Immortal Consequences(62)

Irene didn’t hesitate.

“I will.”

Silas nodded.

“Very well. Go ahead, Ms. Bamford.”

Irene stepped up, face set in determination, and placed her hand against the door.

The air came to life. A low hum rattled the walls, the floor beneath them rumbling. A golden sphere sprouted inside Irene’s chest, traveling down her arms and through her hands, filling the carved runes of the door like molten gold. Her hair rose into the air, as though gravity itself had stopped working, her eyes glowing with the magic coursing through her veins.

Emilio blinked, barely a fraction of a second, but that was all it took for Irene to vanish, swallowed by the Ether.

The second trial had officially begun.

26

Irene

It was like falling through the sky. Like the fabric of the universe had folded in on itself and spat her out. She was nowhere and everywhere all at once, the atoms of her being splitting apart and joining together again.

Blinding white light poured over her vision. An all-consuming glow, so bright it felt like staring straight into the heart of the sun. And then that light bled away, replaced by a muted fog, a feathered veil stretching over the landscape.

Irene blinked.

And there it was—the Ether.

It was an ever-changing landscape. With every door passed through, the scenery would change form, morphing into different worlds. Into different universes.

This time, the Ether had sent Irene to an empty valley. Wispy clouds dotted an opaque black sky. It was a world shrouded in darkness, a palette of moss and shades of brown melting into a plain of flat grass.

Irene drew in a strangled breath. When she moved, her hand seemed to lag, as though she were treading water, fighting a current. She often liked to compare the feeling of being in the Ether to having drunk one too many dirty martinis.

Minus the fun.

She closed her eyes and called upon the magic inside her. Instantly, she felt the sharp pull. The call guiding her toward her target soul. But she also felt something else…a web of other souls drawing her closer. These were different from the call of a lost soul—familiar. It was the other contestants scattered throughout the Ether, their positions making faint yet noticeable flickers in her internal map. She scoured through them and landed on the one she was searching for.

There you are.

Irene opened her eyes and spotted the path that had emerged within the grass. Sparkles of golden light, almost like a trail of fireflies, guided her forward.

She didn’t waste any time.

She followed the path, careful to keep her eyes forward. There was no telling what the Ether would attempt to distract her with, and the less time she spent investigating, the better. Despite her laser focus, she couldn’t help but feel the unmistakable presences looming in the distance, the bone-chilling reality that awaited those who couldn’t reach Ascension.

The Forgotten Students.

There were dozens of them. Students who had once been just like her, who had once lived within the halls of Blackwood. They roamed the outskirts of the Ether, faces eerily blank, each of them following their own path.

It wasn’t like they were completely devoid of their human characteristics. In fact, those who had recently transitioned were fairly normal, if not a little bored. It was those who had been there for hundreds of years, perhaps even thousands, who were left an empty carcass, a shell of the person they used to be. Barely sentient.

Irene refused to become one of them. This nomination was her last chance—the final dance, so to speak. If she didn’t win, if she didn’t become part of the Ascended, she would consider the alternative route.

Even if it meant leaving Blackwood, and her best friend, behind.

The Demien Order offered her a way out. A chance at something new, something more than the existence she had been forced to accept. In her old life, Irene had often found herself feeling powerless. Nothing but a passenger, helplessly enduring the consequences of her mom’s mistakes, bound to a fate she couldn’t escape from.

But not anymore. When Irene had died, she’d been freed of those restraints. No longer powerless, but powerful. She’d shed the skin of the girl she used to be, leaving her behind to rot in a place where nobody would ever find her.

So—if Blackwood couldn’t offer her what she needed, Irene had another plan.

She wouldn’t wait around for power.

She’d take it.

Irene shook off her thoughts and refocused her eyes on the glowing path.

It didn’t take long for the door to appear. It sat perched against the tall grass, a seemingly normal white door with a silver-plated handle. But there was nothing normal about it. As she approached the door, Irene’s chest ignited with a golden sphere of light, signaling that she had reached the correct destination.

Irene swung the door open and stepped through.

One moment she had been walking on grass, and the next her boots were sinking into wet sand, a dense gray mist obscuring her vision. The roar of the ocean swept over the land, echoing with a dreamlike reverberation.

She inhaled the salty brine as the ocean spray dampened her skin. To her left stretched a flat and never-ending ocean, small waves crashing against the black rocks dotting the shoreline. To her right was…nothing. An eerie darkness blotting out the rest of the world.

And there, standing a few feet in front of her, was Masika.

“Care to go for a dip?”