Selene cupped her sister’s face while she screamed inside. She was losing her sister, and there wasn’t anything she could do about it other than comfort her. “I won’t. Be assured I will rescue Ophie. I will show her what I’ve shown you: the real reason we were given these gifts. I will make sure she grows up surrounded by love and light.”

Amara’s eyes went dim again as she focused on Selene. “Thank you. I-I think I cared about you too, a little. I was just too jealous to see how much we needed each other.”

Selene pulled her sister close to her chest and brushed her cheek against her sister’s head. Tears fell amongst the silky curls. Amara’s breath was ragged and labored. Spittle mixed with blood coated the front of Selene’s tunic, but she didn’t care.

“Those images you showed me,” Amara whispered. “Are they real?”

“Yes.”

“The Light . . . he’s real?”

“Yes.” The moment she said that, she felt the undeniable certainty in her heart. Yes, the Light was real. And she wanted to follow him the rest of her life.

“Then I acknowledge . . . the Light.”

Selene pulled Amara even tighter to her chest. A moment later, Amara went still.

At first, Selene couldn’t breathe. She could still feel her sister in her arms. But inside her mind, she knew Amara was gone. This was only her dream body. Her physical one was simply a shell now, an empty one.

Her power began to build inside her chest. Selene worked her mouth. The scream was coming, she could feel it. And there was nothing she could do to stop it. It was an avalanche inside her, building until she looked up at the sky and screamed.

In answer, an invisible tidal wave swept across the dreamscape, leaving in its wake a raging storm. Selene clutched Amara’s body to her chest as the wind thrashed around her, whipping her hair and her cloak. Dark clouds churned overhead.

She screamed again, her voice carrying across the dreamscape, echoing across the tempest. The world around her shuddered and heaved under the barrage of her emotions. Lightning flashed, followed by the boom of thunder, and rain came pelting down.

Selene dropped her head and rocked back and forth, sobbing as she held Amara.

A crack rang out across the sky, like the sound of a whip. It was the same sound as her heart breaking. Fissures formed along the edges of the dreamscape, spreading like ice cracking along a frozen river. The cracks grew longer and longer until pieces of the dreamscape dropped away. The clouds disappeared, and so did the rain. The tower, then finally, Amara’s body.

There was no sound, no wind, nothing. Selene knelt, her head bowed, her face stained with tears. For a split second, she wondered if she had broken her own dreamscape with her power, but then she sank back into numb apathy.

Then a flicker of light appeared.