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Hunt’s chin dipped. “This one … stings. The hag’s halo felt like cold iron. This burns like acid.” He’d just finished voicing the last word when a thought slammed into him. “Bryce. Is she … is she with you?” If they’d hurt her, if Apollion gave one suggestion that—
“No.” The shadow seemed to blink. “Why?”
Horror leached through Hunt, colder than ice. “Bryce didn’t make it to Hel?” Where was she, then? Had she made it anywhere, or was she tumbling through time and space, forever trapped—
He must have made some pitiful noise because Apollion said, “One moment before the hysterics, Athalar,” and vanished.
Hunt couldn’t breathe. Maybe it was the weight of his body crushing his lungs, but … Bryce hadn’t made it. She hadn’t fucking made it to Hel, and he was stuck here, and—
Apollion appeared again, a second shadow at his side. Taller and thinner, with eyes like blue opals.
“Where is Bryce?” hissed the Prince of the Chasm.
“She went to find you.” Hunt’s voice broke. Beside him, Ruhn groaned, stirring. “She went to fucking find you, Aidas.” The Princes of Hel looked at each other, some wordless conversation passing between them. Hunt pushed, “You two told her to find you. Fed us all that bullshit about armies and wanting to help and getting her ready—”
“Is it possible,” Aidas said to his brother, ignoring Hunt entirely, “after everything …?”
“Don’t fall into romanticism,” Apollion cautioned.
“The star might have guided her,” Aidas countered.
“Please,” Hunt cut in, not caring if he was begging. “Tell me where she is.” Baxian grunted, rising to consciousness.
Aidas said quietly, “I have a suspicion, but I can’t tell you, Athalar, lest Rigelus wring it from you. Though he has likely already arrived at the same conclusion.”
“Fuck you,” Hunt spat.
But Apollion said to his brother, “We must leave.”
“Then what was the point of all this watching me from the shadows?” Hunt demanded.
“To ensure that we can continue to rely on you when the time comes.”
“To do what?” Hunt ground out.
“What you were born to do—to accomplish the task for which your father brought you into existence,” Apollion said before fading into nothing, leaving Aidas standing alone before the prisoners.
Shock reared up in Hunt, dampened by the weight of an old, unbidden hurt. “I have no father.”
Aidas’s expression was sad as he stepped out of the shadows. “You spent too long asking the wrong questions.”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
Aidas shook his head. “The black crown once again circling your brow is not a new torment from the Asteri. It has existed for millennia.”
“Tell me the fucking truth for once—”
“Stay alive, Athalar.” The Prince of the Chasm followed his brother, vanishing into darkness and embers.
* * *
Tharion woke with a pounding headache that echoed through every inch of his body.
From the smell in his room, Holstrom had slept there, likely on the floor, but the space was empty. Squinting against his headache, Tharion padded into the main living space to find Holstrom on the couch, Flynn beside him, and Declan and Marc nursing coffees at the small table by the window overlooking the fighting pit. Ariadne sat in a chair, reading a book, her demeanor completely at odds with the female who’d roasted those lions last night.
No sign of the Fendyr heir. Or the sprites. Maybe he’d hallucinated that part.
“Morning,” he grumbled, shutting one eye against the brightness of the room.
