Amaya shut her eyes and strained to remember—fragmented images spun in her mind like shards of broken glass. The Royal Chalet at Mount Latvana. Her room. She'd been lying on her bed, exhausted, lulled into a rare moment of peace.
Then the peace was shattered.
Without warning, the bed lurched violently. A deafening crack split the air as the floor beneath her gave way. She plummeted—weightless—into a darkness so complete it swallowed her scream. Cold air rushed past her skin. A soundless void. Then—nothing.
She felt she was hurled into oblivion.
She had been taken and someone or something was watching her.
Then she remembered her dream before it turned into a nightmare. Her mother's face. Cirrus's mournful howl. And that stone—glowing, humming with ancient power—the metal that Ibrahim catalogued as XX99.
Why? Why that dream?
She forced it aside and snapped her eyes open, gasping for air.
