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Selkie was the complete opposite to her harshness, wide violet eyes glancing at me before flickering away and running her hands through her lilac hair.

I cleared my throat, breaking the silence as I reached for the bottle of burgundy wine and poured myself a glass. “You are all Gods, aren’t you?”

“If you had unlocked your memories the moment you obtained the locket, you would not need to ask stupid questions,” Kaezlyn bit out.

My hand skimmed over the locket sitting between my breasts, heavy with answers I had spent my entire life unknowingly bleeding for.

But I couldn’t unlock them yet, not until I knew how to save Rythos.

With how adamantly Helion did not want me to see my past, I feared he would not follow through with our bargain if I did.

His brooding did not sit right with me. Perhaps it had been the way he had walked away from me without a word, taking the ache of his heart with him. I could still feel its echo through the thread of sunlight now living in my chest, warm and wounded and pulsing where it did not belong.

“Yes, we are gods, Lyra. I am the Goddess of the Moon,” Selkie said almost shyly, wide eyes unblinking. “The locket will still be there when you are ready, my queen” Her sing-song voice wove softly through the candlelit air. She shared the same lilting accent as Kaezlyn, yet from her mouth it sounded beautiful instead of deadly.

Kaezlyn cut her a glare so cold that Selkie seemed to fold in on herself, rosy colour blooming across her cheeks as she lowered her gaze.

Gods. Why were the imprisoned in the Hells?

My queen.

The words echoed through my skull like a blade striking bone, dragging something old and painful to the surface.

“I am no one’s queen,” I murmured, staring down at the dark wine almost now drained from my chalice.

I was a princess who had died beneath the weight of expectation. A girl too sharp, too strange, too unhinged to fit inside the mould of perfection they had carved for me. A queen did not stand in the ruins of herself, fractured by gods and monsters and men who had all decided what she was allowed to become. I was too broken to be worshipped. Too ruined to be admired. Too monstrous to be loved.

“Maraveth was,” Kaezlyn breathed, so softly I almost thought I had imagined it.

My gaze slid to hers, and something flickered across her face before she covered it with a slow, cruel smile. “Before she broke the kingdoms for⁠—”

Helion rose in one fluid movement. The chair scraped back behind him as his hands planted on the edge of the table, the muscles in his arms coiling tight beneath his skin.

“That is enough,” he said, voice low and lethal. He turned and stalked out of the dining room, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the crystal chandelier above our heads.

“So dramatic,” Edgar murmured before taking another swig out of the bottle clutched in his hand.

Before I realised what I was doing, I stood and followed Helion out.

The hallway beyond the dining room was empty, bathed in the golden glow of candelabras that made the white walls look almost warm. But there was nothing warm in the silence he had left behind.

I did not know if I was following him because I was angry, worried, or because the thread of sunlight in my chest ached harder with every step. I only knew I stopped when I reached the door to his chambers.

The doors hinges creaked as I pushed it open.

He stood with his back to me, hands in his pockets as he watched ash flurry against the window.

“Helion?” I asked softly. I wasn’t sure why, but I needed him to look at me. To torment me. To see those infuriating dimples in his cheeks. But he didn’t so much as glance towards me.

I shut the door behind me and crossed the room toward him slowly, as if one wrong step might make him vanish.

He stood with his back to me, shoulders rigid beneath the candlelight, every inch of him held too still.

I placed my hand on his shoulder. His warmth seeped into my palm, making my fingers tingle.

“Riven?” I tried again, using the name I had known him by before he hurt me. The name he had begged me to call him.

His eyes fluttered closed for the briefest moment, lashes brushing the tops of his cheekbones like a delicate kiss as he breathed out through his nose. He moved out from beneath my touch.