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Her throat swelled with emotion, and her next words came out strained. “Where is he? Where—Where is my husband?” She scanned the dark room as if expecting him to be hiding behind a pillar.
“He is here, my queen.” Lagos kept her hand in his as he guided her toward the cauldron.
Immediate relief filled her. He was here, he was still alive, he?—
She faltered as Lagos led her to the other side of the cauldron, where a body lay sprawled on the stone floor. A broken sob tore from Prue’s throat as she lurched forward, ignoring the pain in her limbs and the pulsing agony in her skull from her sudden movements. Her knees scraped along the floor as she dropped beside Cyrus, tears pouring from her eyes at the sight of him.
“Oh Goddess, Cyrus… Cyrus!” she wailed, clutching his face in her hands. His eyes were closed, and… She sucked in a breath, her hands trembling as she held him.
He was different. He didn’t smell the same.
And his tattoos were gone.
Not only that, but his hair had lost its silver luster. It was now inky black.
“He still breathes, my queen,” said Lagos.
Prue’s head snapped up, her eyes flaring wide as she looked at him. “He’s alive?”
The demon nodded, the motion slow and hesitant. His dark eyes were filled with a wary apprehension that made Prue’s stomach coil with dread.
“Lagos, tell me,” she demanded. “Tell me what happened.” Her voice was deadly calm, but only a thread of sanity held her intact. She was so close to breaking, to shattering completely.
Lagos quickly explained everything to her—how Cyrus had emerged from the rubble with her body, how he had sought help from Lagos, how he had unearthed the book and discovered the awakening spell.
With each passing second, Prue’s breathing became more ragged. By the end, her eyes shut against the dizzying pain in her head, and she thought she might faint. It was too much.
What had Cyrus done?
“He was desperate, my queen,” Lagos said softly. “He would have done anything to bring you back, even sacrifice his own life.”
“No. He couldn’t—He shouldn’t—” She broke off with another shaky breath, glancing down at Cyrus and brushing strands of black hair out of his face. She leaned closer, detecting the faint, slow breaths coming from his mouth.
“If he’s alive, then why won’t he wake?” she asked Lagos.
The demon took a long, slow breath before responding. “He is different. I sensed it as soon as the spell was complete. The magic of the Underworld no longer lives in him.”
“What does that mean?” Prue asked in a hollow voice.
“You remember how the magic of the Underworld granted you power? You commanded me to speak to you when you first arrived in this realm.”
Prue nodded absently, recalling the time when Kronos had possessed Cyrus and he’d chained her up in a cave. Lagos had come to bring her food, and she’d unknowingly invoked her power as his queen to force him to speak to her.
“We demons can sense the power of this realm,” Lagos went on. “I could always sense it within Cyrus and you. But I don’t feel it anymore. Not from him.”
Prue’s heart dropped like a stone as she looked down at Cyrus once more. “He has no magic?”
“None that I can discern.”
“Is that why he won’t wake?” Prue pressed a hand to Cyrus’s chest. His skin was cold, but a faint heartbeat thrummed against her palm.
“I don’t know.” Lagos’s voice was solemn. As if he expected the worst.
As if he, too, feared Cyrus wouldn’t wake at all.
Prue found it hard to breathe; each inhale was a ragged gasp tearing through her over and over. “I can’t—I can’t—” Prue’s voice broke on the words. She broke.
She was broken from this. And she would not recover.
