"I'm not."
"Yes, you are. And you should be," she added. "You should be scared, otherwise you'll become reckless. This power you have, my dear," she said, pressing her hand against my chest. "It is bigger than me, than any of the Gods. This power of yours does not just belong to the Ancient world, it belongs to your mother and to their line. It belongs to the seers, to the ones that suffered long before us, and to the destiny no one can outrun. So trust me," she lowered her voice, "you should be scared. But fear isn't always a bad thing. Sometimes that same fear is what could keep you alive."
She suddenly stood up, leaving me on the bed with the fear she spoke of. I didn't want to feel it before. I didn't want to acknowledge it, thinking it would make me weaker somehow. Thinking it would make me lesser in their eyes. Yet now, as she turned on the light on the lone lamp in the corner of the room, illuminating the small room I was in, I allowed it to spread through my body.
Not to control me, but to wash through my bloodstream and to actually push me to get up and face the music.
"As long as you don't let it control you," Elandra added, "fear isn't the worst thing to feel. Now," she smirked as she lifted her hand, caressing one of the snakes, "Alyana made dinner, and seeing as you haven't eaten anything since yesterday morning, it's about time we feed you."
Yesterday? What does she mean… "How long was I asleep?" I looked at the window, slowly realizing the light trickling in wasn't morning light, but remnants of the day as the darkness of the night took over. "What time is it?"
"You slept the entire night and day, Kaira." She chuckled, slowly moving toward the door. "I'm surprised you're still able to even think, not to mention make any decisions."
As if on cue, my stomach grumbled, reminding me that I ate almost nothing for more than a day apart from a little bit of that omelet and a chamomile tea.
"We can talk after dinner." She nodded to herself, before turning around and walking out of the room, leaving me in semi-darkness with a thousand different thoughts flickering through my mind.
The urge to stay in bed and hide from the rest of the world was strong, but it wasn't stronger than my need to finally face this. To finally start living. I'd been allowing myself to slowly wither, disappear from life. I allowed grief to destroy the pieces of me my family loved.
I allowed myself to destroy the good memories, only ever thinking of the night when they got ripped away from me. Death finds us all, but it is up to us how we spend those days leading to the inevitable, and I refuse to taint the memories I was left with by trying to outrun the bad.
I was no longer running. I was no longer hiding.
My bare feet pressed against the surprisingly warm stone floor, and as I stood up and walked toward the window, I couldn't stop myself from feeling it again. From feeling eyes onme—watching, waiting, observing. The only difference was, this time I knew whose eyes those were. This time I knew it was the green-eyed God of the Dead that kept watching me even though I had no idea why.
This time I knew it was him I kept dreaming of, and I would find out why.
The way he held me. The way he carried me through the house, didn't exactly scream of someone who didn't give a fuck about me. I couldn't remember much from the day, but I could remember his frantic eyes. I could remember the way his tattoo glowed unnaturally the moment I touched him, and I fucking knew he was hiding something from me.
Something else that had nothing to do with my heritage or my so-called destiny.
He was hiding something, and I would find out what.
17
HADES
Memories existed,suspended in the void of time, blending with reality with every step I took, refusing to let go even when I tried not to think of the past that now brought nothing but pain. With each passing year, each century, each millennium, it was getting harder and harder to breathe, proving my existence in this world would only bring more suffering.
Yet I knew the end would never come. At least not for me.
But for the first time since that cursed day, my body didn't try to crumble after walking for longer than an hour. After almost an eternity, it didn't feel like my insides would collapse, sending me to the sweet embrace of death I so desperately craved, and I had her to thank for it.
The silver-eyed beauty.
The vicious queen returning to take her rightful place.
The place that stayed empty for more than five millennia. The place on that throne was only ever reserved for her. The place where I held her, the place where I loved her, the place where I fucking lost her.
I couldn't understand it at first, at least not fully. I couldn't understand the pull, the need, the yearning. I couldn't understand anything until she wrapped those hands around mythroat, activating the only rune that ever mattered. Her rune. Her mark.
The mark of our bonding, of our souls forever belonging together.
The mark she gave me when another body and another pair of eyes stood before me. When she was just a maiden and me just an asshole, desperate to just hold her hand, begging the Universe to let her love me. To let me have at least that, after an eternity of living in darkness.
I begged for just a little bit of sun, a little bit of happiness, until that very Universe took it away the same way I was given it.
Through blood.
