Something terrible had happened, and it wasn’t just the typical devastation that Nile knew rampaged across the broken, jagged landscape of the Obsidian Sea.

His powers were heightened from the creature he’d now become. He was something of the Coterie, but also something more.

He didn’t have time to ponder what he was now. He sensed a mourning so powerful that it brought tears to his eyes that weren’t his own. He mourned for Leocivat, for the treachery of the Coterie and he fiercely worried for Ferdinand and if his mentor would make it to their meeting place.

But these tears were not for any of his own concerns. These were hot droplets that fell down his cheeks in uncontrollable waves as a merciless mourning hit him hard, blasting through the fresh power of his engorged soul and making him feel everything that belonged to someone else.

Or something… else.

“Who are you?” he cried through the suffocating sobs and his voice echoed through the dark dismal sheet of the Obsidian Sea. “Why are you doing this?”

There was no reply, only the fresh waves of agony that ripped through his thin barriers.

Ferdinand had warned him. He would need walls. He’d need to protect his soul once he’d been split open. With the power of the Light and the connection to the Divine came an understanding of the world and the souls around them. It was why the Coterie had chosen to become Changed, to remove themselves from emotion and purge that part of their soul, lest they go mad with other people’s sorrow and anguish.

He’d planned to be like Ferdinand, to have walls established so that he could withstand the emotional drain. He wouldn’t be subject to the whim of other people’s emotions.

But this was different.

He staggered across the Obsidian Sea, searching for the soul that had broken into a thousand pieces. Those pieces now burrowed into the jagged remains of his soul and settled like sinking poison. If only he could find the source, perhaps there was something he could do. But everywhere he turned was more of the fog and bleak despair.

Then there was a voice on the horizon. Not one that spoke with words, but with emotion and waves of otherness that reminded him of the Divine. It was sentient, a creature who’d communed with the Light and had become something new.

He followed its song, delving deeper into the fog until it was so thick he couldn’t even see his own eyelashes.

He was Hallowed, so his Light should have served to guide his feet, but the fog drank in his magic the moment it left him. So he closed his eyes, letting the voice show him the way. Even if Ferdinand had managed to escape the Coterie, it would take time before he’d venture towards the Obsidian Sea. He would have to secret away into hiding and make sure that the Coterie couldn’t follow, and then he would go to Nile. His mentor was old and wise, and he would never be so foolish as to take the risk that the Coterie could track his movements and finish what they’d started.

Nile understood the wisdom in his mentor’s abandonment, even if it was temporary. But for the first time, Nile was alone and had to make his own decisions. The gaping wound in his soul made it difficult to focus, as well as the rush of overwhelming power he’d filled himself with. It wasn’t a proper initiation by any means. He should have had a light tear in his soul, a gap just large enough to fill it with reserves of Light salvaged from Divine Material.

Instead, there hadn’t been any Divine Material at all. His soul had been split open, top to bottom, gushing his life-force into the world. Ferdinand’s retaliation against the Coterie had been just in time, slicing into engorged souls to give Nile what he needed to survive.

But it was a patch on an otherwise unraveling soul and he staggered through the Obsidian Sea, dizzy and nauseous, and bombarded with the mourning that unleashed such bleakness in his mind, a part of him wished he could curl up and die.

The only assurance was the voice that was not a voice. He followed it, shuffling so that shards wouldn’t pierce his feet if he stepped down, and trusted in this creature of Light that was his only hope.

He wandered the darkness until his feet started to sting and the dry air parched his throat. The only thing that kept him going was the sense that the voice was becoming louder like a heartbeat in his chest that was not his own.

When his world exploded into being and flowers sprang to life all around, he thought that he was dreaming. A massive tree loomed before him with golden bark peeling from its sides and an invisible wind made the grove rustle with nature’s song.

He blinked, but the paradise continued to glimmer and sway before him. It was real.

You’ve answered my call, the tree purred to him without words, the emotion of its pleasure and delight a kiss against his senses. You are the one who will save her.

Nile carefully stepped through the grove, searching the puffs of petals for a girl that was supposed to be here, but he only saw beauty and silk. Trumpeting saffrons stretched against their stems and pushed their sweet aroma into the air, drifting bits of golden dust that was the tangible result of Creation.

This place burned with Divine Material, and he gasped at that realization.

If he had been true Coterie, he would have devised a way to destroy this grove and devour it for himself. But his soul had been cracked open and he felt as no Coterie would ever feel. His walls had been obliterated and his emotions, the ones he’d so carefully guarded, now spilled out into the open and merged with another that slept in this place, broken and battered and in need of someone who cared.

This place was good, and he knew without a doubt that it was his job to protect it.

“Where is she?” he asked, staggering closer to the magnificent tree.

Its limbs unfurled, revealing a swollen center that went translucent. A girl, curled up inside as if she were a sleeping infant, shone through the golden sheen of the bark.

I am only a tree. You can do what I cannot. You can save her.

Nile traced his fingers over the girl’s cheek, the thin layer of the tree’s bark soft silk between them, and he marveled at her beauty. He’d seen girls, even if he were bound to the Hallowed’s vow of chastity, he appreciated their softness and joy. Yet this girl was unlike any he’d ever seen. Her midnight hair curled around her face in rolling waves and long eyelashes were lowered over a round face. She was perfect.

I give her to you, Divine Creature.

The tree’s emotions of hope and trust washed over him, dissipating the mourning that permeated the air, and that’s when he realized that this girl, cocooned inside a tree, was the source of the immense sorrow that threatened to splinter him in two.

“By the Divine,” he whispered.

As if she’d heard his call, her eyes burst open, and he was taken aback by the startling emerald green of her gaze.

He’d always wondered the purpose of his life, and now he had no doubt. When her gaze met his, he knew that she was his destiny, and he was hers.

The only problem was that he was Hallowed, and he couldn’t allow himself to love. Especially not her.