Theo was thrown across the corridor like a rag. He hit a snow-drenched wall shoulder-first, slid down, and sat there for a second with his breath punched out of him, staring at his own trembling hands.

  'Always the weak one, aren't you?' he told himself.

  His ears rang.

  Outside, somewhere above, somewhere everywhere, Aron's war against Hermez shook the palace. The fight between a mighty herald and a god himself. Every blast of divine power made dust fall from the ceiling, making the snow shift again and again. Theo had expected shadow and stealth, a clean knife operation.

  Instead, this was chaos. This was Aron walking into a god's base and flipping the table over, and with that Theo's plans were shattered just like the marble columns.

  He pushed himself up, wincing as bruises sang across his ribs, and stumbled forward. "This. is. insane," Theo muttered through clenched teeth.

  He had seen James's disguise earlier. The idea had been clear: slip in. Move quiet. Rescue Peter. Leave. Then Aron came down on Hermez like a hammer and turned Olympus into a battlefield, and now Theo was just a half blood avatar trying not to get erased for standing in the wrong place. But orders were orders. Aron had said use this opportunity and save the little herald.

  "Easier said than done," he said as he walked around, still limping. He rounded a collapsed archway and froze.

  Bodies.

  Not dead, most weren't. But injured and embedded. Some were pinned under fallen beams. Some had legs caught beneath stone. A few were pierced by jagged shards of the building itself, blood turning the snow into dark stains.

  Avatars. His own kind. His fellow tools. One looked up at him with glassy eyes and reached out with shaking fingers.

  "Help," the man whispered. Theo's stomach tightened. Above, footsteps started to echo down. Theo looked up.

  True bloods dropped down from a higher landing, some limping, some with wounds knitting themselves shut as golden light crawled over their skin. They landed in formation even while injured, as if pain was an inconvenience they'd been trained to ignore.

  One of them stepped forward, the familiar one. Theo had forgotten his name, but it was the one who had saved him before from the beatdowns of the halfbloods. The true blood who had once looked at Theo like he saw potential instead of filth. The one who had called him talented. The one who had offered him a sliver of dignity… on Olympus's terms.

  His face was smeared with blood, but his eyes were sharp. "Theo," he said, voice cutting clean through the storm. "You. Help the injured."

  Theo's jaw clenched so hard it hurt. It wasn't a request. It was a reminder. His neck aching to follow, like the leash was being snapped back tight.

  Theo could feel it, the old humiliation flooding up like poison. The instinct to obey, because disobedience meant death. The certainty that his value was measured by usefulness. A tool again. A slave again.

  Theo's hands shook, and he forced them to still. He stepped toward the pinned avatars because his body just followed orders like always.

  But his mind screamed, but it seemed it wasn't loud enough. 'Follow for now, then you can save Peter smoothly,' he told himself. He knelt beside the nearest one, placed his hands on a beam slick with blood and snow, and tried to lift.

  The beam didn't move. His muscles burned. His breath ragged.

  The avatar beneath it whimpered as Theo ground his teeth, pushed harder, and then, from below, from somewhere deep in the palace, a scream echoed up through the corridors. A familiar scream.

  Pain and rage. A raw, broken sound that grabbed Theo's spine and yanked.

  "HELP—!"

  Theo froze. Every hair on his body lifted. Peter. Theo's head snapped toward the stairwell leading down. The familiar true blood barked, "Theo! Lift the damn beam higher!"

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  Theo's throat tightened. His hands were still on the beam. The avatar beneath it stared at him, desperate, pleading. Theo's heart hammered so hard it felt like it might rupture. Then another scream came. Closer. Even more panicked.

  "PLEASE—!"

  Theo stood right away. The true blood's eyes sharpened into warning.

  "Theo..."

  Theo didn't answer. He didn't know what to do. 'Come on, what are you doing?' he asked himself, but his heart was saying otherwise. In that very second, the ever so pitiful Theo felt pity for another being and then a voice came, a familiar one from within.

  'Go...' Aron whispered.

  That was enough, that voice was enough. "Fuck it!" he shouted, thinking nothing.

  And he turned

  And ran.

  Behind him, true bloods shouted, some angry, some confused. One voice cut through: "Should I deal with him?"

  The familiar true blood answered fast. "No. Saving the injured and helping our father is first priority."

  Theo heard it even as he sprinted. He didn't know whether to be grateful or sickened. He chose sickened.

  He took the stairs two at a time, slipping on snow, catching himself on the wall, breath burning. The deeper he went, the colder it became. The snow here wasn't just drifted, it was packed, forced, as if winter itself was trying to plug the palace's veins.

