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I was at the end of the trail. There was nowhere left to run.

A sudden, absolute quiet dropped over the rim of the crater.

The wind died completely. The bubbling sulfur lakes below seemed to fall silent. The air pressure dropped so low, so fast, that my lungs felt compressed by invisible iron bands.

A shadow, darker than night, massive enough to block out the glow of the volcanic fires—fell over my body from above.

I didn’t draw my daggers. I didn’t run.

I slowly turned around on the edge of the precipice, holding my head high, my chin raised in defiance, and looked directly up.

Perched atop a thirty-foot obsidian spire directly behind me was the Nyxalith.

It was no longer hiding. It was no longer a fleeting glimpse or a reflection.

The titan sat draped across the black stone spire like a dark god sculpted from night and starlight. Its black opalescent scales shimmered with violet and cold silver beneath the volcanic glare, its massive spaded tail wrapped lazily around the base of the rock.

And directly beside its physical skull, the shadow-head floated in the air. A solid, terrifying duplicate made of pure, starless void.

Both pairs of burning, slitted golden eyes were locked down onto me.

The Nyxalith slowly lowered its head, its long neck extending down from the spire until its snout stopped less than three feet from my face. The cold draft blowing from its nostrils hit my cheeks, freezing the sweat on my skin, washing over me with the scent of ancient space and dragon blood.

The phantom head drifted forward, its dark, smoky jaws opening, hovering right over my shoulder—the exact position it had held in the reflection.

We stood on the lip of the volcano, trapped in a silent, suffocating deadlock: the princess carrying a forbidden dual element, and the ancient shadow-ruler of the northern sky.

The Nyxalith didn’t roar. It let out a low, vibrating click that resonated deep within its chest. A sound that made the brand on my shoulder hum in direct, perfect harmony.

The titan had trailed me across the graveyard. It had watched me bleed, watched me endure, and watched me step willingly to the edge of the world without breaking.

The hunt was over. The judgment was complete.

And as the shadow-head wrapped lazily around my shoulders like a dark cloak of pure void, a chilling, triumphant realization settled into my marrow:

The Nyxalith hadn’t been stalking me to kill me.

It had been deciding if I was worthy of carrying its shadow into the world.

THIRTY-FIVE

The Nyxalith did not depart with a roar.

It rose into the volcanic heavens with the absolute, terrifying silence of a nightmare receding into sleep. A single, heavy snap of its opalescent wings pushed a wall of wind down onto the ledge, throwing up clouds of black ash and frozen sulfur. The shadow-head dissolved into thin plumes of dark smoke, re-absorbing into the titan’s shoulder as its colossal frame vanished into the low-hanging crimson clouds of the interior caldera.

Left behind on the lip of the crater, I stood shivering in the blistering heat rising from the boiling lakes below.

The air was stifling, thick with the rot of hot magma and ozone, but the skin beneath my leathers felt permanently altered. The silver brand on my shoulder had settled from a blinding flare into a slow, rhythmic hum, vibrating in direct harmony with the latent mark the Nyxalith had draped across my marrow.

I was bound. I was judged.

I adjusted the straps of my weapons harness, swallowed the copper taste of dried blood lingering on my tongue, and forced my sore, roughly knit ribs to expand as I picked my way along the high, narrow rim of the caldera.

The path was a treacherous ledge of sharp obsidian glass, suspended hundreds of feet above fields of bubbling crimson sludge and jagged rock spires. Smoke rolled over the trail in thick banks, reducing visibility to a mere dozen paces. I moved with silent, calculated precision, my hand resting near the pommel of my dagger, my senses scanning every shadow for movement.

Fifty yards ahead, where the narrow shelf crossed a steaming basalt archway spanning a deep volcanic fissure, the grey smoke parted.

My boots locked into the black sand.