Novels by Bamidele Samuel

For one terrible second, nobody moved. Nobody breathed. The massive crack stretched across the night sky like a wound carved into reality itself. Silver light poured from within it. Not lightning. Not moonlight. Something older. Something is wrong. The sight froze everyone on Blackthorn's walls. Warriors. Watchers. The Hollow Order. Even Seraphine. Even Lucien. Because whatever was happening none of them had expected it to happen now. The crack vanished almost as quickly as it appeared. The night sky returned. The storm remained. The rain continued falling. But the damage was done. Every person present had seen it. Reality itself had split open. And deep inside the connection, something screamed. I dropped to one knee. Pain exploded through my chest. The connection surged violently enough to make my vision blur. Thousands of emotions crashed together. Fear. Confusion. Desperation. Not mine. Not Blackthorn's. The gates. The gates were afraid. The real

The moment Seraphine finished speaking, the connection exploded inside me. Not with pain. Not with fear. With memory. Ancient. Violent. Buried beneath thousands of years of lies. The world vanished around me. The rain. The wall. The Watchers. Everything disappeared. And suddenly I was standing at the edge of the end of the world. The sky burned silver. Not sunlight. Not fire. Something worse. The horizon itself seemed torn apart as massive fractures stretched across the heavens. Entire cities stood abandoned beneath those broken skies. The beautiful civilization from the First Age was dying. Not slowly. Not peacefully. It was collapsing. People ran through the streets. Screaming. Praying. Fighting. And at the center of it all stood the largest gate I had ever seen. Far larger than Blackthorn's. Far larger than the desert gate. It towered over the landscape like a mountain of black stone. Open. Fully open. Beyond it existed only darkness. Not empty da

The moment Seraphine spoke those words, something inside me stopped. Not my heart. Not my breathing. Something deeper. The connection. It went completely silent. For the first time since the sanctum collapsed. No whispers. No emotions. No memories. Nothing. And somehow that terrified me more than when it screamed. Rain continued falling across Blackthorn's walls while thousands of Watchers stood motionless behind Seraphine. Waiting. The entire world seemed to be holding its breath. "The First Anchor didn't close the gates alone." The sentence echoed inside my mind. Lucien looked furious. Not angry. Afraid. There was a difference. And for the first time since meeting him, I wondered how much he truly knew. Or worse how much he wasn't telling me. Seraphine's silver eyes remained fixed on mine. Patient. Like she knew exactly what effect her words had caused. "You should leave." Lucien's voice carried across the wall. Cold. Sharp. Seraphine barely glanced to

The name hit me like a physical blow. The Watchers. The connection recoiled so violently that I nearly lost my footing. Not fear. Something deeper. Older. The same instinct tells prey to run before it sees the predator. The same instinct that warns of danger long before the mind understands why. Every part of me knew one thing. The Watchers were not supposed to be here. Rain continued falling across Blackthorn as hundreds of silver lights moved through the forest beyond the northern border. The sight was mesmerizing. Terrifying. Beautiful in the worst possible way. The lights flowed between the trees like rivers of stars. Perfectly organized. Perfectly synchronized. No army moved like that. No army could. Kael's gaze remained fixed on the approaching formation. "How many?" Lucien swallowed. "A thousand at least." The answer sent a ripple through everyone standing on the wall. Even the experienced warriors nearby looked uneasy. Because Blackthorn had faced enem

The pulse hit me before anyone else felt it. A violent wave crashed through the connection, stealing the air from my lungs so suddenly that I staggered backward. The chamber blurred. The black stone gate trembled. Silver light surged through the ancient symbols beneath our feet. And somewhere far away something awakened. Not the Second Gate. Not the First. Another one. The Third Gate. The realization slammed into me with terrifying certainty. It wasn't a guess. It wasn't a theory. I knew. The way someone knows fire burns. The way someone knows they're falling before they hit the ground. The Third Gate had answered. And suddenly the world felt smaller. Much smaller. "Aflira." Kael's voice sounded distant. Concerned. But distant. Because the connection wasn't merely showing me something now. It was dragging me toward it. My vision darkened. The chamber disappeared. And the world changed. I stood on the edge of a cliff overlooking a black ocean. Massive wave

The smile wasn't real. At least, that's what I told myself. It had to be a trick of the connection. A fragment of fear. A projection created by ancient memories colliding with my imagination. Because the alternative was far worse. The alternative was that something beyond the gates had become aware of me. And that possibility was enough to send a cold wave through my entire body. The feeling vanished as quickly as it appeared. But the damage was done. I knew what I felt. And deep down, I knew it had been real. The chamber seemed darker now. The silver light beneath the gate continued its slow pulse, but it no longer felt comforting. It felt like standing beside a locked door while hearing something breathing on the other side. Nobody spoke for several moments. Then Kael's voice cut through the silence. "What exactly is on the other side of those gates?" Lucien's expression hardened. "I don't know." Cassian immediately laughed. "That's reassuring." "I'm serious."