"Awake," a gentle voice echoed.

Cold shocked her system. Minerva sputtered at the cutting edge of the air, taking in the thick pieces of white swirling violently down from a midnight sky. Her legs sank into icy wet powder.

Where am I?

After flailing for several seconds, she stood still. Tears formed to freeze on her eyelashes. Puffs of breath appeared in misty clouds. Had—had she died?

If that were the case, she could almost appreciate the irony of a freezing hell. A barren wasteland with snow in every direction—up, down, before her and behind—instead of a fiery pit where the ash and smoke would remind her of home.

Her hands flew to the space below her ribs, then to her face. Nothing. No wounds, no scars. At least she had her clothes still on, but they weren't suited for weather conditions like these. "By the bloody Three," Minerva rasped through chapped, numbing lips.

She shivered uncontrollably and wondered if she should lie down and let the falling snow bury her. Even if she somehow survived this, the thorough soaking and chilling would guarantee contracting Fire Fever.

Could you die in a dream? Could you die again if you'd already entered the afterlife?

A low growl sounded behind her.

Minerva whirled around, legs tangling up beneath her to send her sprawling into the snow. She'd finally had the opportunity to see the mythical powder, to feel it beneath her hands and lightly dusting her hair.

She loathed snow.

At first, she didn't see the wolf. Its white coat blended in perfectly with the landscape. Only when she looked up did she catch the flash of its wintery blue eyes and snuffling black nose. The wolf's snout was much more slender, but otherwise its proportions were similar to Mala's.

In other words, giant. It could crush her beneath its paw—break her neck with a snap of its fangs.

But it didn't. Instead, the wolf bent down and nosed at her hand. Its nose felt warm, it felt real.

And most of all it felt rather wet and slimy.

When the wolf whined at her, Minerva stopped shying away and let it help her stand. The ends of its coat had crusted, but closer to its body the fur was deliciously warm and brought the tingling back to her dead hands. Burn it, why did coming back to life have to be so uncomfortable though?

The wolf nudged her toward a mound in the snow. Then it started digging and Minerva had to shield her face to avoid being hit by the flurry.

The first thing she noticed was the blood. Against the purity of the snow, the droplets were a vibrant taint. But the blood was only a garnish, the decoration around the body lying either dead or unconscious underneath the weight of a fresh animal skin.

Minerva quickly pressed two fingers to the person's neck. Alive, but not for long. Maybe this person could tell her where they were. With a great amount of gasping and effort due to her failing motor control, she rolled the person onto their side. Congealed blood painted their cheek and a layer of frost crystallized the rest of the visible skin.

A hat hid their hair from sight and a thick cloth shielded their nose and mouth. Minerva tentatively reached out to pull the cloth down to confirm they were breathing.

The person's eye snapped open.

Minerva screamed, trying to get away but failing. That eye held her gaze transfixed—a snake's eye on a human face. The black slit of a pupil focused on her after flicking around in the silver sclera.

It grew, her fearful figure reflecting on its surface. She hid her face in her hands right before the massive eye swallowed her.

The land of snow had vanished, though the cold lingered. Minerva knelt on a shining bridge so glassy it was almost transparent. Pinpricks of light twinkled below her, appearing as if they'd been set in the bridge like leaves in amber.

"You're finally here," a woman's voice said.

Minerva glanced up, eyes locking on the stranger. The woman sat near the edge, her legs dangling with a bridge rail between them. Her hand clasped the rung and she threw her head back. A breath of sparkling dust exploded from her mouth like a puff from a dragon's nostrils.

When she turned her head, her beauty struck Minerva full force. Her pale skin appeared to be infused with pure moonlight and her raven black hair glimmered with specks like stars. Her eyebrows arched and a smirk teased at her heart-shaped lips. "Bet you've never seen that before," she said.

"Where am I?" Minerva asked. She'd stood, but now she didn't know what to do and so shifted uncomfortably on her feet. Wherever this was, she didn't belong here. If anything, she'd trespassed upon this mysterious moon-goddess' domain.

"You're on the bridge between life and death." The woman patted the space on the bridge next to her after moving a bamboo hat out of the way.

Minerva hung back. "Does that mean I'm dead?" she whispered. When she tried to place her hands on top of the bridge's rail to look over the edge, it slid away and expanded upward, far above her head.

"It does that so you can't jump off the sides," the stranger said knowingly. "But if you plant the thought firmly in your head that you're staying on the bridge, it'll let you admire the view."

Minerva abandoned the inclination to try it and settled for watching the bridge's only other visitor instead. "What are you doing here? Are you dying too?"

The woman rolled her eyes. "As if. Now get over here and sit down so we can have a civil conversation."

"How do I know you won't hurt me?" Minerva hated the fear that laced her words, but it wasn't like she visited this place every day.

The woman huffed in a manner not unlike Nola's. "Fine, I'll answer your questions and then you'll come keep me company." She nodded to herself and didn't wait for a response. "You're dreaming. You've completed your Trial of Fire, but the unnatural strain on your body wore the barrier between the realities thin enough that you've appeared here and you're aware of it. And as for me" —she took a puff on an imaginary pipe and blew another glittering cloud out of her mouth— "the bridge is my favorite spot on this side."

