Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

HALWEN

I nside the cave was … a cave. Okay. Not what I'd been expecting when Emlyn and I flew inside to rescue our friend from a prison that belonged to a power-hungry titan.

I slanted a glance at Em as he flew beside me, his grey wings driving powerfully through the stagnant cave air, his bearded face set in a ferocious glare that would have scared me if I wasn't in love with him.

The entrance chamber was nothing but craggy rock. There were signs that someone had been here—stairs carved into the stone, a disused track for a miner's cart, and tools left on the ground, but no cells. No prisoners.

Yet.

"Through there," Em said, pointing to a smaller mouth that led deeper into the cave.

I swallowed a swell of dread and nodded, failing to hide my panic when he flew ahead of me, cutting his wings tight to his side as he plunged into the darkness on the other side. I mirrored his movements, my wings sleek at my sides as I propelled myself through the opening, snapping them back out when I emerged and—

"Gods," I breathed, my wings faltering.

I regained control enough to set myself on the dark ledge this side of the opening, my heart slamming against my ribs in a panicked beat as I stared at the enormous space opposite us.

Well, I'd wanted a prison. I'd wanted cells.

In front of the ledge where Em and I stood stretched a chasm around fifty feet wide. On both sides of the black chasm, rising a hundred stories high and sinking lower than I could even see, were rows upon rows of cells made of sharp, glossy black stone. Every cell was lit a faint midnight blue, outlining the figures locked within.

I tilted my head back, trying to count the rows, failing to estimate how many cells were on each line. Fifty? Ninety? More? With how many rows were visible and how many more must lay in darkness… thousands of people were imprisoned here.

"Fuck," Emlyn breathed in horror, grabbing my arm to keep me close. A shudder went through his wings, brushing mine. "There must be thousands of them. Hundreds of thousands."

I swallowed and nodded, weight pressing on my chest. "How do we find Renna?"

And how did we ever stand a chance of surviving Cronus when this was only one of his prisons? How many people did he have locked up, ready for him to devour for power?

Give 'em hell, Halwen.

I bit my lip, remembering Erebus's presence this morning, remembering everything he told me. Cronus was obsessed with Wane's shadows because they were raw power, able to be moulded into anything, including this prison. But he only had a swath of shadow; Wane had hundreds of them.

We could undo this. Couldn't we?

Both Em and I jumped when movement scuffed the ground behind us, the rest of our family scrambling through the opening and seeing the full extent of what we faced.

"Holy…" Kai trailed off, the blood draining from his face. "How does he have this many prisoners?"

"He's been planning his escape for millennia," Wynvail said bitterly, staring at the cells. "I knew it would be bad, but this—" He clenched his jaw. "Where do we start?"

I swallowed, not even my mates' proximity settling my dread. "Wane," I breathed, caressing his soul. "Can you feel the magic that made this place? Is there any way you could—" I couldn't say unmake them. "Dismantle the cells?"

"Without bringing the whole thing down?" he murmured, biting the inside of his lip as he stared at the prison in horrified contemplation. The cells covered the whole cave, from top to bottom. There were more hanging above our heads and yet more sinking into the blackness below us, each one lit deep blue, interrupted only by the cave mouth and the ledge. "I don't think so."

"The creeps outside can't have been the only guards here," Harvey said quietly, his hands fisted at his sides. "Where are the rest?"

He was right.

"Shields," Emlyn ordered, and I responded automatically, reaching deep into my blood magic—and falling back with a cry when ten thousand heartbeats roared in my ears, thunderous and rapid. Endless.

Arms caught me before I could plummet off the edge of the platform, but I barely felt them. Heartbeats drummed through my skull, so loud and cruel that I felt blood trickle from my nose.

"Stop!" Wynvail yelled, his voice reaching through the clamour and noise. "Stop, Haley!"

He called me Haley again.

I gritted my teeth and shoved through the riot of deep, echoing thunder. I wrenched myself free with a roar and shoved my magic back into its pit of origin, panting heavily in Kai's shaking arms.

"Okay," I rasped, my vision swimming. "No shield."

"Guys," Verena warned, and Kai spun, carrying me with him.

I inhaled sharply at the sight of Verena's bright power overflowing her hands, forming rivers on the dark ledge as it dripped between her fingers.

Harvey rushed towards her, but her magic wasn't just forming golden rivers on the stone—it was sinking into grooves that were already there, carved but shallow, barely noticeable.

My stomach tightened, dread blooming. Feeding power into a prison Cronus created and forged from stolen shadows was about as far from a good idea as we could get. What if he felt it? Icy fear plunged my temperature lower.

"Something's here, pulling on my power," Verena gasped, shaking harder, more magic flowing from her.

No, no, no. We were supposed to get in and out before Cronus knew we were here.

"I'll find it and kill it," Wane swore with a lethal calm. He lifted his hands and shadows blasted from him, pouring into the chasm and racing up, up to the top of the cave, blacking out even the sapphire glow of the cells until I couldn't see my own hands in front of my face.

The only thing visible was Verena's golden magic, pooling, spreading, tracing grooves all across the stone and down over the edge into the dark below.

