Darkness wraps around me, fills me up. It becomes me and I become it, another part of the whole that is everything and nothing. The silence screams around me, though I have no ears, full of words spoken by an absence of voices, rather than voices themselves. Epitaphs made of nothingness so complete and dark they form vivid patterns across the void, overwhelming my disembodied senses.

My concept of self returns first as pain—and by its confines I can sense my own outer edges. What is me, and what is not. I am pain. Then, in an instant, the pain is gone. A heavy, liquid cold wraps about the void left by its absence. I'm propelled forward into a searing clearness. I know I have skin again because I can feel the cold bite of the wind against it.

In fact, I feel more, sense more than I ever could before.

My teeth chatter. I open my eyes.

I've returned, but the world has changed.

In spite of the darkness of the night, I can see in full color and with perfect clarity.

I run my hands over my arms, trying to discern any physical changes. What have I become? I can sense something different, just at the periphery of my awareness, but I can't quite discern what it is. It feels so natural that at first it's like trying to describe a color to a person who can't see them. Something which can be known and understood only by perceiving it.

And something feels odd about my mouth. I run my tongue along my teeth, finding that my canines have lengthened to fangs.

Gwendolyn's shadow falls over me where I crouch on the cold stone. "My daughter has returned to us!" She bends to meet me eyes, to help me up—but the instant her gaze fixes on mine her pupils dilate and her breath stops. For a few thunderous heartbeats she stares into my eyes, her expression betraying something I've never seen on her face before.

I can tell, instinctively, that it's fear. Not from her face, but from the scent of her blood—blood I can now hear as it courses through her veins, faster and faster as her heart rate speeds up.

"She is Reborn! Praise the Storm!"

Those who remain chant her words back to her. Why didn't she declare my type?

I don't realize how disoriented I am until I bat her away and try to stand up on my own, only to find myself sprawling on my hands and knees a half-second later. Smirking, my mother calls for Mr. Pollux and he rounds the stone, scooping me up in his arms before I can do anything to protest. She swoops up to his side, whispers in his ear—"get her down to the portal and get her out of here. Now." As she leans forward, the pendant drops from the loose collar of her robes. Focusing past my disorientation, I reach out and rip it off of her, breaking the chain.

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Shrieking, she grabs at it. Pollux stumbles. I shove the pendant into my shirt pocket, beneath the robes—afraid that if I throw it away somewhere it will land on the cabochon side and send out a signal. Out of the corner of my eye, I see E.J.'s face, feel the shadow of life still lingering in her cells. A darkly shining energy that can't truly be seen but sensed. The revelation of my change pales in comparison to the terror of my next thought. If he takes me away now, I may never see her again. Never feel her presence again. It tears my heart open—and through its bleeding wounds power flares.

Energy snaps outward from me in an explosive whirlwind of light. Pollux shouts in pain, dropping me—but he's almost entirely drowned out by the thunder that roars directly overhead. A bolt of purple lightning strikes the Umbra Gate, and its darkened door ripples and churns.

My new sense surges into incredible clarity. There's an endless, three-dimensional web of life-shadows around me. They're everywhere. The most intense are in E.J.'s body, so freshly dead. The faintest are hidden deep beneath the island, encased in stone and soil. Bones of creatures dead for centuries, turned to stone but still with just the tiniest glimmer of that ineffable spark clinging to their presence. Contrasted against these undying shadows are the flickering embers of those still living, distracting in their brightness and movement.

"Pollux!" My mother shouts, panicked and wild-eyed. He lurches forward a few steps then comes to an immediate halt, as if he's hit some invisible barrier.

I stumble to E.J.'s side. Collapsing to my knees beside her, I wrap my arms gently around her, my tears soaking into her already blood-drenched shirt. This close up and in physical contact, the dark glimmer of her life's shadow shivers across my skin. I react instinctively, reaching out to wrap that energy in my own.

I freeze as the intensity of the response sweeps over me. It's like tossing a match onto liquor-soaked kindling. Her cells flare to life—true life. And, like a wild fire, they multiply—but instead of destruction they sow restoration. The flesh and bones of E.J.'s ravaged neck fill in and knit back together. New blood surges into her veins, and her heart beats.

But none of that—none of it—holds a candle to the inferno that sparks in me the moment I feel her heartbeat against my skin. Violet energy explodes around me—into the stone, into the sky, into E.J.

Thunder crashes again, and more bolts of lightning strike around us, but I don't see exactly where. My eyes are closed, pressed against her chest. It expands suddenly beneath me as she inhales suddenly, deeply. Pulling away so as not to restrict her breath, I help her turn sideways as blood bubbles from her mouth. She coughs, hacking ichor and saliva onto the stone until her throat clears.

Everyone around us is frozen in shock or fear or both. Most are still wobbly on their feet like I've been, half-dazed. Pollux seems to have turned to stone, while my mother's face is contorted—expression incomprehensible.

"Ashwyn," E.J. croaks, reaching up with her free arm to touch my cheek. "What did you do?"