Minerva's head spun. "That hardly tells me anything."

The woman said nothing to that. She only stared at Minerva, hair falling back over her cloaked shoulder. Minerva couldn't tell for sure, but a calculating, weighing look appeared in her acquaintance's eyes. It was a look she knew all too well—from feeling it on herself.

"What's your name?"

The stranger shook her head. "I don't do names."

Minerva heard the answer in an echo of her voice. Why did this woman sound and feel so familiar?

"You've been here before, but you don't remember me," the woman said. "In fact, you come here more than most. Dream walking, I call it, and it's not healthy." She leaned her head against the bars, looking caged for some reason.

Minerva walked over to the woman and sat down several feet away. She stuck one leg through the rails, but drew it back out when a sensation like dipping her feet in water hit her. Before she could suppress it, she shuddered and when she looked up, the woman was eyeing her.

"You always have been so afraid, Minerva."

Minerva hissed softly between her teeth, pushing away from the woman, almost sliding across the bridge. If she couldn't jump off the sides, the two ends had to lead somewhere. She didn't want to stay here another minute.

"Hold on, hold on."

And Minerva was right back where she'd started—closer even, if they stretched out their hands, they could touch. Her eyes widened in panic.

"Since you're dreaming, I can't hurt you," the woman explained. "But that also means I hold all the power here. I'm merely being polite when I ask you to cooperate." There it was again, the flash of steel under silk.

"I don't trust you," Minerva growled.

"You don't have to, but I wanted to show you something." The woman held out a mirror, black with moonstones set into the backing and handle. When Minerva wouldn't take it, the woman held it so she could see her face.

Minerva's jaw dropped. Her skin was glowing. Not just the clear look she got when she was having a good skin day, but dewy and healthy and ... Minerva looked up at the woman.

Their skin looked the same.

"What are you?" No, no it couldn't be.

The woman laughed. "Now there's the right question. But you'll have to guess first."

Before, only mild panic had gripped her. There'd been the chance she was only dreaming. But now that she knew she was dreaming, it somehow made it more real, letting true fear snake around her heart.

"You're a goddess."

The woman nodded so casually, but she couldn't hide that she enjoyed this game.

There were only three goddesses in the Flamelands: Ash, Nemesis, and Phoenix. Ash's depictions always showed a regal woman with flawless midnight skin and a crown of flames and Phoenix's—Ash's favorite daughter of the two—a firebird that blazed with the sun's glory.

That left Nemesis.

Minerva's breaths caught in her chest, each one becoming painful as her vision blurred.

Bringer of Night—Retribution—she comes, whisper sharp as blade.

Twenty deaths to damn, my dear, and now the price is paid.

Hand quivering, she searched in her dress for daggers she knew she wouldn't find. She glowered at Nemesis, even though the blood had drained from her face. "I'll kill you," she said, and her voice cracked.

Nemesis looked at her with pity in her golden eyes. "Why kill me when I've spared you? Why, when we're so much alike?"

That couldn't be why she'd lived. Minerva refused to believe it. "I'm nothing like you!" she cried.

"Minerva, come away from her." This voice she knew, it was the same one that told her to wake up. When she tried to see who it belonged to her head wouldn't turn. She frowned. Strange. She tried again with the same results.

The goddess hissed at the newcomer, and Minerva could have sworn a snake's tongue flicked from between her teeth. "Stay out of this. We're having a heart to heart."

"Funny, since last time I checked you don't have one," the unknown person replied. It sounded male, but also inhuman—if the winds could speak, this would be their voice.

Minerva backed away, only too eager to put distance between herself and the goddess of justice.

Nemesis sniffed in annoyance. "Fine, go with him. You'll see where that leaves you, just like your beloved aunt."

Minerva didn't mean to pause or hear anything else the goddess had to say. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"What do I mean?" Nemesis swung her legs like a little child. "I mean that your aunt served the man standing behind you now, and that when she died, he didn't lift a finger when he could have let her live. Ask him. He never lies."

Minerva didn't ask. She knew who Edina had believed in. She'd spurned the Three and worshipped the One, supposed Creator of Elementon. As a child, Minerva had prayed to him not to take her, not to let her die. She already knew he hadn't answered.

The gods could burn. She had no faith in them.

Nemesis looked past Minerva and sneered. "And he left, like the coward he is." She smiled graciously at Minerva. "We'll talk another time. You're waking up." The goddess stretched with a sigh, pulled her legs up, and placed her hat back on her head. She reached to her side and brandished a whip Minerva hadn't noticed before.

The end of the whip morphed into a snake's head. "I'll be leaving a gift for you in your reality. It's the least I could do to thank you for visiting me." Nemesis chuckled. "Don't be a stranger now. You're mine, Minerva Pyroline. And you always will be."

Minerva tensed as the snake put her in its sights. Its eye enlarged once again and she was helpless to escape it.

With it came a revelation, one that had been bothering her throughout their whole conversation. The snake's eye, the dark abyss that approached to swallow her up and the black halo that devoured her when the cannon fired and the hollow place consumed her—

They were one and the same.