Their focus was singular and loud:
Kill Persephone. End the cycle. End the threat.
Every time I stretched my shield toward someone else, a chimera lunged for my throat. A serpent snapped at my legs. A harpy dove from above; talons aimed at my eyes. I cut them down, but a dozen more took their places.
And I still couldn’t reveal my weaving fully. To do so now might save a few more students, but it would cost me everything in the end. My final plan would crumble like ash. My enemies would see that Persephone had fully returned, and they would bind my power before I could be free.
They had done it before. Trapped me. Sealed me. Made me helpless.
I needed them to underestimate me a little longer. Only until the moment was right.
But that meant watching students die. Watching them fall to claws and fangs and treachery while I held back the power that could save them.
It was agony. Each death tore something from me.
My gaze shot toward the balcony where Hades fought alone against a circle of Olympians.
He was outnumbered twelve to one, outpowered by gods drawing strength from their domains while he had been severed from his own.
I couldn’t go to his aid. Even if I unleashed everything, that balcony, warded by gods’ blood magic and spells, was beyond my touch, just as he was beyond mine.
An ocean stood between us. Vast. Uncrossable. We could see each other, hear each other’s cries, but we could not go to each other.
And his power was a pale shadow of what it should be. A guttering candle where there had once been an inferno.
The truth gut punched me.
Shit! The curse’s venom no longer touched me. I had broken it. Reclaimed every thread, every stolen piece of power. But its claws were still in my mate. Still draining him with every breath. For millennia he had endured that slow bleed. The constant weakening. The gradual death of what he was.
A lesser male would have been reduced to nothing, would have gone mad.
He had been offered a way out. Many times. Denounce our bond. Take another queen. Be free.
Each time, he had refused. Every single offer of escape, he had spat back and chosen me.
Even when I did not remember. Even when I looked at him with fear instead of love.
He always chose me.
And the curse in him would not break—could not break—not until I revealed myself fully before the gods. Before our enemies. In a declaration that could not be denied.
They had to witness Persephone’s return. Only then would the bindings of the God of Death finally shatter.
Sweat stung my eyes. My hands grew heavy as I cut down another chimera before beheading a serpent, its tail thrashing.
Jus then, the north gate toppled.
Dante charged through in his full archdemon form—horns cutting the air, skin glowing like magma. His battle-ax swung with savage force, carving through the hunters, as he tore a path toward me, a wake of carnage behind him.
Cerberus followed, three heads breathing streams of fire. He took to the air, jagged wings beating back the smoke, and cleared a path straight to me.
Then the minor gods poured through the gate and joined the fray.
Hundreds of them—all hunting me. Their final prize.
I saw the arrow before I registered it, forged by Hephaestus and made to kill gods. The air shimmered in its wake as it flew straight for my hellhound’s middle head, between the eyes. A killing blow.
“Cerberus! Orren!” The scream tore from my throat.
