Miranda reached into the folds of her gown and withdrew the locket that had led Corinthe to her death. The high-pitched notes of the music would shatter this world in seconds, and Tess would be destroyed with it.
Miranda was too full of rage to grieve. Tess had made her choice.
“I’ll destroy this world and you along with it. I’ll destroy everything in the universe if I have to.”
Before Tess could stop her, Miranda pushed the tiny spring and the tinny music began to play. The melody was beautiful, and in response the glass around them started to crack, thousands of tiny fissures spidering outward. An enormous sound, like a giant mirror falling onto a sidewalk, filled the air. The whole world seemed to vibrate.
A roar erupted around them. The creature that had tried to kill Luc earlier sounded furious. And close. Miranda dove into the entrance to the Crossroad as the entire world gave a great shudder and shattered, exploding into millions of razor-sharp pieces.
Tess dove into the Crossroad right behind her and grabbed her ankle. Pain unlike any she had ever felt before radiated through Miranda. She kicked out at Tess but couldn’t catch her breath.
The glass shards permeated the Crossroad exit and pierced her skin in a million different places. Tess was not immune, either, and Miranda heard her screams of pain before a blinding light appeared and Tess was gone.
When the fiery inferno became too much for her to bear, Miranda threw back her head and screamed. She longed to burst free from herself, to streak across the universe in one last defiant blaze of fire, but that took energy she didn’t have.
As if mocking her wish, a tiny light streaked across the blackness. Then another. Soon, a shower of sparks lit up the vast unknown around her, a meteor shower of epic proportions. It reminded her of Rhys, of the beauty they had once created together.
Miranda watched, transfixed, paralyzed by its beauty, by the memories it evoked.
But then the direction changed. The sparks began heading toward her as if thrown by thousands of unseen hands. She could do nothing to protect herself. They pierced her body over and over, like tiny spears, and she felt a scream rip through her.
“Rhys!”
She could only cry out for him, his name, his memory, the only thing holding her together.
One last flash of bright light blinded her, and then she found herself lying facedown on a red-sand beach. Sand lodged under her nails as she fought to rise. A crippling stab of agony shot through her middle, and she gasped. What was happening to her? Even her birth—fiery, forged from a collision of two stars—had not been so painful.
“This is your own fault, Miranda.” Tess stood over her, panting, blocking out the glare from the two suns overhead.
Miranda had never wanted to return to this desolate red world that had been Rhys’s eternal prison. Of course the Unseen Ones would send her there to die, too.
“What’s happening to me?” Already her throat grew dry. This world would suck the life from her, especially in her weakened state. Rhys would have a potion to cure her. Her next thought sent a new kind of pain through her.
Rhys was dead.
They were connected, born from the same stars, and she felt it the moment he ceased to exist. Half the fiery life inside her had been extinguished. It had made her weaker and yet fueled her desire for revenge.
She tried to picture before, but all she could see was what he had become: a shadow of his former glorious self. Rhys. The Unseen Ones had taken everything from him—her Rhys, who had once turned back time to save her life.
They had crippled him, exiled him, taken his power.
Miranda wanted revenge.
“You destroyed Aetern. And you destroyed something else, something much closer to your own heart.” Tess knelt down and pushed the hair from Miranda’s eyes in an almost motherly gesture. “A part of your heart, actually.”
Miranda struggled away from Tess’s touch. It took all her effort to push to her feet, where she stood, weaving unsteadily. “What are you talking about?”
“You killed Rhys. He was your Other. Now you’re dying,” Tess said simply.
Miranda tried to laugh. The effort sent fresh spasms of pain through her body. “Rhys died because he tried to use the tunnels again.”
Tess shook her head. “His soul was in the book that Luc fed to the guardian of the flame. When you destroyed Aetern, you destroyed everything in it. Everything,