  Peter's voice echoed again, hoarse now. Theo followed it like a hook in his gut.

  Down.

  Down.

  Until he reached iron bars half-buried in snow. The dungeon.

  Theo slammed into the gate, shoved it open, stumbled inside. "Peter!"

  A weak movement in the corner. Peter was buried.

  Not just trapped, buried in snow and debris, only his head and shoulders exposed. His wrists were chained together with thick metal that glinted faintly, runes carved deep. His skin was pale, lips cracked, eyes wide with disbelief.

  "Theo," Peter rasped, and it sounded like he didn't trust what he was seeing. "Theo—help—"

  "I'm here," Theo bellowed, voice breaking. "I'm here."

  Theo dropped to his knees, clawed at snow with bare hands, ignoring the bite of cold. He dug around Peter's torso, freeing enough to grab the chains. The chains didn't budge.

  Theo pulled harder. Nothing. He wrapped both hands around the metal and heaved until his arms trembled. The chains didn't even creak.

  Too strong.

  Theo's mind raced. True bloods would come soon. Hermez had shouted something, he had heard it as well. The palace was sealing. Time was a knife at his throat.

  Theo looked around desperately. Stone wall. Ice. Snow. No tools to break. No key to unlock. His gaze snapped to the wall beside Peter's cell—old brickwork under layers of palace stone, reinforced, but already fractured by the avalanche and Cleave shockwaves.

  Theo swallowed.

  Peter followed his eyes and understood instantly. What he was going to do. "No," Peter said, voice sharp with fear. "Theo, don't—your hand—"

  Theo stood and stepped to the wall. He clenched his fist. His knuckles were already bruised. His body already hurt. But this wasn't about his body.

  Peter's voice cracked. "You'll break your arm, you idiot!"

  Theo didn't turn. He lifted his fist.

  Peter's voice softened into something desperate and human. "Stop Theo… we can find another way."

  "No time for another way, little herald," he said as his fist hovered a moment.

  Theo whispered, "He told me to save you. And save you I will. So shut up!"

  He punched. The first impact sent pain up his arm like lightning. Skin split at the knuckles instantly, blood blooming warm against cold stone.

  The wall didn't break.

  Theo punched again.

  Pain doubled. The sound was sickening, meat against rock. Bone grinding under pressure. Peter shouted, "Stop! Theo, stop!"

  Theo punched again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Each blow cost something. Each blow peeled him away from comfort. His knuckles tore wider, blood splattering across snow and brick. His wrist started to throb wrong—like it was shifting out of alignment.

  Theo gasped, breath ragged, and for a second his vision blurred.

  Peter gritted his teeth, as he tried to pull the chains, even though his muscles and vessels were showing from the torture. But no, he could do nothing but watch him.

  Peter's voice was frantic. "You're going to ruin your hand! You're going to—"

  Theo hit the wall again, and this time something inside his hand made a wet, cracking sound. Theo hissed through his teeth. The pain was so bright it nearly made him vomit.

  He kept going.

  Because the humiliation upstairs had been enough. Peter's scream had snapped something deep inside him.

  Theo wasn't mad. Not really. But his lord carried that madness. That raw chaos that attacked a god's base like it was nothing and expected his avatar to punch through stone like the world owed him something.

  Theo panted and whispered, half laughing, half choking, "You think I'm mad?"

  Peter stared at him, stared at his teary eyes, which more or less were from the sheer pain from his blood fist.

  Theo raised his ruined fist again. "I'm not mad," Theo said, voice low and shaking. "Your lord is. I finally feel like I know what I was lacking."

  He punched.

  The quality the old logical me never possessed — but now I realize it.

  He punched again. Blood sprayed. His fingers went numb but he punched again. The wall finally cracked, thin fractures spiderwebbing out from the impact point.

  Peter sobbed a bit, seeing a man he hardly knew, seeing the man who was enemy before, now helping him as such. "Theo, please—"

  "I lacked the madness Peter, I realized that, so stay shut!" Theo beckoned.

  Theo punched again and felt bone shift, felt tendon scream. His hand was a wreck. But the crack widened.

  Theo swallowed a scream and hit the wall again.

  Again.

  Again.

  Until, with one final blow that felt like tearing his own soul out through his arm—

  —the brick gave. A chunk broke free and fell inward, opening a ragged hole large enough to crawl through.

  Theo staggered back, clutching his hand against his chest. Blood ran down his wrist, steaming. Peter stared at the hole like it was impossible.

  Theo breathed, shaking. "We're leaving."