Hades
"It was Lucinda," Kael’s voice reached . It hit like a thunderclap. The ground beneath seed to hold still.
I didn’t turn. My chaos-ridden mind was already churning with the implication of his statent. I didn’t want to ask what he ant. That it was Montegue’s wife.
"It wasn’t a man that tried to take Elliot. It wasn’t anybody from Silverpine, or that Goddess-forsaken facility." His words ca out in a rush, as if slowing down would make him lose the nerve to speak. "It was Lucinda. I ripped off her mask."
Laughter bubbled up from my throat. It felt foreign. And so, so wrong. Just when I had started to believe the sky had already fallen, the stars decided to implode as well. Every nerve lit up with a simring fury that made the fine hairs on my neck stand up. Every breath burned, scalding my insides, until all that remained was a shapeless mass of wrath and disbelief.
Lucinda.
Like daughter, like mother, it seed. I had let her hold my child. Embrace my wife. But in the end...
We had let an enemy into our ranks. And it had been during a high-stakes battle of wills and centuries-old animosity.
Sothing cracked. Maybe it was the dirt beneath my boots. Maybe it was my ribs, after my heart crashed against them. Or maybe...
It was the last delicate thread tying to sanity.
I didn’t glance back. I simply walked away, even as I felt their eyes boring into .
Each step felt heavy. I moved like I weighed a ton. The hiding place was deeper than I expected, and before long, the others’ voices faded into a distant hum.
My jaw ticked as I clenched my fist. I slamd it into the wall. Rocks and dirt ca loose. It didn’t stop . My second fist followed.
Then a third.
Then a fourth.
Pain blood, sharp and imdiate. Skin split. Knuckles tore open. The sting grounded , but it wasn’t enough.
I needed it to hurt more.
I needed sothing to break that wasn’t already inside .
The wall trembled, but I didn’t. I shattered.
My breath ca in ragged bursts. Every inhale scraped down my throat like broken glass. The darkness of the tunnel wrapped itself around . Silent. Watching. Listening.
Kael was dying, and I was too much of a coward to watch my oldest friend rot into an empty shell. No more of his loud laughter. No more sly humor. No more of the kind of loyalty only Kael could offer.
Even after all these years, I don’t regret taking his place in my father’s twisted plan. I would do it again. Every cruel word I ever threw at him played on a loop in my head like a haunted record. Every unjustified insult slid another dagger through my ribs.
Agony and anger curled around my throat. It was a noose, a vice tightening with every breath.
I slamd my head against the jagged wall of the cave, again and again, letting the blinding pain drown out the tornt that wanted to eat whole.
I willed it to take everything away. The suffocating feeling of hopelessness, as ti slipped through my fingers like oil.
The scream stayed locked in my throat. It refused to co out, no matter how hard I bit my tongue or clenched my jaw.
Blood dripped down my temple, joining the crimson trails on my knuckles. My pulse throbbed at the base of my skull. Pain radiated, hot and bright. But even that couldn’t reach the hollow place swelling in my chest.
Kael. The world, in its cruel wisdom, had decided to take him.
He was too good for it anyway. Still, that didn’t make it any less wrong. It was injustice. He had given his blood, sweat, and tears to his position. To be by my side. He had no ti for himself. No ti to finally beco the codian he always wanted to be. No ti to love. To adopt four kids with the woman he adored. To grow old. To bury like he always joked he would, just to have the final word.
I had taken his ti and energy. Possessed them like I deserved it. Even he saw Eve’s innocence long before I could begin to fathom it. And now... that sa noble man was the one dying.
A growl escaped , the vibration shattering the space, threading its chaotic tendrils through the stone and earth.
My stomach clenched as I stilled.
Was that?
My eyes darted around the place I found myself in. Goosebumps spread across my skin. Cerberus crooked his heads because he felt it too. It was distinct. Unmistakable.
The echo from the cave was...
I let out another growl, tentative, experintal...
And the result was the sa.
The cave was hollow. Deeply. Like only a thin layer of earth divided us from a massive chasm beneath.
A low rumble crawled up the walls.
My breath caught.
Cerberus let out a sharp growl, three heads rising in unison, ears pivoting. He felt it. The shift. The pulse beneath the stone.
I took a step forward, and the ground sighed under my boot.
"Kael," I whispered, shutting my eyes.
The chaos in my chest quieted for a single breath. I reached—not with my hands—but with the tether between us. It was faint, like the final note of a dying song, but it was there.
A heartbeat.
Kael’s.
Slow. Weak. But alive.
"He’s still breathing."
Cerberus snarled again, snapping at shadows that hadn’t moved. The rumble deepened, a groan from the earth’s throat.
The distant tumble reached a crescendo, and I was already mid-run, shifting as the sound of snapping bones lted into the growl of the earth. Sothing was coming. The cave was either collapsing with my injured best friend in its belly, or...
We were not alone.
Either of those odds would be disastrous.
In a snap, I was back where the n were. Back where Kael still lay. All eyes turned to , wide and expectant. Apprehension flickered in many, if not all.
My voice ca in a single, panicked command.
"We have to leave. Now."
Cain’s expression turned ghostly, but no one had the ti to move a muscle before the mouth of the cavern slamd shut with a deafening, earth-splitting roar.
We were sealed in.
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