Page 77 of Hell's Secret Omega

“You’re a stranger,” Cyrus replies.

“I’m his competitor.” Mezor smirks. “Your protector—the role he’s also assigned himself. He’s devoted to you. Take him with you when you leave—he’ll be glad of it. I know I would.”

“He should be free,” Cyrus says fiercely, turning away. “He’s been imprisoned his whole life, and I won’t keep him by my side like a pet. He’s a wild creature.”

Mezor’s eyes grow sad. “You should let him choose.”

“What will happen to you when the last seed is planted?” Cyrus asks suddenly. “What if I could stay here?”

Does this have to end?

Mezor’s dark gaze bores into him. “My time will run out. There’s no future for you here. Promise me you’ll get back to the Grey Company and leave with them.”

He squeezes his eyes shut. He knew the truth, but it’s still painful to hear.

“Promise,” Mezor growls.

“I promise,” he gets out past the tightness in his throat.

“I have to plant the seed now.” Mezor’s hand comes down on his head, ruffling his hair affectionately. He swallows.

“Who sleeps here?”

“Ah.” Mezor hesitates. “No one. It was going to be me.”

A sudden shiver passes through Cyrus. “You?”

He nods. “Many years after the cataclysm, when my brothers were gone, I tried to sleep here. I thought if I waited long enough, sleep would eventually come to me. But it didn’t happen. I lay awake the whole time, watching the poison spread from Mount Hythe and seep into the land around me.”

“So you left.” He imagines Mezor lying under the rock, painfully aware, alone.

“I went back to the grotto and tended my garden. When Branok came to Mount Hythe, he found me and offered me a deal. After a hundred years of service he would use the Hellspring to help me.” Mezor’s brow furrows. “He was clever and persuasive. I believed him.”

“I want to plant the last seed for you.” Cyrus stands. “It doesn’t have to be you, does it?”

A bloom of emotion surprises him. Cyrus stumbles, catching himself on Mezor’s arm, and Mezor looks down at him with an odd glimmer in his eye. Warmth bursts in his chest.

“I’d like that,” Mezor says.

Cyrus climbs the hill with the world seed in his hand. Moss and vines crawl across the stone underfoot and glimmering grasses grow sparsely from the cracks. In the rubble of Leuther’s tower he crouches and digs a hole in the hard earth, carefully placing the world seed in its cradle. With the type of exquisite focus that only comes from exhaustion, he shakes dirt off the roots of a clump of moss to cover the seed.

The last step is a vial of water from the Hellspring. His fingers shake as he uncaps the tiny bottle and tips the contents out. The black drops soak into the dirt immediately and vanish.

When he’s done, he sits back on his heels.

Nothing happens.

Gravel crunches behind him, and he looks up at Mezor.

“It’s not enough,” Mezor says. “No one sleeps here, so it needs power.”

“Then what do I do?”

Mezor hands him an arrow and holds out his big hand. “Bleed me.”

“It needs blood?” Cyrus grimaces instinctively.

“Blood is power. The soul lives in your veins.”

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