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“You want me to carry you?” Helion said, amusement twining through his voice as though he’d love nothing more.

I tried to stand. But the numbness had spread to my legs. A fractured gasp stuttered through me.

“How do I save Rythos?” I asked, my voice breaking over his name.

For a long moment, he simply watched me, something ancient and unbearably tired settling over his features before he tipped his head back towards the ash-choked sky and let out a slow breath.

“Lyra—”

“You promised!” I yelled. Power fractured through my voice, splintering it into a thousand overlapping echoes that rolled across the water.

He flinched, a small movement that settled a fear deeper inside my bones. Yet something purred with satisfaction.

“The only way to break a curse made by a god is to kill the one who made it,” he whispered, his grey eyes shining with tears, like a storm cloud filling with rain.

“I...” My lips trembled around the thought. “I have to kill you.”

Of course he had done this. Bound our lives together so there would never be a way to save Rythos.

“Do you?” he asked softly. He reached out with agonising care, brushing a strand of silver hair behind my ear. His fingertips lingered for only a heartbeat before falling away.

“What if I'm not the villain?”

The world tilted in on itself, and heat flooded my veins until I thought my skin might split beneath it.

“No,” I whispered, but the truth burrowed through me.

My monsters. The words echoed through me.

If the monsters were mine, then Rythos—no.

The thought splintered before I could give it shape.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head. “No...”

My hand flew to my chest as agony tore beneath my ribs, so sharp it hollowed the air from my lungs, every frantic heartbeat seeming to split me further apart until I no longer knew where Lyra ended and the goddess beneath my skin began.

The Hells were burning.

The Mortal Kingdom was freezing.

The Fae were being slaughtered.

Every prophecy. Every whispered warning. Every path I had followed since the day I was born seemed to weave together into one unbearable truth, tightening around my ribs until I thought they might splinter beneath the weight of it.

Evil.

The priest's voice drifted through my mind with sickening clarity, just as it had a thousand nights inside the dungeons beneath Stonebriar.

Possessed.

Dreya’s voice echoed through my mind, fear contorting her face as her spear tore through my leg.

Monster.

My father's face followed, twisted with the same disgust he had looked at me with since I was old enough to understand the meaning of fear.

Broken.