I tugged myself out of Kai's arms—with effort—and drew my volcanic blade. Don't be afraid of your power, Erebus said. So, I searched through myself, not for my blood magic but the volatile curse magic. Titan magic. Whatever it was, it flickered to life, old and dangerous and far too eager.

My blade flashed red, and my breath caught. Despite everything, I smiled. It wasn't panic, dread, or a hippocampus racing for me that lit my blade this time; it was all me, all my intention. It felt good—for at least a nanosecond until Verena cried out and her knees weakened.

Harvey caught her before she could fall, pulling her into his side. We swarmed around her like panicked moths around a torch, guided only by the light of her power.

"Found them," Wane said suddenly, vindictive satisfaction thrumming through his soul like a fire.

I jumped at a loud crash from below us, and held my glowing knife in front of myself, frantic to see into the darkness as a male roar of anger and fear cut the sudden silence.

"What's happening?" Emlyn demanded.

"Wane's got the bastard who thinks he can steal Verena's magic," Wynvail replied. His grin was sharp in the magic's light.

Tiny tremors moved through my hand, crimson light scattering across the ground and memories too close, too clear in my mind. Someone would die today. We always lost someone.

"Who the fuck are you?" Wane asked in a voice deeper and more dreadful than I'd heard before.

His shadows parted, and I sucked in a surprised breath when I watched a thick tendril of shadow drag a blond-haired man in his twenties up through the chasm and onto the ledge. Wane slammed him into the wall behind us hard enough that the whole cave rattled. "Give back the magic you stole."

"Stole," the man laughed, his teeth bared and something feral about his expression. His face was drawn, mostly hidden behind a grizzly beard, and his hair was long and ungroomed. He looked like a wild lion; every bit as golden and dangerous. "How can I steal it when it's mine?"

"It's not yours," Verena hissed, leaning into Harvey but glaring at the man Wane pinned to the dark wall. "It's mine!"

The magic thief looked at her—and stared. His eyes never left the magic overflowing her hands, golden and bright, but his eyes kept returning to her face.

Emlyn stepped in front of her with a growl. "Answer his question. Who are you?"

The proud ego left the bearded man; he slumped, not resisting as Wane's shadow held him against the wall. "Apollo. I am Apollo, and this sunlight came from me." He tried to look around Em's big shoulders to see Verena.

Phoebe's voice echoed through my head, as loud as any heartbeat.

You were fathered by Apollo.

I pressed my lips together when my bottom one threatened to cave in. She was ours —our family. We carved out a space for her amongst us, and she fit in perfectly. But we didn't stand a chance against blood family. She grew up in care; I knew the thoughts that tormented her, knew her hopes and dreams because they were mine. Why did my mum abandon me? How could she walk away when she was supposed to love me? Why didn't she want me?

I might hate her, might resent her, but if I ever saw her again, none of that would matter if she wanted me. If she apologised and said she loved me.

So, I gestured at Em to move aside. One look at Verena's face and I knew she remembered the prophet's words, too.

"You look so much like her," Apollo said, his voice a wreck of emotion.

Wane lowered his shadow, setting the god of sunlight, poetry, and whatever the fuck else down on the ledge. When Wane met my eyes, I saw my own heartbreak reflected back to me.

We'll be fine, I tried to tell him, sending comfort through all my bonds. We've loved and lost before. We'll be fine.

"Like who?" Verena asked, her voice rough as she took three steps towards the god. Towards her father.

"Ruelle. Your mother."

Verena sucked in a sharp breath, and I knew she no longer noticed the endless prison cells, or the people locked away in them. The only thing she saw was her father, her only family.

"You're my dad," she said, crossing the distance between her and Apollo. She didn't take her eyes off him.

"I am. I'm honoured to call myself your father."

Verena smiled. My stomach lurched. Every step seemed to take her away from us, to force us kicking and screaming back into that unbearable loss. She was family, and we were losing her.

She took the final step towards her father, her head high, and slammed a fist into his face.

Apollo staggered back in surprise, clutching his nose as it spurted blood. It was strange to see a god bleed, but they weren't superior beings anymore. After the war, they were reduced, their power diminished. And Verena broke his nose as easily as she would a mortal's.

"Where the fuck were you all my life?" she demanded, snarling at Apollo, sunlight trickling down her fists to the floor. "When I got my head kicked in by bullies, when I was starving and desperate, when I ran away because I couldn't stand my foster home anymore. Where the fuck were you?"

Heat built behind my eyes and poured out in tears. I let them fall silently, but a hitch in my breath gave me away and Em was there in an instant, folding his warm hand around mine and squeezing tight.

"I'm sorry," Apollo said gravely, his golden head bowed. He had no comeback to Verena's words. Asshole.

"Keep your 'honoured to be your father' shit to yourself," she laughed bitterly. "It means nothing. If you want to do something halfway decent, tell us how to destroy these cells."

Apollo's throat bobbed. He looked less like a god and more like a man right now, mortal and ordinary and—broken. Because he'd been locked up in this prison for fuck knows how long, exactly like my mate had been. 1

The god glanced from Verena to the rest of us and said, "You don't need to destroy them; you need to open the cages."