I wrenched my eyes open, and an involuntary scream bellowed from me.
I wasn’t in the Spirit Realm—or maybe I was. Either way, I was fucking falling, rocky walls streaking past in blurs woven with veins of orange and yellow.Fire.
My limbs wheeled around me, looking for anything to grab on to, but there was nothing in this endless descent, just the sky a pinprick so far above. Until finally, I flipped feet over head, and tumbled across a rocky cave floor. My teeth sliced into my tongue, my shoulder jarring against the ground.
“Pretty fucking rough for someone who just died to save the entire realm,” I grumbled to myself as I braced my hands against the ground and struggled upright. The rock was warm beneath my palms, and while I definitely felt disoriented, like I was outside of my body in a way, I jumped a bit at the sensation.
“You aren’t the first,” a gruff voice said, and I shot to my feet, spinning toward it.
“Holy fucking Spirits,” I gasped.
He sighed. “Always so disrespectful.”
I guessed in a way he was right because this was no warrior before me. Not a living one at least. This was afucking Spirit. His slender frame was sheer white, eerily similar to Echnid’s mist, but with a smoky texture that shimmered as the man folded his arms where he floated.
And I was?—
I pivoted, eyes flicking from the veins of flame running up the walls to the stalagmites rimming the perimeter of the circular space. The pool of fire that took up one edge bubbling and flickering blue as it shot sporadically into the air.
“I’m in the Spirit Volcano,” I exhaled.
The Spirit grunted in confirmation, a frown carving his full lips.
“How in the fucking Spirits am I here?” I blurted out.
“Will you stop saying that?” he grumbled.
“Sorry,” I said halfheartedly, sure I’d do it again. I wandered to the nearest wall, every step enhancing that weird, in-between feeling. The ground was solid, my boots echoing as they thumped across stone, but the weight of my feet against it didn’t feel centered.
I dragged a hand across the rough wall, pressing my thumb onto a sharp point. It didn’t cut me. And the fire didn’t burn when I swept a finger through it.
“Stop touching that,” the Spirit barked.
I shot to attention, turning back to him. “But Idied. How in the realms am Ihere?” My head snapped down, and—“Fuck.” I breathed as a wave of nausea rolled through me. The stab wound through my tattoo shone. It was clean, but not healed. Just a gaping hole in my fucking chest, the North Star beneath torn up.
“It appears someone has done you a favor” was all the Spirit said.
I narrowed my eyes at him. He clearly wasn’t the helpful kind. Of fucking course. I sacrificed myself to save the realm and the Spirits see to it that I get the most ill-tempered of them all to greet me.
“What am I doing here?”
“Isn’t it obvious,” he drawled. “You are here to complete the Undertaking.”
My heart thudded. Throat dry, I forced out, “What do you mean?”
“It will not be exactly as it is for living warriors, but you are going through the steps of the process just the same, should you choose to.”
“I never wanted to complete the Undertaking,” I blubbered like an absolute fool. I’d decided after Echnid had tried to turn me into a seraph while the Angels stood by that I wanted nothing to do with the rituals they’d passed down to us.
The Spirit lifted one thick, perfectly trimmed brow. “Then I suppose it is a good thing you cannot.”
My hands fisted at my side. “What does that mean?”
“We will find out together,” he said, adding on a low grumble, “if the others deign to show?—”
As if summoned, a second Spirit materialized beside the first, the woman’s form was the same white smoke as his, but where silver hair floated around his shoulders, hers was braided tightly down her back. I couldn’t tell what either of their coloring wouldhave been in life, and the monotony of it rose the hair on my arms. Angels, I wanted to get out of here.
“Apologies for my late arrival,” she said, her voice much warmer than the first. “This was unprecedented. I had to work quickly to ensure he could make it.”
