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I was the child once again, trapped and helpless in Byron’s hold. I knew the years of suffering that would come from this moment, I knew the way those hands would cause me so much pain only to try to bandage it and wipe it away—to soothe the hurt he caused.

I’d placed my hands before me, wringing them together as I fought not to scream out my grief. I watched as my fingers shifted, as the darkness inside of me climbed to the surface and consumed my innocence right then and there. It clawed its way up my throat with a rumbling growl that felt more beast than human, far more animal than a child could be.

I rolled my head to the side, fighting against his grip in my hair as I touched my hands to his chest. Darkness bloomed over the fingertips of a child, talons spreading from my nail beds into something from my worst imaginations—becoming a reflection of the monster I’d become.

I sank my nails into his skin and watched his shirt bloom with red beneath my touch. Tears streaked down my cheeks, drenching my dress where it met my throat, as the innocence of a child warred with the monster I’d become. I felt her within me, the little girl who was so completely horrified by what I was doing.

Not even death and loss could excuse murder, not to a child who saw the good in people.

I shoved my hand into Byron’s flesh, enjoying the way his bones cracked beneath my touch and scraped at the surface of my hand so similarly to thethorns of the Twilight Berry bushes he’d made me harvest all those years in the gardens so that he could tend to my injuries later after the sun went down.

These were the scars I would gladly wear for the rest of my life, the ones written in vengeance and justice.

My mouth parted into a scream, the shrill sound of a child’s horror filling the air as Byron’s eyes faded to white. I pulled my hand free from his chest, my fingers completely wrapped around the delicate flesh of his heart. I stared into the hollow void I’d created within him, feeling nothing but relief that he couldn’t hurt her.

He couldn’t spend the next decade erasing everything of the child who’d been kind and sweet and forgiving and molding her into a monster who could kill without mercy.

I split from my childhood form the moment he collapsed to the ground, shoved free from her and becoming weightless once more. Her eyes were wide as she stared at me, seeing me before her for the first time.

Her horrified eyes were the purest of night skies, the glimmer of starlight shining up at me as she tipped her head to the side. Tears covered her cheeks, her face a mangled red mess of terror as she studied me.

I stumbled back in shock, dropping Byron’s heart as I tripped over a swell in the earth and fell through space and time.

I’d thought I was protecting her from the monster who meant to harm her.

But I’d only shown her the even worse monster she would become.

THIRTY

ESTRELLA

The platform dropped, lowering me closer to the sands beneath me. I sat suddenly, my stomach becoming weightless for a moment that lasted far too long before the platform stopped suddenly, the chains holding the scale swaying above my head as they worked to halt my descent. My gaze snapped to Melinoe on the other platform, her face carefully blank but for the victorious gleam in her eye. Her platform had risen, taking her farther from the wildcat prowling the sands beneath me and waiting for its next meal.

I glanced across the distance to the obelisk where Khaos had risen to his feet. His hands grasped the edge of the platform he’d made into his home, his fingers digging in so that the wood of the structure cracked beneath his grip.

There was a moment of panic in that gaze, of horror that I’d failed in my task as Melinoe’s golden sleep powder drifted over my head once more to drag me into another dreamscape. I held that starry gaze, seeing the same stare in his eyes that I’d seen in my childlikeface as a memory even as the first hints of sleep made my upper body sway.

“Overcome yourfear, Estrella,” he said, his voice dropping low. It carried across the distance to me, his eerie calm filling me as I let my upper body lie back on the platform once more. The river churned overhead as my eyes slowly drifted closed, the poisoned green of the water hiding the flames of Tartarus above.

My eyes closed finally, and my body tensed as sleep took it—preparing for the horror that would wait for me in my mind.

I woke, the grit of sand on my hands as I shifted. The leather armor I wore was wet, creaking with every movement as I got to my hands and knees and pulled myself out of the azure waters of the cove that served as the entrance to Tartarus. I scrambled along the sand, racing for the corridor that I knew would take me to Mab’s court.

To Caldris.

To my mate.

I didn’t know how I’d gotten here, how I’d managed to return without completing the trials. The snake from Medusa remained wrapped around my bicep as I moved, hurrying for the body laying upon the sand and scanning the beach for signs of any others who might have remained in this place.

Caldris’s familiar black armor was covered in sand, the grit sticking to him as the tide lapped at his legs. He didn’t move as I placed my hand on his ankle, using his boot to pull myself toward him as everything went hazy in my head.

The world around us faded from view, leaving only the sight of my mate laying still upon the sand.

Too still.

The wheeze of his breath reached me as I curled myself over him, staring down at the way his golden skin had paled. His lips were nearly blue, his hands grasping a gaping wound in his chest. He clung to the final threads of life as I shook my head, my eyes burning with shocked tears that didn’t dare to fall.

I touched a hand to his chest, covering the hole that led to the mangled mess of his heart. The snake that had once been wrapped around it slithered free, wrapping itself around my wrist with a gleam of iron teeth.