"So that's it," Kaelen breathed beside me, his voice stripped of its usual bravado. "That's the heart of the Devourer."
It’s beautiful,Elias whispered in my mind. The thought was full of a terrible, academic awe.Perfectly efficient. It is the end of all things, made manifest.
Just then, a voice slithered out of the stagnant air, weak and thin, like a radio signal from a dying star.
"Don't flatter it," Hades rasped. "You're still miles away. That's just the intake valve."
We scanned the desolate landscape, but he was nowhere to be seen. His presence was a mere echo, a fading stain on reality.
"Hurry," his voice crackled, full of static. "It's pulling the realm apart at the seams. I am… running out of floor." The transmission was weak, laced with desperation. "You must destroy the core, or give it a reason to feed elsewhere. Before it sucks the memory of me from my own bones. This is the best I can do to help at present." His voice faded on the last word.
I knew there was no point in responding either he wouldn’t hear or wouldn’t be able to respond as the ground in front of us turned into stairs leading downward. There was no doubt in my mind that Hades had just used some of his quickly waning power to create a shortcut for us. Which given the state of us I wasextremely thankful for. I only hoped that it got us there before I bled out or Flynn faded into nothingness.
ELEVEN
Thane
The stairs were an open maw that lead to a series of tunnels which snaked toward the Devourer’s core. That thumping beat of the heart was even more obvious here. It was a low, subsonic thrum.Thump. Thump.It shook the obsidian walls and vibrated up through the soles of my feet.
Each beat was a pressure wave, pushing the stagnant air out of the tunnel and then sucking it back in. It was like walking into the throat of a dying god.
Aria walked ahead of me, her star-metal arm glowing with a soft, defiant violet and gold light that cast our shadows long and distorted on the black glass walls. The golden crack in her neck pulsed in time with the heart, a sickening synchronicity that made my stomach clench. She was leaking, a slow, steady drain of the divinity we all now depended on. Behind me, Kaelen moved with a predator’s coiled tension, his hand never straying far from the hilt of his sword. Elias had condensed into a small, flickering flame on his shoulder, hoarding his energy.
Flynn was the problem. He darted between us, a manic blur of grey fur and anxiety. He sniffed every corner, his clawsclicking a frantic, desperate rhythm against the glassy floor. He wasn’t scouting; he was running from the stillness.
Walls are too close,he whined through the bond, the thought sharp and splintered.Can’t smell the exits. Can’t smell the sky. It’s a box, Thane. We’re in another box.
It is a tunnel, Wolf, I projected back, keeping my own thought slow and heavy, a stone dropped into his churning water.It has an entrance and an exit. We are walking towards the exit.
But I felt it too. The claustrophobia. The oppressive weight of the rock above us. This place was a grave waiting for bodies.
Then the thrumming stopped.
The silence that followed was absolute, terrifying in its completeness. The pressure in the air vanished. Flynn skidded to a halt, his head cocked, ears swivelling. Even the faint hum of Aria’s metal arm seemed to die.
We were frozen in the sudden quiet.
And then, a new voice entered the vacuum.
It wasn't a sound. It was a cold spot in the center of my mind. It was a vibration that travelled through the obsidian floor, up through my skeleton, and settled behind my eyes. It was the voice of the Void itself, wearing the memory of a goddess like a tattered dress.
Little princes,Hera whispered, the thought oozing into the bond like spilled oil.Still chasing your pretty metal doll. Has she broken yet? She was designed to. A key made to snap in the lock.
Aria flinched as if struck. She raised her glowing hand, the metal humming a defensive, angry note. "Show yourself, coward."
The voice laughed, a sound like grinding glass.Show myself? I am all around you. I am the silence you’ve been running from.I am the quiet at the end of all things. Why fight a tide that has already won?
"We are not your pawns anymore," Kaelen snarled, stepping up beside Aria, his hand now gripping his sword. Molten gold flared in his vertically slitted eyes.
No. You are something much worse. You are fuel,the voice purred.You are dense with Titan blood. Rich with millennia of pain. The Devourer can taste you. It will unmake you, one by one. It will start with the Wolf, I think. He is already fraying at the edges. Then the Bear, so heavy with his guilt. Then the Dragon, so terrified of his own fire. And last, the little Bird, who has already died so many times he has forgotten how to live.
The words were scalpels, expertly dissecting our deepest fears. I felt Flynn shudder behind me. I felt the cold dread wash over Elias.
But it does not have to be this way,Hera cooed, her voice shifting, becoming almost seductive.I can offer you an escape. A way out of this garbage chute.
"We have heard your offers before," I rumbled, the sound vibrating in my own chest, a counter-frequency to her cold. "We are not interested."
Oh, but this offer is different, Bear. This one is better. This one is real.
