Silence.
Then—pain.
Bella gasped, but there was no air to breathe. Her eyes flew open.
She wasn't on the battlefield anymore.
She wasn't anywhere near Kael, or the forest, or even the realm of the living.
She lay on a stone slab surrounded by walls of twisting black vines. The vines pulsed as if alive, thorned and wet with blood. Above her, a ceiling of bone arched like the ribs of some ancient, dead god. Faint red mist coiled in the air, glowing like embers.
Her wrists were bound in bands of golden vine.
Her chest still burned with the Eye of Binding.
And someone was watching her.
She turned her head slowly—too weak to sit up—and saw them.
A woman in a black veil, face hidden beneath layers of silk, sat on a twisted throne made of living branches. Her skin—what little showed through the veil—was silver, glowing faintly. She did not speak, but her presence filled the chamber like thunder waiting to strike.
Bella tried to sit, but the golden vines tightened. She winced, teeth gritted.
"I know what you are," the woman finally said, her voice both ancient and beautifully broken.
Bella stared. "Where am I?"
The woman stood. Her movements were unnaturally fluid—like smoke wrapped in human shape.
"You are in Ytherra," she said. "The City of Thorns. The place where oaths are judged… and punished."
Bella's breath caught.
She had heard that name before. In nightmares. In whispers among witches.
It was where souls went when they broke a Sacred Pact.
"I didn't ask to be brought here," Bella said, trying to keep her voice steady.
"No one does," the woman answered, stepping closer. "The Eye does not need permission. It chooses. You spoke your true name. You bound yourself to the Circle. Now you must answer."
Bella's heart pounded. "Answer to what?"
"To the oldest law," the woman said, now standing beside the slab. "Power demands balance. You defied a god, cast out a queen, and awakened a force that even death fears."
Bella turned her head, trying to keep the rising panic out of her voice. "So what? You're going to judge me?"
"No," the woman whispered, lowering her veil.
Bella's breath froze.
The woman's face was her own.
But older.
Scarred.
Eyes like frozen silver.
"I am you," the woman said. "I am what you will become if you survive this."
The vines unwrapped suddenly, falling away like ash.
Bella sat up, dizzy. Cold.
The Eye of Binding on her chest glowed faintly, pulsing like a second heart.
"Then tell me what I'm supposed to do," Bella said. "Tell me how to get out of here."
The woman didn't answer. She turned and walked toward a doorway that hadn't been there a moment before—arched and dripping with black rose petals.
"If you want to escape this city," she said without looking back, "you must walk its streets… and face the Thorns you left behind."
"What does that mean?" Bella demanded.
But the woman was already gone.
And the doorway had turned to mist.
A new sound filled the chamber.
Footsteps.
Coming closer.
Bella turned toward the sound, rising shakily to her feet.
From the darkness emerged a figure.
He wore a crown of thorns.
His face was shadowed.
But his voice—his voice she recognized.
It was the first boy she had ever loved.
And the first who had broken her.
"Hello, Bella," he said. "I've been waiting."
Bella has entered the City of Thorns, where echoes of her past rise as twisted trials. But how can she survive when the first person she must face… is the boy who shattered her heart?