon. Without my magic, I very much desire a dagger. But I wait because the flags of the riders are white, and there’s nothing a citizen of Night knows better than the diplomacy of war: as envoys, they are not to be harmed.

The four horses line up in a row facing us. Tension laces the air thicker than the dust still swirling across the courtyard. Behind me, the warriors shift their weight, swords and spears clinking in restless hands.

“Citizens of Illiare,” calls one of the riders. His skin is very pale, and his hair golden. “We come to deliver a message from our king, Vyrin, ruler of the Flame Sea, the Thorn Forest, and all the lands of Cyrena.”

A couple feet to my left, Asher stiffens, and I hear a low growl rise from Kieran’s throat. They know of this king?

“The son of the demon lord will travel to our kingdom to parlay with King Vyrin. He may bring one advisor. Refusal of this visit will be considered an act of war.”

The pale rider scans his gaze over the row of us: Ellielle, Kieran, Asher, and another dozen of their warriors. When his eyes reach mine, it feels like a shadow has blotted out the sun.

“You have until sundown tomorrow to comply.”

I finally catch sight of the emblem the riders wear on their tunics, as well as emblazoned in black upon the white flags. It’s a circle made of thorns, like a crown, with a single rose in the center. For some reason, looking at it makes me shiver. Or perhaps it’s just the general hostility of the messengers, a hatred that radiates from them palpably.

“Consider your message received,” Asher says, his voice dark and deadly.

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