Her corporeal form flickered between life and death as the blooms of spring wilted and left behind a forest of thorns that mutilated and twisted the chaos inside until it was as dead as she was. Ruby red talons extended from each finger as Persephone became the piece on the board Hades never considered.
“Come now, Beauty.” Hades extended a waiting hand. “If you’re done having your tantrum, I’ll take you to see the rest of our kingdom.”
Persephone closed the distance between them and grasped his hand. A smile was his only warning before she struck with lethal speed and grace. Her clawed hand plunged through Hades’ chest and Persephone breathed a deep, gratifying sigh as she ripped aside bone and muscle to pull the beating heart from his chest. Hades gasped, the fleeting moments of shock lingering in the rattle of his breath.
“Your pompous attitude was always your greatest weakness, Hades,” she whispered. His head rested on her shoulder, body slack and leaning against her. He wasn’t dead yet. He was a daemon with the power of an Olympian and Titan combined, but a soul could not inhabit a dead body.
A pearlescent light drifted from his open mouth and Persephone hummed as she consumed it. “As weak and gullibleas I was, Hades, I was observant while you were quick to dismiss it. I want you to know it’s your arrogance that got you killed.”
She bit his earlobe, the sharp point of her canine coaxing forth a bead of blood. His eyes moved back and forth, pleading silently for a mercy he wouldn’t receive.
Persephone pushed his lifeless form to the floor and sneered as she watched it fall before kneeling by the shell of who she was. She allowed herself one moment of remorse to mourn the ingenuous girl at her feet and everything she could have been.
Persephone stared into those unseeing eyes before she closed them for the last time with a brush of her hand. She leaned forward, placed a gentle kiss on each eyelid, and rested her forehead against the girl she used to be.
Persephone lifted and wiped away the tears as she let her newfound darkness fill the gaping hole in her chest. She opened the rib cage of her corpse and replaced her withered organ with Hades' still-beating heart. It was faint, and fading fast, but it wasn;t gone yet.
She didn’t know what to expect since Hades words were her only guidance. Soulmates only needed a single heart to survive. Whatever cruel trick of fate or chaos that was, it was disgusting and she would see it crushed.
The heart melded seamlessly and began the work of regeneration and reanimation. Before long, the remnants of Persephone’s past was sitting in the chair across from Hades’. The body was near lifeless, staring into the flames, mouth slackened, but it would do.
She sat in Hades’ chair and pulled his chess board close. To her shock, the game had changed. Gone were the generic pawns and crowned queens. In their place were pieces of obsidian carved in the likeness of all of the most powerful daemonin Olympia, and standing beside Hades was Persephone. Her name soured on her tongue as she stared at the pieces.
She was not that girl anymore. She was a goddess torn in two, split between maid and monster.
As she stared at the ongoing game of gods, a name bubbled to the surface worthy of her new prowess. “Melinoe,” she whispered.
Melinoe circled a taloned finger around the remaining piece of Persephone on the chess board before crushing it in her palm and looking at the pink-haired girl staring into the flames. “We’re going to do great things, you and I. You will walk among the living and be my eyes where I cannot see, my ears where I cannot hear. You and I are going to make them all pay, Rue.”
Xia’s shouts from the other side of the door sent a wave of emotion rolling through his system that he didn’t quite understand. Brooks was his better half, the part of him capable of analyzing emotion and empathizing alongside it. Chaos could identify it in others, but sympathy was as far as he could get.
The girl raging just inside the room, though? He loved her. Loved her more than he loved himself with no comprehension as to the hows and whys. Even the darkness growing inside of her called to the very core of his being and he longed for the both of them.
No matter. Comprehension wasn’t important. His role in the universe was not gray– it was black and white, something Brooks would never understand.
He took a deep breath and assessed the situation. His purpose was different from either of his companions. Their emotionswere too involved– revenge on the captor, confronting the doctor from the Asylum, and setting the scorecard even. None of it, though, was as important as the cycle of chaos.
The blood moon was in twenty-four hours and Xia’s demon drained him dry. They didn't know where the entrance to the Freakshow was or how to make it appear. He didn’t have enough chaos to summon a shadow, much less be of any aid in the face of danger.
A flutter of unease passed through his stomach, but Chaos was quick to squash it. All logic pointed to a true death if anything happened while his stores of power were so low. It wasn’t an option. If he ceased to exist, then so did Brooks. If they were dead, there would be no one to protect Xia. The short-term answer was to get a quick fix of chaos and there was only one way to do it.
Chaos swept a furtive glance around the hall and stopped toward the room furthest from his. He knew his Siren well enough to know that his actions would impact her, but they were necessary to protect both her and himself. The least he could do was start as far away as possible in hopes she would fall asleep before he reached the adjoining rooms.
Chaos planted his feet in front of room number one, closed his eyes, and pushed his awareness out in all directions. The bar below was in full swing with the late hour. Countless bodies were crammed in the small space below, scraping tables and clinking glasses adding to the cacophony drifting up the staircase.
It would work in his favor. No one would hear the screams.
He examined the bodies below, each appearing as a thin, glowing outline in his mind as his baser instincts detected their body heat. In the center of each mass was a black void that indicated the amount of chaos the daemon carried. Not a single patron below had enough to satiate his needs.
Pity. They would all be taken for the cause.
Chaos pulled his awareness from the lower half of the building and sent it out to the level he would start with. Every room apart from his and Nyx’s had at least two daemon, all of which were asleep except for Xia and four down the hall in room ten.
He took a moment to focus on Xia. The well of chaos in her center was massive, covering the entirety of her chest and belly. The last he’d checked, it was large but was still a calm, round mass in the center. Since she’d fed from him, though…
The difference was drastic. What once rippled like a clear pool of water now crashed like the blackest seas.
Chaos cleared his throat and refocused on the task at hand. He had an obligation to the universe to identify the cycle disruption and fix it. Two daemon slept in room one, and they would be the first to fall. He twisted the knob, its rusted lock no match for his strength, and swung the door open as the broken pieces of brass fell to the carpet.
