Silence. She turned, feeling about for something, anything, even if it was the freakish woman’s thin arm that she touched. “What game is this?” she demanded. “Where did you go?” It couldn’t have been that long since Aria abandoned her, which meant that if she started back the way they’d come, using the sides of the walls as her guide, eventually she’d catch up to her, or at least return to the room with the mirrors.

Before she could take her first step, however, a voice said, STOP, and she froze in place. The voice was clearly that of Aria’s and yet changed, somehow. There was power in it, the command seeming to come from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. It echoed, but not in a normal way, repeating too rapidly—Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop.

IT BEGINS.

“What? What begins?”

Light assailed her from above, spotlighting her position. She gasped, turning about in a tight circle only to find that she stood alone on a round platform. There was no tunnel, no walls. There was no way off the stone pedestal, which seemed to rise from an ocean of darkness like a barren island.

Something shrieked in that ocean of darkness. She turned in its direction, spying a flash of something fluttery, but in the time she blinked it was gone again. Another shriek and she turned, careful with her footwork so that she didn’t step off the edge. This time the flutter lingered longer, leathery wings tearing at the darkness. Red eyes bore into her. Then, they too, were gone.

She remembered Aria’s words from before, about trusting her instincts above all else. Did that mean this was another illusion, a trick of the mind meant to drive her toward the edge of madness? Was anything about Oath real? She realized she didn’t care anymore.

“Enough!” she said. “Whatever this is, I’m done.” If this was the Vast Reaches of Despair, then she was right to not want to come here in the first place.

No answer arrived except another shriek, to her rear. She whirled, barely managing to get a hand up before the winged creature slammed into her. It was like a bat, but larger, the beat of its wings more forceful. Wings that had edges as sharp as swords, something she only learned when the bladed appendage bit into her arm before darting away.

She cried out, the pain severe and very much real, holding up her arm to assess the damage.

She gaped at the stump, blood pouring out from the place her hand used to be. “I…no…this is…this is not…”

More shrieks, a veritable cacophony of dark hunters announcing their presence. “I can’t…I can’t…HELP!”

No one answered. No one came. She was alone on a dark, stone island.