One year after the battle at Erostah

Colt sat o his bed, book in hand, when Nikki knocked on his door. She poked her head into the room with a smile. “Hey. Dinner will be ready in ten. Might want to wrap it up.”

“Thanks, Niks.”

She winked before closing the door.

With a sigh, Colt closed the book with one hand. It was finished anyway. He dropped it onto the dark covers of his bed and lay back. He found himself reading a lot these days. His escape from a difficult reality. This was one of the better days. Colt grabbed the book, rolled to his feet and wandered out of his room.

Three doors down was Amneris’ room. Silently, he pushed the door open. Lights flickered to life as they sensed someone enter. Colt pushed the book back onto the shelf. It was one of hers. He brushed a finger over the wooden desk, surprised to find no dust. Someone must have come in to clean.

Colt climbed onto Amneris’ bed. Her scent—caramel and lotus—drifted around him. He breathed it in, let it go into his very essence. Perhaps this was one of the hard days after all. Colt mostly came in here on the hard days. It comforted him.

His eyes drifted to a cluster of pictures beside her bed. He sat up, reaching for one at the very front. Amneris and Hathor had their arms around each other, both laughing at something outside the photo. Colt brushed his thumb over their faces. Hathor spent most of the last year at the Academy, only returning home for the holidays between semesters. She seemed to enjoy it, even introducing him to her group of friends. They seemed nice enough.

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He put the picture back in its place.

“Dinner!”

Colt jumped. Had it been ten minutes already? That was fast.

He convinced himself to get up from the bed and go downstairs—

Colt grasped onto the desk as he stumbled. Something rung through his mind. A sense. A very familiar sense.

He ran from the room, dashed down the stairs, and bolted in the kitchen-living room. Everyone else was there. They’d felt it as well. They knew what the sudden burst on energy in their minds was.

He was the one to voice it. “She’s alive!”

“How?” Nikki’s voice was shaking. “She literally destroyed herself.”

Colt only grinned.

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Five minutes with Lvaane was all it took to open a portal. He had felt it as well, that burst of energy. As the previous Photon Guardian, he probably felt it more than anyone in the Court. He also knew where the energy originated. Colt took little convincing to jump through the portal.

Wherever he was, it was dark. And he was floating. No gravity. Probably somewhere in space. Colt made a mental note to thank Lvaane for the quick protection spell.

There was a glow up ahead. Colt used his power to move toward it.

She was just . . . there. Floating in empty space, naked but unharmed. Colt gathered her in his arms. She was alive. Well, alive in the strange sense that she was. Almost all her scars and tattoos were gone. Colt huffed a laugh. She would be pissed about that when she woke up. If she woke up.

He mentally slapped himself.

Amneris’ eyelids fluttered and she murmured something in the Old Language. Colt held her close and, using his power, moved back to the portal.