“How did I get here?” I ask, trying to drag up the last thing I remember. The bonding with Nadir, searching for Willow, finding Rion in the tunnel, his dark magic, and then everything going black.

“Willow,” I shout. “Where is my sister?”

Herric’s face twists into disdain, and he gestures across the room. “You might have to ask him.”

My hands tighten on the bars as I look across the space. Rion sits at the bottom of a cage matching mine, his legs up and his arms wrapped around them. That fucking bastard took Willow. He brought me here. Our gazes meet, and I don’t understand what I read in his expression. If he did anything to my sister, there is no limit to the suffering I will visit upon him.

But I see no anger or hate.

None of that cold, brutal arrogance I remember every time I close my eyes.

There is nothing left as if he’s become only a brittle shell of the Aurora King.

“Then why am I here?” I demand, turning back to Herric.

“Ah, that is the right question, isn’t it?”

He strolls a few paces before he spins and walks back slowly, every step deliberate.

Heel. Toe. Heel. Toe.

“You’re here because of this.” He reaches into an invisible pocket and draws out the ark of Heart. Oh gods. No. I think back to the notes we found in Rion’s study. I was right.

All this time, we’ve been so focused on Rion’s plans when it was actually the Lord of Hell who we should have been worrying about.

He stops and faces me, twisting the object between his fingers.

“I want you to destroy it,” he says.

“Why?” I ask, stalling for time because I know why.

He wants to kill Zerra and take her place.

His mouth twists up at the corner. “Because I’ve been trapped down here for thousands of years, and I’m tired of it. I have waited a very long time to take my rightful place as a god, and you’re going to help me.”

I blink, cursing my utter stupidity. In my desire to save myself, have I opened the door to something so much worse?

“How does that work? How will it free you?”

Herric grins and tosses the ark in the air before he catches it. He paces a few steps and then pivots around with his hands behind his back. “While everyone believes the Artefacts to be the most powerful objects in Ouranos, this ark is imbibed with years of Heart magic. Mined from the lowest pit of the mountains, it contains multitudes.”

He spins the end on the tip of his finger, the sparkles flashing in the light.