Slowly, before her eyes, the stumps on their backs began to rebuild, flesh and sinew and bone creeping together, multiplying.
Lidia turned from the gruesome sight. She could only pray they’d be healed in time.
“I’ll take it from here,” she said to Pollux and the Hawk, striding to the rack.
“I thought you were here to heal them.” The Hawk glanced between her and the angels.
“Only the wings,” Lidia said. “Why not play with other parts while they mend?”
The Hammer smiled. “Can I watch?”
“No.”
Ruhn stirred, groaning softly, and it was all she could do to keep from pulling one of the long blades from the rack and plunging it through Pollux’s gut.
“You know how I like to watch,” Pollux purred, and the Hawk chuckled. What an utter waste of life. He’d stood by while the Hammer committed his bloody atrocities. Had delighted in watching during those years with Sandriel, too.
The Malleus’s eyes gleamed with naked lust. “Why don’t you put on a show for us?”
“Get out,” she said, unamused. Pollux might pretend he had control, but he knew who the Asteri favored. Her orders were not to be ignored. “I don’t need distractions.”
The Hawk snickered, but obeyed, stalking out. A true minion, through and through.
The Hammer, however, walked over to her. With a lover’s gentleness, he put a hand on the side of her neck. And then squeezed tight enough to bruise as he said against her mouth, “I’ll fuck that disrespect out of you, Lidia. Bloody cunt or not.”
Then he was striding up the steps, wings glowing with his wrath. He slammed the door behind him.
Lidia waited, listening. When she was convinced they were both gone, she pulled the lever that sent the prisoners crashing to the floor and rushed to where Ruhn lay sprawled.
“Get up.” She kept her voice hard, cold. But the prince opened his beautiful blue eyes.
She scanned his face. Ruhn. No one answered. As if pain had carved him up and hollowed him out. Ruhn, listen to me.
You’re dead to me, he’d said. It seemed he’d killed the connection between them, too. But Lidia still cast her thoughts toward his mind.
Ruhn, I don’t have much time. I managed to make contact with people who can help get you out of here, but the Harpy is somehow about to be resurrected, and once she is, the truth will come out. If my plan’s to go off without a hitch, if you are to survive, you need to listen—
Ruhn only closed his eyes and didn’t open them again.
* * *
Silence, heavy and unbearable, filled the chamber beneath the Prison. Bryce stared at the eight-pointed star, revulsion coursing through her in an oily slide.
“They were horrible,” she rasped. “Self-serving, reckless monsters.”
“Silene and Helena did shut the portal,” Nesta countered carefully.
Bryce’s gaze snapped to the female. “Only after they opened it again—to escape. It was open because they wanted to run. And they left all those people behind. They could have held it open a little longer, could have saved them. But Silene chose herself. She’s a fucking disgrace.”
“Surely their fate at Pelias’s hands,” Azriel said, “would explain some of their motivation in acting quickly.”
Bryce pointed to the place where Silene had stood. “That fucking bitch locked out children to save herself and then tried to justify it.”
It was no different than what the Valbaran Fae had done this spring in Crescent City—locking the innocents out of their villas while they cowered inside, protected by their wards.
“What did you …，” Nesta began, a shade gently. “What was it that you expected to find here?”
“I don’t know.” Bryce let out a bitter laugh. “I thought maybe … maybe they’d have some answer about how to kill the Asteri. But she glossed over that part. I thought that in the thousands of years since then, maybe the Fae of Midgard had evolved into the reprehensible shitheads they are. Not that they were reprehensible all along.”
She scrubbed at her face, eyes stinging. “I thought having Theia’s light was … good. Like she was somehow better than Pelias. But she wasn’t.” And Aidas had loved her? “I thought it’d somehow give me an edge in this shitshow. But it fucking doesn’t. It just means I’m the heir to a legacy of selfish, scheming assholes.”
And worse, that parasite in Midgard’s waters … what could even be done against that? Bryce sucked in a shuddering breath.