“I can’t let you do this,” he said, the strain in his voice carving deeper lines into his face with every second that passed. “Atlas asked me to protect you at all costs. That includes putting your life above his.” He exhaled slowly, his enormous shoulders sagging as the conflict tore through him. “We can find another way.”
Something in his tone told me he didn’t truly believe that. There wasn’t another way that would get us there in time.
I took his hand, grounding myself in the familiar strength of him, and met his gaze.
“We’re running out of time,” I said quietly. “This is the only way.” I gave him a tight smile and pulled back, but his hand closed around my arm.
“Alex, please,” he said, then stopped, swallowing hard. “Atlas will never forgive himself if he kills his brother, even for something he has no control over,” I reminded him, but his grip tightened. It only loosened when I winced, his eyes widening with immediate regret.
“He’ll learn to live with his mistake,” Aster insisted, his voice breaking. “But he will never forgive us if…”
He looked at the stones, and the fear in his eyes was unmistakable. Meaning he didn’t need to say more.
“I know,” I said. “But neither will I. And this is my choice. With it, I choose Atlas.”
That was enough.
He let me go.
Theron extended his hand toward the stones, offering assistance, but I met his gaze and stepped past him instead, pushing my way between the towering slabs on my own. The air shifted the moment I crossed the threshold, the ground beneath my feet warming as I moved toward the center of the circle.
Fire pulsed from the stones as they responded, the flames circling low around me.
“Speak,” Theron said quietly. “Tell the stone you accept the vow.”
My throat closed.
The words I wanted tangled together with the ones I feared, promises and consequences knotting too tightly to voice.
“It is too late to change your mind now, little mortal,” Theron added, and this time I thought I heard something like pity beneath the authority. But he was wrong. I hadn’t changed my mind.
The flames flickered higher around the stones, heat radiating inward until my skin prickled, until the fire felt impatient, alive, as if urging me on.
“Speak,” he repeated.
“I promise,” I said at last, my voice unsteady as the flames warped and began to spiral, tightening their circle around me the moment the words left my mouth. “I promise I will grant…”
I hesitated, watching the fire move faster, brighter. Did I call him King? The Gorgon King? Theron? Did it matter?
The answer came too quickly to escape.
“Theron of House Chrysaor,” I said, my voice shaking but clear enough to carry through the circle. The flames seemed to still at the sound of his name, drawing closer, leaning in as if listening. “I give you my word. I vow that when the time comes, at a moment of your choosing, I will grant the bargain you claim of me. I will aid you as I am able, without deceit or evasion, and I will not break this promise, no matter the cost.”
The last words settled into the air like a final stone laid into place.
The fire answered.
It surged upward in a blinding spiral, roaring as it closed around me, heat washing over my skin in waves so intense my breath caught painfully in my chest. Instinctively, I raised my arms, shielding my face as my hair clung damply to my cheeks, my heart pounding hard enough I was certain it would tear free of my ribs. The flames did not burn, not truly, but they pressed inward, slipping beneath my skin, seeping through muscles and bones so intensely it was all I could think about.
It was not pain.
It was pressure.
Something vast and stubborn pushed against my mind, probing, searching, as if fingers were rifling through my memories, my fears, my deepest intent. Images slammed into me without warning. The Labyrinth twisting endlessly beneath a blood red sky. Atlas standing at its heart, his face drawn tight with fury and grief. The Rift split wide, darkness pouring through as bodies fell around it like broken dolls. Riley’s hollow eyes staring back at me, followed by my uncle’s face, pale and distant, lost to something I still didn’t understand.
Then I saw myself.
Not as I was now, but crowned, standing beside Atlas, his hand clasped tightly in mine, love and something like sorrow etched into his expression. A battle flashed past too quickly to grasp, only the hint of steel and fire and screams. Then a woman I didn’t recognize, her face blurred as if my mind refused to hold it.
