Page 76 of Hell's Secret Omega

“Leuther is dead,” he begins, which seems to be the most important news. “And the Grey Company must have flooded the tunnels at the same time Magnus unleashed the serpents on us, so his dream of expansion is also dead.”

Mezor nods. “I saw the tunnels.”

“The Court is leaderless. It’s hard to say what will happen.”

With Leuther gone, those left will split into factions within factions. But he finds it hard to care.

“In the midst of all that, you freed a rok,” Mezor says.

Cyrus looks for Ekko automatically. The bird perches atop a peak in the craggy landscape, his head tucked under his wing. He took flight as soon as they crossed through the gate, shaking water from his wings, and Cyrus half expected him not to return. But here he is.

“What do you call him?” he asks.

“A rok,” Mezor says. “He’s one of Hell’s most fearsome predators—they eat young serpents for breakfast. I have never seen one so placid.”

“He was a prisoner when I met him. He might have even been raised in the cage. I worried he wouldn’t know how to fly. But I didn’t need to worry—he’s too clever.”

“Many would have left him to die.”

“I’m his friend. He saved me.”More than once.

“I’m indebted to him for that.”

“So am I.”

Cyrus sinks into Mezor’s arms, careful not to jar his aching wounds. Mezor’s fingers card through his hair gently. His eyes drift shut and his heart swells as the bond wraps comfortingly closer. But a thread of uncertainty keeps him from falling asleep. His thoughts turn slowly as Mezor’s chest rises under his cheek.

“What now?” he wonders out loud.

“Now…” Mezor trails off. A flicker of unease enters the bond. His breath brushes the inside of Cyrus’s wrist. “Now I plant the last world seed.”

Cyrus nods. He doesn’t understand the feelings that war in him. Where he’s connected to Mezor, he’s grounded. But in his heart a storm swells.

Freedom. Power. Respect. Things he longed for are within his reach now. The Grey Company accepted him into their ranks, and someday he might even forgive them for what they did. Yet what he truly wants, what he dreams of now, is something transcendent. Something he can’t name for fear of losing it.

Chapter 43

CYRUS

Selfishly,Cyrus wishes for more time. He feels a shift, a sense that pieces are moving in a way he can’t control.

Mezor takes him along the border of the pit to the site of Leuther’s tower. It should be a short trip, but it takes a day and a half with Cyrus’s back still healing. The half-built tower sits on a rocky hill, with decaying forest on one side and a wasteland of broken shale on the other. The looming figure of Mount Hythe is silhouetted behind it like a ghostly twin.

Perched on a fallen log Cyrus watches his primus tear down the half-constructed walls with his bare hands.

It feels like a different lifetime he begged Mezor to take his heat. He’d believed he was helpless, powerless, and hated Mezor for his effortless strength.

But even the strongest soul has cracks.

Once it seemed impossible that he could offer anything of value to someone like Mezor, whose life is nearly unfathomable. Now he understands. When Mezor was inside him, when his knot filled up all the empty spaces—when Cyrus was taken over by him completely and they were nothing but primus and vergis—he saw how they could become one. Out of two broken creatures, a whole could emerge.

As Cyrus watches Mezor’s furious work, Ekko swoops down to land beside him. His beak is bloody and he looks smug. Cyrus scratches his chest, heedless of the mess. His heart is glad to see Ekko flying free.

“You’ll have to find your own kin soon,” he tells Ekko, who cocks his head silently as if pretending he doesn’t understand. The blazing creature from Cyrus’s near-death hallucination is gone. It’s his golden eye that now turns to Cyrus—the black eye looks away from them, watchful.

Soon the tower is nothing but a pile of rubble. Mezor comes down the hill and Ekko takes off with a screech, the wind off his wings stirring up dust and yanking at Cyrus’s shirt.

“He doesn’t like me,” Mezor remarks.

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