Page 1 of Interion

Prologue

A heavy silence inhabited the tunnels beneath the city.

The kind of cold, suffocating silence that seeps into children's dreams and tears them from their beds screaming for their parents. There, in those tunnels, the stillness was as horrifying as death's shuffling gait, and not even the hungriest, most desperate rats ventured into that place. It covered every millimeter of the filthy walls and possessed every molecule of the dense air; it was a void so black that beings from other dimensions sensed its rot and were tempted to crawl toward it. Everything and nothing were lost in that silence, like a black hole draining the life around it, a cancer living in the depths of civilization and threatening to destroy the world.

Then the sound of hurried footsteps shattered the sepulchral stillness, and in the darkness, a woman ran past, splashing fetid water in all directions. Her young heart pounded frantically in her chest as she felt her way toward new paths. Ravena was fleeing, and as surely as dawn would come, she knew she would die that night. She was searching for something, but her face bore the wild desperation of someone being cornered.

If she stopped for even a minute, she would see him on her trail: a man in a red and black uniform. The same as hers. But at some point in the last twenty-four hours, she had ceased being his ally and become the target of an execution order.

“Why?!”

The man spoke inside her head, nearly splitting her skull in two. They shared the same gift, but Ravena trembled whenever Serguei spoke in her mind. His power was on another level.

“I didn't betray our people,” she shouted mentally. “I'm saving us!”

“You must be joking. Because of you, our people are surrounded by the Interian Army. Out there, swords are pointed at every descendant heart. How is that saving anyone?”

“Our people don't need to stay in Interion. There's a safe place for all of us…”

“At what price?!” The warrior's cry echoed through her bones. “What was the point of every battle, every victory, and every life lost if it all ends here? What good is a safe place for our people when you've condemned us to death?”

“You're wrong! This isn't the end—it's the beginning. The dawn of the descendants begins now!”

Ravena kept running through the labyrinth of tunnels, needing to buy time to find what she was looking for. But how could she find something that didn't want to be found? Her hands groped along the sticky walls, and with each turn, she stumbled on the uneven rocky floor.

“Why?!” he demanded again. The image of Interion's throne replayed in his mind. The king's body abandoned in a pool of blood, his head resting on the scarlet throne seat, the royal guard dismembered and arranged around it like art on display. It was an assassin's work—Ravena's work.

“You're not just a traitor to Interion—you've become a traitor to your own people. You betrayed me.”

Serguei's hands clenched into fists, and pain grew where his heart should be, as if an abyss had opened in his chest. He wanted to scream, curse, and damn all the gods for being forced into such horror.

“We can create a different world, Serguei. We can…”

“Enough lies!” He drove his psychic claws into Ravena's mental barrier, trying to ignore the emotions threatening to overwhelm him.

A scream was stifled in the darkness. The woman's protections were crumbling under the force of Serguei's power, but she kept running. She needed to hold on a little longer.

“You know not everything was a lie. I always loved you—none of that was an illusion,” Ravena murmured. She didn't care about the rest, as long as she made him understand this.

“One more sweet lie.” Serguei laughed bitterly at himself, feeling foolish. A fool who, for love, had been made a pawn in a game he didn't know how to win.

A tear ran down Ravena's face, making her flinch at the hurt that crossed the mental barrier. In that moment, she rounded another corner and heard a waterfall. She quickened her steps toward the sound and saw light ahead. She decided not to respond to the man—after all, her objective was complete: there really was a fragment here.

Ravena entered the gleaming cavern, its walls covered with white, irregular crystals. At the center, she saw a spring of crystal-clear water, a wide, well-lit pool. At the bottom, she spotted the green fragment she was looking for. Her duty was to send the location's coordinates once she found it. Taking a deep breath, she organized her thoughts like a letter. But when she opened her mind to send it, her gift hit an invisible wall.

“What the fuck is this?!”

“Did you really think I’d leave your mind free after what you did?” Serguei demanded, his voice dripping with revulsion as he walked slowly into the cavern. Despite the disgusted tone, his eyes were bloodshot, and the woman thought she saw tears on his cheeks.

Ravena leaped away from the man, searching for an exit, but the only way out was past him. The problem was she wouldn’t stand a chance in a physical fight.

With each step he took forward, she took one back. Quick as a snake, Serguei drew the dagger from his belt and lunged at her. She reacted before the blade found its mark. With a firm slap, she deflected the blow and twisted his wrist, forcing him to lean sideways. In the same motion, she delivered a precise kick to the psychic’s left leg, making him stumble. She seized the opening and wrenched the dagger from his hands before thrusting at his abdomen.

Serguei ducked at the last instant, dodging the attack, and with a quick spin, swept Ravena’s legs out from under her, taking them both down. The impact was hard and sudden. They rolled across the floor amid curses and kicks, grappling for dominance until Serguei managed to pin Ravena to the ground.

His body pressed down on hers, his hands pinning her wrists above her head. In the struggle, he noticed a blood-red stone in Ravena’s right hand. Fearing it was some kind of weapon, he slammed her wrist against the ground, knocking the stone loose. It bounced across the rocky floor and plunged into the pool near their heads.

“No! Don’t you understand?!” Ravena’s voice came out ragged with effort. The thought of failing the task she’d risked so much for terrified her. “The fragment will save our people...” Her face was red, the veins in her forehead bulging as she struggled to breathe and speak while being crushed against the ground. “With its power, we’ll win our freedom.”