For almost thirty years, I felt her every breath, every heartbreak, every tear that fell on her cheeks, and I hated myself and the fate we were granted for keeping her from me. And I could feel the darkness coiling around her heart the older she became, begging to be released, to show its true powers.
Kaira curled her fingers around my shirt, the material bunching under her touch, but she didn't step away.
"W-where," she stammered, her eyes flickering around us. "Where are we?" Her light hair was spilling out of her braid, begging me to touch it, to feel the soft silk underneath my fingers. "What just happened?"
The more she spoke, the more her power awakened, reacting to her emotions, to her fear of the unknown. I had no idea how she was able to keep such a power under wraps for so long without destroying half of the planet with just her rage, but the more time I spent with her, the more I realized she wasn't like anything we thought she would be.
Generations on the island whispered of the prophecy and the God Slayer that would either save them all or imprison them forever, casting us all in darkness. They spoke of the killer that would finally end the tyranny of my brother and allow the immortals to continue living in peace, without the need toconstantly look over their shoulders, afraid the self-appointed dark queen, Hera, would come along, snatching them and manipulating them, turning them into their soldiers.
I knew the stories, the whispers—how could I not?—but I didn't dare believing in them, because I knew what power Zeus wielded. The same type of power that ran through Poseidon's and my veins. And ever the paranoid one, he made us take an oath never to harm one another directly, for harming another brother meant harming yourself.
So we didn't, couldn't, not that I wasn't tempted.
But she could.
With twin storms in her eyes and shadows living in the depths of her soul. The one that syphoned all the power her father had—the only God capable of destroying another with just a blink of his eye. The only other God capable of destroying us, the Ancients, proving to be a threat for my dear brother, rather than an ally.
"Hades," she whispered, her hand landing just beneath the mark I carried on my throat with both pride and hurt. Her mark, identical to the one Persephone used to have on her wrist. "I need to know where we are. And what happened. And why is this happening?" She spoke fast, her chest rising and falling rapidly as the emotions started suffocating the light she was granting me with. "Was it me? Or was it you? Was it?—"
"You teleported us," I interrupted. "Transported, call it whatever you want."
"Transpo—" She started, and then clamped her mouth shut, her eyes going comically wide. "B-but how?" Her hand crawled to her throat, those sharp nails digging into her own skin. The confusion laced with pain erupted from every pore in her body, suffocating the air until all I could smell and all I could taste was the debilitating fear gripping her in its clutches.
She stepped away from me, instantly leaving me in the cold clutches of the decay still spreading through my body, even with her so close. She may have touched the frail thread connecting the two of us, but the sickness spreading through my body was still there. A rot that took place the moment they extinguished Persephone's light, flared up, choking me momentarily.
"Kaira—"
"Where are we?" She looked to her right and then to her left, where the house that was anything but home stood in its dark glory, with a lone light turned on in the living room. I hated turning it off. It was my sick way of calling to her soul.
Calling her to come home.
I pressed closer, erasing the distance she had created. "We're at my home."Our home, I wanted to say.
"Your home?"
"Yes," I whispered, lifting my hand subconsciously and moving away the wayward strand of hair that fell on her face, tucking it behind her ear. "You transported us to my home."
Kaira looked up at me, her brow furrowing, and even without the ability to feel her mind, I could see the gears turning behind those silver eyes. I knew what she would ask even before the words slipped past her lips.
I understood her confusion when she looked at me back at Medusa's place, when I couldn't stand to stay there, listening to that fucking story one more time when I was the one that had to live it. I was the one who found her. I was the one who begged her not to leave me.
I was the one who had to tell her mother her daughter was no longer among us.
I was the one that was left behind, as a punishment from Demeter to live forever without the possibility of ever meeting her again. And I was the one that realized she was born into a different body, far from me, unable to hear me. Unable to senseme. Unable to love me because her soul was split in parts I couldn't touch.
"Persephone was your mate, wasn't she?" Kaira said, more as a statement than a question.
My entire body froze with my hand still on the side of her head, unable to move away even if I wanted to.
How could I tell her that once upon a time a God of the Dead fell in love with the Goddess of everything that was pure? Everything that was perfect, ruining her in the process? How could I tell her that I stole her, feeling the bond forming between us, even before she could feel it too?
How could I tell her I was the villain in every single one of her stories?
"She was," I answered, instead of letting the emotions choke me. I pushed down the regrets and grief, forcing myself to stay still. "And she died in the most horrible way, killed by those she trusted the most."
And it was all my fault.
Had I told her that Zeus couldn't be trusted, she never would've gone out to meet him and his soldiers. She never would've left the safety of Elysian Fields, trying to bargain with the God who only ever wanted more power. She never would've died had I stopped trying to protect her from every single thing, thinking she wasn't strong enough to deal with it.
