I turned away from the vision, looking back at the veiled goddess. "Why are you showing me this? To make me feel sorry for her? She wants to hollow me out and use me as a broodmare."
"I show you this so you understand the stakes of the choice you are about to make," Hecate said. "Hera's new plan... the gestation circle you found..."
"The god-killer," I said.
"A replacement lure," Hecate corrected. "Since the princes proved... uncooperative. She intends to birth a being of pure, concentrated magic. A beacon brighter than any sun. She will cast it into the void to draw the Devourer away."
My hands curled into fists. "I won't let her. That child... it would be made from me. I won't let her create a life just to feed it to a monster."
Hecate lowered her torches, the flames turning blue. "And there is the knot in the thread."
She stepped closer, her voice dropping to a whisper that sounded like danger.
"If you stop her," Hecate said, "if you destroy the project, if you deny her a lure... the Devourer will not stop. It is already at the gates of Olympus. If it isn't distracted, it will consume the High Seat. It will eat Hera and every other god. It will eat the very history of the stars."
I stared at her, the weight of her words settling onto my shoulders like a yoke of lead.
"You are telling me," I said, my voice trembling, "that if I save myself... if I save the child she wants to make... I am committing genocide? I am dooming an entire race of gods?"
"An entire reality," Hecate clarified. "Millions of spirits. Countless histories. Gone. Digested."
The moral dilemma was a physical pain in my gut. I looked back at the vision of the crumbling city. I saw families running. I saw beauty turning to dust.
"That's not fair," I whispered. "That's not a choice. That's a trap."
"It is a crossroads," Hecate said simply. "My domain."
She circled me, her robes whispering against the misty floor.
"You are the Unbound, Aria. You have broken every chain they put on you. But freedom has a cost. If you unleash your wrath on Hera, if you storm Olympus and bring it down... you doom them all to the void."
"So I should let her kill me?" I demanded, tears of frustration stinging my eyes. "I should let her use my blood to make a snack for a cosmic horror? I should let her killus?" I pointed toward where my frozen princes lay in the dark.
"I did not say that," Hecate said. She stopped, lifting a hand to touch my forehead. Her finger was cold as ice. "I am not here to tell you what to choose. I am here to ensure you knowwhatyou are choosing."
The fog thickened, obscuring the vision of Olympus. The silence of the cavern bled back in.
"We have to go there," I said, desperation making my voice sharp. "We have to find another way. There has to be a way to stop the Devourer without sacrificing an entire world."
"Perhaps," Hecate murmured. "Or perhaps some things are meant to end."
"Why help me?" I asked. "If you're an Olympian... doesn't this doom you too?"
Hecate laughed again, that dry, rustling sound. "I am older than Olympus, child. I was here when the first stone was laid, and I will be here when the last one falls. I do not fear the dark. Iamthe dark."
The world blurred, and the edges of my vision turned grey. The sound of water dripping returned, faint at first, then louder.
"Wait!" I reached out for her. "If I enter Olympus... will you help us?"
Hecate began to fade, dissolving into the mist. "I cannot interfere, Aria. The eyes of the High Seat are everywhere. If I tip the scales, they will notice. They will burn me, and they will burn you."
Her voice became distant, echoing as if from the bottom of a well.
"That is why you will not remember this conversation."
I stumbled, my legs feeling heavy. "What?"
"Knowledge is a weapon," Hecate’s voice whispered, surrounding me. "But it is also a burden. You cannot walk into the lion's den with the scent of my interference on you. Hera would smell it. She would know I betrayed her."
