The world came back to her as light—searing, blinding, wrong.

Elaria gasped against the weight crushing her chest, her lungs clawing for air thick with dust. The ruins around her had been reduced to nothing but scorched bones of marble and molten glass. The temple’s heart—the place where she had stood face to face with him—was now a smoking crater.

Him.

Draven.

Her pulse stuttered as memory cut through the haze: that voice, that impossible golden light threading through his veins, and ...