PROLOGUE: INTO THE UNKNOWN

Taylor woke up to darkness.

It wasn't the murky haze of half-consciousness, the kind where the world flickered at the edges of perception. No, this was pitch black, absolute. The kind of darkness so thick it pressed in from all sides, smothering and suffocating.

Her chest heaved as she clawed at the ground beneath her, fingers scraping against damp, uneven stone. Her limbs felt heavy and sluggish, as though they didn’t quite belong to her, and the air was thick with the stench of mildew and sulfur, tinged with an acrid scent that stung her nose and throat. She scrambled to her knees, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps—the sound echoing off unseen walls, making it feel as if the space were closing in around her.

Where am I?

Fragments of memory flashed through her mind, disjointed and blurred. She remembered… despair. Crushing despair. She remembered wanting it to end. Then Contessa, standing over her. Taylor hadn’t resisted. There had been no point. She remembered the muzzle flash, the sharp, cracking pain as two bullets tore through her skull—loud, final.

Taylor flinched at the memory, her hands instinctively flying to her head. Her fingers trembled as they ran over her scalp, but there was nothing. No blood. No wounds. Just smooth, unbroken skin interspersed with long, flowing hair.

She froze.

Distantly aware she was naked, her fingers ran over her face, her neck, down her arms, her sides, her legs—searching for the scars she knew should be there. But they were gone. All of them. The aftermath of Bakuda’s pain bomb and the various battles she participated in, even the faint lines Panacea hadn’t smoothed out when she’d regrown half her body after the Oil Rig battle. Every imperfection, every marker of her life’s trials, erased. Only smooth skin remained.

Her breath hitched, panic bubbling up as her mind screamed at her to offload the growing tide of emotions—fear, confusion, frustration, and something deeper: loss—into her swarm. Reflexive. Automatic. But when she reached for them—

Nothing happened.

She tried again, harder this time, reaching out with her mind, willing the swarm to come. But it was like reaching for a phantom limb, a connection that should have been there but wasn’t. Severed. There was no familiar buzzing of wings, no sense of thousands of tiny lives flickering at the edge of her awareness.

Nothing.

The absence hit her like a punch to the gut, leaving a hollow ache in its place, and her chest tightened as she realized what that meant. No swarm. No powers.

And with that realization, she really started to panic.

Her breathing quickened, and she fought to maintain her composure. But the more she tried to force it, the worse it got. The air around her seemed to feel heavier, hotter, and her heartbeat was a relentless drumbeat in her ears, drowning out the faint dripping of water somewhere in the distance.

“Stop it,” she whispered, her voice hoarse. “Get it together.”

But the words rang hollow. What was she supposed to hold onto? Her mind was pulled in a thousand directions, questions piling up with no answers in sight.

Where was she? How was she alive? Who had brought her here?

And why?

Time lost all meaning in the dark as it could have been minutes or hours before her breathing evened out. The panic slowly receded, her hands stilled, and her thoughts began to untangle themselves.

She sat back, the cold stone beneath her a grounding sensation, and forced herself to focus.

The pool. She remembered waking up in a green, glowing liquid. The smell had been harsh, acidic, clinging to her skin as she crawled out, gasping and sputtering for air, her movements uncoordinated.

She’d stumbled through endless caverns after that, the passages winding and labyrinthine, until the glow of the pool—the memory of its unnatural light and cloying heat—was far behind her. She had no idea how long she’d walked, only that she couldn’t retrace her steps if she tried.

And now she was here, wherever here was.

Her mind flicked back to the glowing liquid. She’d never seen anything like it, not even after everything she had experienced in her life. But one thing was certain: it had remade her in ways that seemed even beyond the ability of Panacea.

But the price? The loss of her powers. The gnawing emptiness where the connection to her swarm had been.

Taylor’s hands clenched into fists, nails digging into her palms. Adapt. You’ve done it before. You can do it again.

But this was different, wasn’t it? She wasn’t just Khepri anymore—or Weaver, or even Skitter. She wasn’t sure who she was without her shard, her passenger, without the constant familiar hum of her swarm to lean on. And the loss wasn’t just a practical one; it was emotional. The control, the certainty she’d built her identity around, was gone.

And in its place? Doubt.

Who am I now?

Her thoughts turned to the pain that had defined so much of her life—the constant ache she’d learned to live with. She tensed, waiting for the familiar pang in her back, the sharp reminder of her body’s fragility.

But there was nothing.

For the first time in years, her body felt whole. Strong. She flexed her fingers, rolled her shoulders, and tested the range of motion in her legs. It was surreal, almost alien even.

The pain was indeed gone.

The realization should have been a relief, but it only deepened the pit in her stomach. She didn’t know what to make of herself anymore, and that scared her more than anything else.

With a deep breath, Taylor pushed herself to her feet, her hands brushing against the damp stone walls for balance. The path forward was as uncertain as everything else, but staying still wasn’t an option.

She took one step, then another, her resolve hardening with each movement. She might not know where she was or why she was here, but she would find out. And whoever had brought her back—whoever had thrown her into this twisted second chance—would have to answer for it.

Because no matter what she had lost or how broken she felt, she was still Taylor Hebert.

And she wasn’t done fighting.