Falling.
Jace tumbled through the void, weightless, his breath stolen by the nothingness that swallowed him. There was no ground, no sky—only the crushing sensation of descent, as if the world itself had cast him away.
His limbs felt heavy, sluggish, like he was sinking through deep water. The golden veins that had cracked across the platform still burned behind his eyelids, pulsing with an unseen rhythm, a heartbeat that wasn't his own.
Then—impact.
His body slammed into something solid, the force rattling his bones. A gasp tore from his throat as he sprawled onto cold stone, the wind knocked from his lungs. He lay there, staring upward into an endless black expanse. His mind swam, fighting to process where—when—he was.
The silence stretched.
Then, a voice.
"You are not ready."
Jace forced himself up onto his elbows, blinking against the haze in his vision. His double stood before him, unmoving. Except—no, it wasn't the same. The figure had changed. Where before it had worn his face, his form, now it was shifting, distorting. Its skin rippled, as though something beneath was trying to push free.
Jace clenched his fists. "Where is Kael?"
The figure did not answer. Instead, it raised its hand.
Pain.
A searing force ripped through Jace's skull, sending him to his knees. It was not physical—it was deeper, like something clawing through his very essence, tearing at the foundation of who he was.
Memories bled into the air around him, swirling like ink in water. He saw himself—flashes of his past. Training beneath his father's gaze, bruises forming on his arms. Kael standing beside him, laughing, her raven-feathered cloak catching the wind. The moment he first felt his mark burn. The first time he saw the Hollowed.
The first time he was truly afraid.
The figure took a step forward. "You fight, but you do not understand."
Jace gritted his teeth against the pain. "Then make me understand."
Silence. Then, the figure's form shifted again. This time, when it spoke, its voice was not his.
It was Kael's.
"Jace."
His head snapped up. She stood before him now, her face shadowed but unmistakable. He reached for her—but the moment his fingers brushed her arm, she crumbled into ash.
His heart pounded. "No—"
The ash twisted, reforming, reshaping. Not into Kael. Not into his double.
Into something worse.
A Hollowed.
Jace barely had time to react before the creature lunged.