AIDEN had barely slept, but he was still awake before Orion.

The room was frigid, the fire long gone cold. He crouched at the hearth—dry kindling first, then a few small logs—and coaxed the coals back to life with Ember, the flame catching, slow and steady, until the light reached across the room and thinned the darkness. He moved quietly through the space, every step muffled and measured so as not to stir the man asleep in his bed.

WHEN Orion opened his eyes, the world was still dark.

He didn’t remember much after the fall, but he remembered plunging into the Rift during the day and coming out the other side of it swallowed by darkness that behaved like night without belonging to it. It wasn’t the gentle dim that comes before sleep, the honest quiet of a world exhaling. This darkness pressed close, deliberate, as if it had a will. It sat on his chest and cooled his breath. It covered the room like a veil drawn by a careful hand.

Shadowvale, he thought, with a shiver that felt older than today. A place stripped of its Hallow and replaced by Shadow. A place named in whispers. A place Hallowmere pretended wasn’t real and feared just the same.

THE dream always began with feathers.

White ones—drifting gently through a golden sky. They spiraled downward in slow, lazy circles until they turned black halfway through the fall, catching fire as they hit the ground.

Orion jerked upright in bed, breath tight in his chest. The sunrise spilled through the sheer curtains, soft and warm as honey. Hallowmere hardly ever saw clouds—at least not anymore. The sun had its constant throne in the sky, and every day its crowned radiance blessed its favored city.

He pressed a palm over his sternum, waiting for his heart to quiet. Today was meant to be perfect. Today was meant to be the day everything he’d trained for finally manifested in front of all of Hallowmere—Beatification. Recognition. Acceptance.

Wings.

He exhaled once more, deep and steady, and pushed up from bed.