Mal froze.
Her grip on Kage tightened, fingers clutching at his arm as though anchoring herself to the one truth she could not bear to lose. She saw the faint narrowing of those sharp, dark eyes, but he did not pull away. Instead, he allowed the contact, as if hetoo, sought solace in her touch.
‘I don’t understand.’ Mal’s voice trembled as violently as her hands, clutching him harder, terrified that if she let go, he would vanish into nothingness. ‘Who did this?’
‘Freya,’ Thanatos said, his tone flat yet edged with shadow.
Kage’s gaze snapped to him, a flicker of cold annoyance flaring across his face.
‘Why?’ Mal whispered, rage trembling just beneath her skin, barely restrained, a wild storm threatening to burst free.
‘Because she wants you to kill Hades,’ Thanatos explained, his eyes dark as obsidian. ‘With Hades gone, she reclaims her throne, her crown… and her children. But for that to happen, she needs the God-Killer.’
‘Don’t,’ Kage growled, teeth gritted, voice laced with iron. ‘Whatever happens, Mal, do not kill Hades.’
But their words barely reached her. The world blurred and bled away, consumed by the raw, unrelenting anger rising within her like a tidal wave. Kage’s eyes widened slightly as she crumpled to her knees, a scream tearing through her throat. Feral, shattering, unrestrained. She barely registered Thanatos’ arms around her, holding, steadying, pleading for her to return.
But Mal was already slipping away, plunging into the depths of her own torment.
Every fear she had ever buried surged to the surface, the terror of being different, of those cursed purple eyes that had drawn nothing but whispers and suspicion all her life. And yet, through it all, her siblings had been there smiling, steady, unafraid. They had never once flinched from her, never feared her difference. Even when the world had turned its back on her, branding her an outcast, her siblings had stood unwavering at her side.
Mal saw Haven as vividly as if she walked those halls oncemore, poised and elegant, every step a melody of grace. And then her body, broken and lifeless, sprawled upon the warm stone of the drakonian castle, her neck bent at a cruel, unnatural angle.
And Kage…Quiet, lonely Kage, gone too, erased from the tapestry of the world.
Why?
The question tore from her in a scream, raw and jagged, as the pain devoured her from the inside out.
All her life she had craved a purpose. When she had first learnt of her oath marriage to the Fire Prince, she had embraced it, longing to be needed, to be recognised, to be seen in a world where she had been invisible.
And now… now she would burn everything, tear time itself apart, just to return, to undo it all, to bring Haven and Kage back into her arms.
Her eyes snapped open. Black runes slithered like serpents across her hands and arms, carved in searing pain that pierced her very soul. It burnt through her, wild and relentless, twisting everything she was into something unrecognisable.
She fought it, oh how she fought. But it was too late.
Her grief became power, and it burst forth from her trembling hands, purple smoke writhing and coiling like living shadows between her fingers. She screamed, the agony finally breaking free, no longer containable.
Let go of your pain,a voice whispered, soft as silk yet sharp as a dagger.
The magic grew, overwhelming, mingling with her god-blood until it felt too vast, too feral to contain.
Become what you were made to be.
She fought it still, fought the agony of loss, of being hollowed out by the weight of absence, of losing not only them,but herself.
The purple magic crept higher, devouring her arms, her throat, searing into her mouth, flooding her eyes until it poured through her like a tide, unstoppable, inevitable, claiming her.
Mal no longer heard Thanatos.
She no longer heard Kage.
She heard nothing save for a voice.
A sinister whisper, laced with laughter, curling through the hollowed chambers of her heart. It soothed the jagged edges of her grief, stroking it away, piece by piece, until the pain dissolved entirely, leaving only a cold, blissful emptiness.
And Mal… Mal let it happen.
