Piercing light filled the room, chasing away the shadows.
It was coming from her.
She looked down, finding her pale legs shining. She lifted her arm, staring at the veins racing over her skin. They were blue, brilliant. Her Stella. It had finally awoken inside her. Now, she feared it was too late.
The scent of smoke yanked her from her daze. She once thought it had been a fire in a hearth, left unattended by one of her siblings—from her life on Stella. Now she knew it was not. It made something inside her thrum in warning. Danger. The air was thick with it.
She braced herself with a hand on the wall, trailing past as she walked to the shattered window. The curtains fluttered wildly from a hot breeze. Her palms pressed against the windowsill. Old, jagged glass cut into her fingertips. She did not care. Outside, the world was on fire.
The sky was red and golden. Shooting Stars streaked past, their fiery tails cutting through the sky.
Smoke rose in the far distance.
She was in her neighborhood. Nova Zone 173. She hadn’t returned in five years, too afraid. It had been sealed off like all the other Nova Zones. Now, she was inside its near-impenetrable walls.
Her home had been in a quaint little neighborhood. Now the concrete was cracked, and bones littered the driveway. Everything was colored red from the sky’s ominous glow. The blue that swept out from her flesh chased away the frightening aura.
The cries of Rogues split the night air, and Vesperin flinched back, hands dropping from the windowsill. Her red bloodflecked the carpet as she pulled away. There were small, stinging cuts on the delicate pads of her fingers.
The walls of her home shook around her.
She had to get out before she was buried beneath the weight of her childhood.
Vesperin stumbled out of her room, down the hallway, tripping over broken glass and overturned furniture. It felt like hers, yet, at the same time, it did not. Because this home was only one of many. She would have another one day, she knew, and it too would be just as fleeting. Nothing was ever hers, except perhaps the Celestial—who had now abandoned her.
"No," Vesperin gasped, the vow breaking from her lips as she stumbled out of the doorless frame of her house, onto the porch, then down the sidewalk, until her bare toes scrunched in brittle, dead grass. The air was thick with smoke and fog. She coughed, and her stomach tugged, then she remembered more. The space between her thighs was sore still, thoroughly used. "I have faith. Atlas, you are here. You have to be." She tipped her head back, staring at the red sky. "If you are not, then it was all for naught. You saved me. Do not leave me here."
Through the heavy fog around her, shapes took form.
One, before the dark blot split into four.
She squinted.
"Atlas?" Her voice was soft, echoed by howling Rogues.
Then she saw their faces.
Her legs trembled. She forced strength into them so she wouldn’t collapse.
"My Soulbonds, you’ve found me," Vesperin said, as Lucien, Rhyden, Auren, and Cyrus came into view. The crimson fog parted around them, as if swept away by a ghostly hand—or a Celestial who watched over her. Her head fell back, eyes cast upward, as tears tracked through the ash on her cheeks. "Thank you," she whispered, hoping Atlas was listening. When shedropped her gaze once more, she saw they were right before her. She was no longer alone. "You’re here."
Lucien reached her first. She blinked and swore his hair grew right before her eyes. Turning long, tied back at the base of his neck, flowing over imagined robes. Her eyes pricked with tears. Would they turn to diamonds?
His hands settled on her shoulders, shaking her slightly. "Vesperin, my V girl? God, what happened to you? What have they done to you?"
She felt her abdomen tug as he gathered her close to his chest, crushing her there. Her skin still held traces of oil and metal from Kit, and faint, purpling bruises from everything that had been done to her.
Lucien’s chin dug into the top of her head as he gave a low, grief-stricken sob. He mumbled faint praises—and prayers, too.
Her cheek rested on his chest, and she breathed him in. Lucien had given everything to save her, yet he still thought himself to be a monster. Her lids cracked open. Nestled in his arms, her eyes slid past him. She found the others waiting.
Cyrus Soltren… Her chin wobbled. Her Prince, oh, how she’d missed him. Though he wasn’t a prince any longer. For her, he had given it up. She licked her lips, tasting sugar rock tea, sea salt, and berries from his kiss. She couldn’t quite look away from him. Whatever Cyrus saw on her face made his purple eyes gleam with unshed tears. "Ves…?"
Rhyden’s white hair blew back in the hot, red wind. It was shorter still than she recalled. He was harder everywhere. Harsh and jagged. It was all her fault. Her father’s fault. If only she had been stronger, if they had been able to flee from Sangreal. Her neck felt light without the weight of diamonds draped there—or without a collar locked around it. She was too bare.
Rhyden’s fingers tightened around the grip of a gun, the barrel laced with glowing, pulsing liquid, as a Rogue trilled. Something pounded closer.
It was Auren who knew she was different, even before she spoke. It was her Soul Searcher, who had chased her across lifetimes, who understood she was no longer the Rin they knew.
