The night before they reached Ashborne, Selena woke to find herself somewhere else.
Not physically—her body still lay beside the dying fire, Dante sleeping nearby, the delegation camped around them. But her consciousness had been pulled into another space, another realm that existed between waking and dreaming, between reality and metaphor made manifest.
She stood in a circular chamber with walls of polished obsidian that reflected distorted versions of herself—hundreds of Selenas, each one slightly different, each one showing a path not taken, a choice unmade, a version of herself that might have been. The floor beneath her feet was ash, deep and soft, threatening to pull her down if she stood still too long.
And around the circle's edge, emerging from the darkness beyond the obsidian walls, came the thrones.
