Page 187

I brought the journal to my nose and breathed in deeply.

The scent of old leather, ink, and dust tickled the back of my nose. But beneath it, the faintest trace of fresh night air and a sweetness I could never name.

The footfalls had grown closer, and I steadied myself for the torture that was coming.

I counted my breaths until the pounding of my heart began to slow, until the grief stopped clawing at my ribs and became what it had always been beneath the panic.

Love.

Painful, endless love with nowhere left to go.

The boots stopped outside my cell, and I closed the journal.

For a moment, there was only silence before metal scraped against stone.

But it wasn’t my door.

My brows pulled together as I lifted my head for the first time.

Two bone guards stood in the corridor, their pale armour catching what little light reached this far into the Nether, their masked faces shielding gazes that I knew were trying to avoid mine.

But it was the man between them that made me crawl forwards, squinting into the dark.

His wrists were shackled in black iron, chains hanging heavily between his hands. Blood stained one side of his face, brown curls shadowing the other side.

His tunic was torn to shreds, and dark bruising shadowed the sharp line of his cheekbone that puckered into a dimple.

“No,” I whispered, wrapping my hand around the cold iron bars of my prison.

Helion lifted his head, eyes finding me even in the oppressive darkness.

“Hello, Sunshine.”

Warmth exploded through the bond I had spent a year trying not to feel.

No, no, no.

One of the guards shoved Helion towards the neighbouring cell.

He stumbled once before catching himself, then turned as the iron door slammed shut behind him.

Helion looked around at the black walls enclosing him, then back at me.

The corners of his mouth kicked up, and a beautiful smile curved across his face.

“What have you done?” I snarled through the bars.

“I missed you too, wife.” Helion crouched down on the other side of the bars that separated us, smile gleaming in the darkness.

“Helion,” I warned, voice breaking over his name.

The need to claw his throat out battled with the urge to curl against his chest and simply be held by him.

His smile softened with understanding as he reached through the bars and brushed my tangled hair behind my ear.

“I did a lot of evil things over the past year, trying to get Astaroth’s attention,” he said with a flash of his dimples. “But to get here, I killed the Fire Fates. Every fate ever woven is now undone. Catastrophic, he called it. I begged him to be in the cell next to yours, Lyra. Begged.” He scoffed the word as if he couldn’t believe that’s what he had done. “I’m not sure why he granted me that wish.”

I stared at him for a moment, trying to process what he had done.