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A silent sob shook me as I realised they were the same flowers Rythos had painted time and time again.

The unnatural mist suffocating the shore had inched away, and the clouds parted, beams of sunlight kissing the sparkling white shoreline.

“I will come for you, Lyra.” Helion’s voice filled my mind, oozing with warmth and love.

“No,” I whispered back. “Be free.”

I clutched Rythos’ journal tighter against my chest as the bone guard carried me away.

The bond between us burned with a grief of his own, and I shut it out immediately.

Rythos had died loving me. Helion had been tormented for a thousand years for it.

Perhaps the kindest thing I could do for anyone who loved me was to endure this punishment, far enough away that I could not cause harm.

I looked out at the ocean through tear-filled eyes, the blue water sparkling under the warmth of the late afternoon sun as the clouds parted.

I’d lost everything I had ever wanted, but even with grief crashing over me in endless waves, I wouldn’t trade a single moment I had with him.

It was better to have known the sea and drowned in it than to have spent my life safely on the shore.

Chapter Fifty-One

The Broken Goddess

Lyra

One Year Later

Boots echoed against the walls of my cell, growing louder as whoever approached descended deeper into the darkness of the Nether like a countdown I couldn’t escape.

I did not bother lifting my head, wasting my energy on seeing whatever new torturer Astaroth had sent to my cell for me to break.

There had been a time when footsteps outside my door made my heart race. When I would search for windows, weapons, weaknesses in locks, anything that might offer escape before the guards arrived to drag me somewhere I did not want to go.

But the darkness of the Nether no longer frightened me. I had stopped trying to claw my way out of myself.

I was the goddess who broke the world for love.

My fingers tightened around the worn leather journal resting against my stomach.

Rythos’ journal. The only piece of him they had allowed me to keep. Perhaps because Astaroth understood there were crueller punishments than taking it away.

I had read almost every page enough times that the words no longer needed ink. I knew the pressure of Rythos’ hand in every stroke, knew where his temper had driven the nib deeper into the parchment and where exhaustion had made the lines trail lazily towards the edge.

He’d sketched the faces of the people I loved, as though somehow, he’d known I might one day need reminding of what they looked like.

I flicked to the last page he’d written on, a passage I assumed he had written when I was planning my death with Cerilla.

It was a page I had tried and failed to read more times than I could count, each attempt ending with tears streaming down my face and that ungodly ache devouring my chest.

Astaroth would then appear at my cell to inform me that somewhere above, another coastal town was drowning beneath my grief.

No one else needed to suffer because of me, but today was the day I would read it without drowning the kingdoms in my tears.

I let out a steadying breath, fingers tracing the curve of his writing, and I smiled softly, almost picturing him writing.

Lyra,