Sinna Marin looked nothing like the frantic, stuttering woman he’d last seen on the edge of the Rocklands on the night she’d been exiled. She looked strong, composed, beautiful in a rather scary sort of way, and, more than anything, completely in control of everything and everyone around her, including the strange and motley assortment of figures that crowded in behind her. The dwarf. The tall woman. A broad-shouldered, smiling man. A young, pale girl. And a black-haired boy wearing a scowl.

“Hello, Cainan,” Sinna said. “It’s been a minute, hasn’t it? Did you miss me?”

Twenty years earlier

Last Dawn, Finfalla

Cainan knew things weren’t as right as they appeared to be when he heard his wife whispering to herself. Still, he hoped that when he opened the door he’d find Bryony sitting in her lap as Cora told her a story.

He eased the door open.

Peeked inside.

Cora was sitting at the table. Cainan scanned the rest of the room as best as he could through the crack, but as far as he could tell, his daughter was nowhere to be found. His wife was preparing the evening meal. Or at least that’s what she was supposed to be doing, though it seemed that her progress had stalled, only half the vegetables chopped for the stew. Instead, she was holding up a knife, staring into the gleaming metal at her own wavering reflection. Whispering to herself, her words ragged susurrations that made Cainan want to pull out his own hair. No, he thought, pleading with whomever might be listening. No, gods, please no. Not again.

“There are infinite combinations…a thousand thousand…must learn each one…but there are no bats here…no godsblood…so how can we do it? How will we do it? We need to leave, don’t we? Yes, we must. NO!” The whispers transitioned into a horrific shriek so abruptly that Cainan flinched, one arm scraping against the partially open door.

He froze, unable to tear his gaze away from the woman he loved, the woman who was a jagged shard of what she’d been eighty years ago when he’d watched her care for injured creatures in the forest.

Slowly, she altered the angle of the knife, until it was his distant reflection and not hers that appeared on the polished metal face. “Hello, my love,” she said. “You always did enjoy watching me, didn’t you?”

Cainan stepped inside, gently closing the door behind him. “Cora, I’m worried about you.”

“So am I.”

“Tell me what I need to do to help you.”

“There is nothing you can do. The remaining Divided will soon arrive. We are more than halfway there already. Five gleaming shards, like a shattered mirror reflecting the truth better than it could before it was broken. But tonight…”

“What about tonight?”

“Everything will change.”

“I don’t understand. What do you mean…change?”