DYERI knew the moment the gates opened that I had found her again.

Not because of sight alone, though that was enough to steal the air from my lungs, but because something deep in my chest answered. A pull, old and relentless, tightening like a tether that had been stretched too long and finally snapped back into place.

Aislyn.

She stands taller than memory, or perhaps memory shrank her to survive the loss. Power rests on her now the way flame rests on a torch, contained, purposeful, ...