Page 65 of Hell's Secret Omega

Numb, Cyrus lets himself be dragged along.

Chapter 37

CYRUS

The stenchof the dead fills his nose. All the cages are full—another time, when the Court wasn’t on the verge of collapse, Magnus might lock new prisoners in with the old bodies.

Magnus points to the lip of the hole. “Get them down there. They can wait at the bottom to be executed or waste away, it doesn’t matter to me.”

His eyes land on Cyrus, and for a terrifying moment Cyrus thinks he’s going to be singled out. But Magnus turns away in dismissal. He has bigger things to worry about. Like the fact that he needs to find a new general’s boots to lick before someone decides he’s more hot air than he’s worth.

The soldiers usher them to the crack in the wall where Cyrus would scale the cliff to reach Ekko’s cage. They send a chain clattering into the dark. The prisoners balk.

“The serpents,” hisses the demon at the front of the line, grabbing the nearest solder by the lapels. “I’d rather be killed outright!”

Cyrus jolts.

“They’re gone,” he says, but his voice comes out a bare rasp. He tries again. “The serpents are gone.”

“That’s right,” the soldier snaps, looking to him briefly in surprise. “Trust the spy to know. Nothing down there but bones and filth. You could sit there twenty years in peace.”

“We weren’t ever enemies.” The demon’s tone turns pleading. He hangs on as the soldier tries to shake him off. “Come on. You got no general to be loyal to now!”

“Neither do you! Talos is long gone to the aether. You all could’ve toed the line and thrown your lot in with the rest of us.” The soldier finally dislodges him with a snarl. He wields the blade of his pike to keep him at bay. “We’re gonna make our own kingdom down here. What’s up there? Rot? Humans?Angels?” He spits.

“Go on.” A second soldier jabs the dissenter. “Climb down.”

Still chained, his arms cuffed, it’s a slow and excruciating climb. Cyrus clings to the chain and wonders more than once if he should simply let go.

Inch by inch they rappel toward the bottom, sinking into the black. The stench grows worse. Finally, the chain that holds them together jerks and there’s a splash.

“There’s water!” someone curses.

“Damn Claudius.”

“They could’ve waited?—”

“—Had to hit the tunnels?—”

The chatter washes over Cyrus. Exhaustion drags him down like stone weights. When he finally reaches the bottom of the hole there’s nothing left but numbness. He keeps moving blindly until the chain stops pulling. There, he slumps sideways into the rock and shuts his eyes.

In his heart, he knows the grotto is gone, and with it the only real peace he’s ever had in Hell.

Mezor could still find him. But…why should he? They aren’t mated. They aren’t truly vergis and primus, even if Cyrus is now stuck in this vergis body forever. It’shisfault the grotto wasdestroyed—he led Leuther right to it. They were looking for the King. Claudius told him so.

Follow the little spy to find his master.

Mezor should leave him to rot with the rest of the Court.

MEZOR

General Leuther’ssoldiers fall to Mezor’s claws like toys. His home is flattened, the creatures of his world tortured and turned against him, his vergis’s nest destroyed and his life threatened—Mezor is furious, and they’re no match for his fury. He tears through them without even exerting himself, staining his claws with their ichor.

When he’s done, he gathers their bodies and lays them in a line across the shale.

His rage drains away in the aftermath of the fight. He wipes his own blood off skin that’s crimson with exertion. If they set a trap for him at this end of the gate, Cyrus is equally in danger. He must find a way back to the Court. Yet another trip into the flooded grotto could break the gate, and he still has one final seed to plant.

Atop the cairn where he’ll plant the world seed he finds an unfinished tower, building materials scattered at the base of the hill. Its purpose is clear: a watchtower that will overlook both the pit and the wilds, giving Leuther surveillance over enemies coming from both sides. He can’t plant the seed here—it’ll never grow.

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