Reon and Solena exchange wary glances.
“What do you mean?” Reon asks, his voice cautious. “Who is here?”
“Amara!” I snap, my pulse roaring in my ears. I drag my fingers through my hair, gripping at the roots. “Can you not hear her? She’s calling my name.”
Zyphoro moves to follow, but when I turn back on my own path, searching the same stretch of deck again, she snatches my elbow.
“Brother, stop,” she says, voice firm, but I rip free.
“I can hear her!” I clutch at my skull, my fingers digging in. “She’s in here!” I slap the side of my head so hard that Zyphoro flinches.
The impact rings through me, and as the words leave my lips, their meaning takes hold.
In here.
Inside me.
Not on this ship. Not in the ocean.
She’s in the part of me that lingers just out of reach. The part that refuses to die despite the sigils burned into my back.
“Brother.” Zyphoro’s voice softens, wary now. “What is happening?”
My breath shudders. My heart races and yet feels still, suspended in time.
I lift my gaze to hers, twin mirrors of my own, filled with the same terrible realization.
“I’ve found her,” I whisper, dread like ice in my veins. “Amara is in the void.”
“You are exhausted and wounded,” Zyphoro says, gripping my shoulder. “She cannot be in the void. Why would she be in the void?”
“I know her voice.” My heart slams against my ribs, a drumbeat of certainty. “When she calls, I answer. Always.” I lift my hand, and smoke curls between my fingers, twisting with purpose. “I must go to her.”
Zyphoro tightens her hold, her nails digging into my skin. “Do you hear yourself? After everything we’ve been through, after we nearly lost you, do you truly mean to step into the void willingly?”
The alternatives claw at my mind, dark and unbearable. “This could be my only chance to bring her back before…” My throat tightens. “Before Gygarth finds her first.”
Reon, Solena, and Orios close in, their heads shaking in unison.
“This is madness,” Reon snaps. “We have spent all this time keeping you away from the void. Away from Gygarth.”
“And now fate drags me back into his shadow,” I say bitterly. “By dangling before me the one thing I cannot ignore.”
Solena's hand presses gently against my back, just as Orios' gaze hardens.
“You cannot do this,” she pleads.
I step away, shaking her off with careful resolve. “If the void is what stands between me and my love, then there is only one choice, and we have already wasted too much time.”
Chapter 19
Amara
The void is endless. A world without time, without breath, without light. Smoke coils and drifts like specters in the dark. Ashen paces, though I do not know if we move. There is no way to tell. No point of reference, no sound except the distant echo of my own thoughts. How long has it been? Hours? Days? I cannot tell if time still applies to me. If I still exist the way I once did.
Tears burn, but they do not fall. My chest tightens, an ache so raw it threatens to break me. And then, for the first time since the darkness swallowed me, I part my lips and let my voice reach into the abyss.
“Daedalus.”
