I stared at Darius for a long moment, unsure if I'd heard him correctly.

A prophecy? That was what had dragged an ancient creature across half the world? I wasn't sure whether to laugh or to ask him to start again, slower this time.

"What kind of prophecy?" I asked finally, voice softer than I intended.

My mind was already spinning ahead, rifling through everything I remembered from the dusty books I'd devoured back in the secret caves of the Queen— before everything changed.

The Ancients weren't supposed to exist anymore. The last records of them placed their kind far away, in the Xanthenk Mountains, buried within the icy ridges...