“Here we come, Kansas!” I said and turned the handle.
The last time Barbie was here, the door had swung open before she even touched it. The ancient gods had been desperate to see her, whispering in her mind whenever she passed, trying to lure her inside.
This time, the door opened onto a deep darkness shrouded in mist. A chill crept up my spine. Rowan tensed, and the other heirs grew still.
“Well, princelings? Are you coming?” I purred the challenge.
In response, Louis and Silas charged past me into the gloom.
I stepped through the doorway with Rowan holding my hand and Cade close behind. The door clicked shut with an air of finality, and then the void swallowed us.
“Where the hell are we?” Silas demanded.
“In a frozen hell, Silas.” Louis snickered.
“Don’t announce my name to a possible hostile force, vampire!” Silas snapped. “Names hold power.”
The shifter usually got into a pissing match with Killian, whom he saw as his ultimate rival. With Killian absent, his oldfriction with Louis flared up. Shifters and vampires were natural enemies. Without Cade and Rowan glueing the heirs together, the five of them would never have formed their brotherhood.
“And you just revealed what I am in return, wolf!” Louis retorted.
He usually called Silas a “dog” in their insults, but since Silas had specified his nature, Louis was returning the favor. He would not want the ancient gods to mistake Silas for a mere dog shifter. Precision was key.
I snickered. The power in this place was far greater than any of them; no deception would work here. But the heirs had a habit of lashing out when threatened, and everyone could feel the ancient, immense power pulsing around us.
“Cease your fire, children,” Cade called. “Remember where we are. Best behavior, as Sy said.”
Beyond the threshold, reality gave up. No walls, no ceiling, no floor. Just an endless void that made my head spin as I searched for something solid to focus on. Mist writhed through the space, darker than shadow, and occasional flashes of purple lightning cracked through the nothingness, illuminating shapes that even my mind refused to process.
The heirs were even more disoriented. I could see their minds struggling to make sense of this place and failing completely. I sympathized. While I’d been in the Red Room before through Barbie’s senses, experiencing it firsthand was entirely different.
The space, saturated with ancient power, assaulted every sense at once. My feet found no purchase, yet I did not fall. Air that wasn’t air filled my lungs. Staying here for even a day would drive anyone to irreversible insanity. The swirling darkness was more than an absence of light; it was a sentient force, heavy with eons of anger, helplessness, and agony.
“I feel…sick,” Louis managed, his knees buckling. If one of the most powerful pureblooded vampires admitted that, this shit was more serious than I thought.
We needed to leave soon for the heirs’ mental health. We couldn’t afford any of them to be broken when we walked out.
“Something is fucking with our minds,” Silas growled. “And who just stepped on an Alpha King’s foot? Back off.”
“No one is near your feet, brother,” Cade said, his voice weary. “It’s in your head. What you feel isn’t real.”
“Then what is real?” Silas snarled.
Rowan remained silent, his alert gaze fixed on the darkness ahead. He was the quietest and most observant of the heirs, with Cade a close second. My mate never wasted energy on nonsense. Now, he was focused on pinning down threats and protecting me.
Two shapeless figures emerged from the mist, radiating a broken yet overwhelming power. Every heir except Rowan took an instinctive step back. I tensed beside them, my muscles coiling and my fingers growing numb. If these beings froze my magic, I decided, I could still use my claws.
They were the first deities of Earth. Their power was once immeasurable, but now they were not even shadows of their former selves. They were fragments, desperately trying to reassemble into wholeness and failing with every attempt. It was a terrible existence.
I’d seen their original forms through Barbie’s eyes when they showed her the battle against Ruin. Isis had been glorious and perfect. Now, her single blazing blue eye kept sliding out of alignment, and her face was a mass of writhing shadows that seemed to scream in constant pain.
Nephthys was no better. He shifted continuously, struggling to hold his form. One moment he had golden eyes and silver hair; the next, they melted away, leaving behind the skull ofdeath he had become. Parts of him were pale shadow, his chest a void where his heart should have been.
They tracked our movements not with eyes but with the remnants of their divine senses.
“Old magic! You!” Isis hissed through her formless mouth. “It should never fall into that void-born abomination’s hands!”
“My name is Sy,” I said. They recognized me. During our last encounter, they’d fixated on Barbie, but my sister wasn’t here now. This fell entirely on my shoulders. “We came to talk. We share a common enemy. Ruin and his army will be here in less than six days. We need to find a way to kill him. Share your knowledge, and we will avenge you.”
