Read the Prologue below!

The waters moved like light. It suspended me in a porcelain dark, holding my limbs like my lover once did. It hummed against my skin, a song through my bones, praising me as ‘Holy’.

And I was.

I was the vessel of Tuvakas.

Take it, I prayed, though my thoughts were sluggish and tasted like honey. Take it all.

I floated in the glow, my hair drifting around my face like a halo. I tried to remember her name, but it felt heavy, a stone I’d dropped years ago. Names didn’t matter anymore.

On my arms, my scars began to glow. They weren’t just skin anymore; they were burning down into the meat, fusing.

It didn’t hurt. I felt ecstatic.

I am the river, I thought. I am the rain.

But the river was running dry.

The warmth spiked into a fever. The water around me bubbled. The hum pitched up into a whine.

My skin, once plump and flushed with health, constricted against my cheekbones. It shrank against my ribs.

I’m thirsty, I realized, a flicker of panic breaking through the bliss. Why am I so thirsty in the water?

I tried to open my mouth to drink, but the water tasted of leaves.

The scars flared white-hot, then the connection snapped.

And I was falling.

He’ll catch me, I thought. Then I hit the forgiving stone with a wet thud.

Pain rushed back in. My hip shattered on impact. My skin felt brittle and cracked as I tried to move. I gasped for air, but my lungs were empty.

I tried to crawl, my fingers scraping against damp stone. I looked down at my hands. They were gray, like a corpse.

What happened? I screamed without a voice. I was chosen.

Light flooded the chamber from above. Steps clicked on a metal stairway—calm and rhythmic, like drips of rain.

I reached out a desiccated hand. “Water,” I rasped like grinding sand.

Someone straddled me, nudging my shoulder with a pristine boot.

“Disappointing,” a voice said—an old voice, a dark voice.

“The batch was weak,” a younger voice replied, scribbling on parchment. “The Outeran bloodlines dilute the pool, and—”

“Process her,” the first voice interrupted.

Two guards in bronze stepped forward. They grabbed my arms. I didn’t have the strength to fight. I didn’t have the strength to live.

“Where to, Surgeon?” one guard asked. “The crypts?”

“No, incinerator. Her body would raise questions.”

The man turned away into the harsh light.

“And send Inquisitors north,” he added over his shoulder. “Sweep the villages, start with Amon and move down through Zeran Reach.”

My vision blurred. The darkness was coming back, but it wasn’t warm this time.

I closed my eyes as I was dragged into the shadows, and the heavy iron door slammed shut, sealing the silence.

Good for her, my last thoughts rang through. The next Daughter will be wonderful.

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