Bryce slumped to the stones beside the Gate. Declan didn’t need medical monitors to know her heart had flatlined. Her mortal body had died. A clock on the computer showing the Eleusian system began counting down from a six-minute marker. The indicator of how long she had to make the Search and the Ascent, to let her mortal, aging body die, to face what lay within her soul, and race back up to life, into her full power. And emerge an immortal.
