Page 37 of Ballad of the Broken

“Only two ways exist of entering the Hells. A dark mage and the blood of a god…”

Is that how Cerilla had opened the pit to the Seven Hells? She was a dark mage?

“Or cross the Dead Sea, for the Hells lie beyond the waves and sand.”

“Towards the moonrise. Sail until there is no wind to fill your sails and ash falls from the sky.”

I turned on my heel, nodding at Caelum. “We are done here,” I told him, stalking towards the light trickling in from the muted sunlight of the Mourning Woods. I knew how to get to Lyra. I just needed⁠—

“The Throne of Gods must be fed, Rythos Draven. Blood shall seep into the cracks they wrought. Two hearts will break while one stops beating to right their wrongs.”

I kept moving, dismissing the warning as I had every other prophecy thrown my way.

The Throne of Gods had remained empty since Helion had been dragged into the Hells. I intended to slit his throat regardless. Whether his blood splattered over a throne or the dirt beneath my boots seemed irrelevant.

“A rare thing, to be bonded to two males,” one of the Fates hissed, cutting through my thoughts like a blade aimed for my heart while the other snickered.

I froze.

Silence crashed over the cave. My heart pounded in my chest as I turned slowly.

“What the fuck did you just say?” I growled. Shadows crawled from the enclaves of the cave, gathering as if they sensed a threat.

“Lyra is your Amarta. But Maraveth was his. With the soul relics absorbed, she now belongs to both.”

The air whooshed from my lungs as though I had been punched. Emotions clawed through me faster than I could process.

That feeling I had earlier. That wrongness.

My knees crashed into the jagged stone floor. The impact barely registered, drowned beneath the violent unravelling inside me. My hands slammed against the ground, fingers curling into the rock as if I could anchor myself to something real.

I had felt something through the bond. Something wrong. How was it possible?

I felt for the bond deep in my chest, a thread of shimmering blue amidst the dark shadows of my soul. It was still there. But I could sense something else.

Him.

The roar that split through my throat made pebbles rain from the ceiling.