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I’d thought his expression was what I’d remember, but it was Cole, powerful, unstoppable Cole, falling helplessly into the abyss that was seared in my memory.
I sprinted faster, trying to get to the part he’d fallen into. The ground repaired itself beneath my feet. New dirt and grass surged up, sealing the chasm until the clearing looked utterly undisturbed.
I fell to my knees.
An unholy wail was wrenched from my throat. I barely recognized the sound. It was pure pain.
I had died, and it had been less painful than this.
I fell against the ground, desperately clawing at the dirt. I pulled handful after handful, not caring as my nails were ruined, as one was wrenched off when I hit a rock. Blood mixed with the dirt, turning the same shade as the red sky above.
Water fell into the pit as I clawed and clawed at the ground. Tears. They barely registered.
But no matter how I pulled, how I pleaded with the ground, the sky, the Moon Goddess herself, nothing changed.
He was gone.
He was gone.
I collapsed against the ground, defeat and death strangling me in equal measures.
And I sobbed.
Epilogue
WhenpeoplethoughtofHell,thiswas what they pictured.
The fire that burned with tireless heat, the brimstone that was suffocating in its rotten stench. But the mortal mind was not meant to comprehend the utter brutality that was existence in Tartarus.
There was nothing to do in the pits butexist. Exist and wish it were not so.
The fires burned and burned, lava-hot. His skin was melted and flayed and reforged against the metal shackles. His arms were pulled wide, wrenched back so his shoulders were dislodged. His legs spread below him, feet speared into opposite stones at the base of the pyre, straight through the bone. His immortal blood tried to heal him, even here, and it was a worse agony than simply letting the limb succumb to gangrene. He could not turn his head to inspect them. Sometimes, the pain was acute, vicious. Sometimes, it turned into a mind-blurring drug, and he was left unsure if his limbs were even attached. The pain wasn’t gone, exactly, but rather too overwhelming for even his immortal mind to process.
Agony.
Unending agony.
But even if he could have killed himself, he would not have ended his misery.
Not when it meant she was safe.
The thought of her was the one slight balm against every cruelty Tartarus bestowed upon him.
He could barely recall her name anymore. He tried countless times each day to recall the way it rolled off his tongue, but no sound left after the first few moments. Time was different. Nothing marked the passage of it, if it even did pass. That was a kind of torture too. One second, one billion years—they felt the same.
Unending.
His own name had disappeared. He would not let himself believe he forgot her name, yet he could not utter it. He could not recall her laugh. Her smile. Only the barest hint of her essence was seared on his soul to break through the fog of torture. The exact shade of her hair. Constantly, tirelessly, he searched the flames that burned him for that exact shade.
And the flames were boundless. They covered his flesh. They stretched miles, as far as he could see, at least in the moments his eyes were able to pierce the burning smoke that came from his flesh.
How long had it been?
Did it matter?
It would never end.
Never, never, never.
