CHAPTER
ONE

SIRIS SNAPPED open his eyes and rolled. He had only a few moments before—

Hands grabbed his hair, yanking his head upward. A knee against his back forced him down to the cold stone.

Vision blurry, Siris twisted, trying to claw at the hands holding him. He had to—

The hands smashed Siris’s face down into the stone ground.

All went black.

CONSCIOUSNESS returned to Siris like an eagle spreading its wings. His mind flooded with sensation. The cold ground. His face resting in a pool of nearly dried blood, sticky against his skin. The stale scent of the prison.

He took a deep breath and threw himself to his feet, turning to swing. He opened his eyes to a blurry world of shadows and filtered light.

Those shadows caught him, tripped him, then slammed him back against the ground.

Siris growled. His primal instincts knew where his enemy would be, and he kicked upward into a soft stomach. Connecting felt so satisfying.

The shadows cursed. Siris pulled his foot back and rolled to his feet.

A weight slammed him backward against the wall. Siris writhed, but hands grabbed his head and jerked it to the side.

Snap.

All went black.

SIRIS WAITED for his body to restore itself.

First, his soul tried to flee, to escape to a rebirthing chamber. That was far better than returning to a body that had been defeated—a fallen body was a compromised body. Innate Deathless programming tried to send his soul, his Q.I.P., to safety.

Siris registered this as a vague sensation, tangible only in the most fleeting of ways. Like the memory of a taste. A sense of uncontrolled soaring, a panicked flight.

Then a wall, like invisible glass. His soul was rebuffed as it had been each time before. It could not break out of the prison, and was instead forced back. Back into the imperfect body, the trapped body.

That body belonged to an immortal. It would restore itself, given time.

Eventually, consciousness swelled in his mind, and he regained control. He tried to feign death. His thinking was fuzzy, his eyes not fully restored, he needed to—

“You think I don’t notice you, Ausar?” a voice said from nearby. Siris felt warm breath on his neck. “You think I can’t hear you stir as you struggle back to life?”

Siris snapped his eyes open and reached for the figure above him, his ancient enemy. He could see only a blur.

“I put your eyes out each time I kill you,” the God King growled, grabbing Siris’s head and smashing it down against the floor.

Pain.

“Your body heals essential organs first,” the God King continued. “Your eyes come late in the process.”

Siris screamed, flailing.

The God King smashed his head against the floor again.

All went black.