The path to the Spirit Oracle could not be walked—it had to be remembered.

That was the first thing Solene said as she prepared Aria and Elena for the journey. She spoke in riddles that morning, brushing ancient symbols in white ash onto their skin, murmuring words in the Old Tongue.

“You’re not traveling forward,” she had said. “You’re traveling inward.”

Aria stood now at the edge of a grove she didn’t recognize—but her soul did. It pulsed with memories older than her ...