There was not even a scar to remind me of what happened. If it wasn't for me waking up in the creepiest fucking place known to a person, I would've thought I had imagined it.
God, I wished I had been imagining those three and the forest and… Hades. My God. Hades.
I ran from him and I'm pretty sure I teleported again, because one moment I could hear him advancing after me, together with Grimm, and in the next I was all alone, running down an unfamiliar path.
Mentally checking every single part of my body, I quickly realized I wasn't hurt. At least not physically. My mental state was something else altogether, and the longer I sat here themore my mind started creating different scenarios, none of which sounded good.
God, was it only days since I came to the island? It felt as if the year had passed, and as I looked out at the darkness beyond my cell—because that's what this was, a fucking cell—the more I started thinking that wasn't an accident.
Who were those three? My knowledge of mythical creatures was sparse, but they didn't belong to our side.
Closing my eyes, I relaxed against the stone-cold wall and dug deeper inside myself. The moment they appeared, it was as if my power decided to take a fucking vacation. So much for helping me if it would disappear the moment I needed it most. Yet, as I funneled through my mind, through the shadows that called to me ever since the accident, I couldn't find it. I couldn't fucking feel it.
My fingers twitched as my eyes flew open, but the shadows I saw before crawling over my arms weren't there. And then my eyes zeroed in on the fucking shackles on my wrists. They weren't there just because someone thought they looked good on me. No, they were magical.
That burning pain increased the more I tried prodding into the power I knew rested inside me, and when I found it, locked deep inside, the shackles flared, igniting with fire as I slammed into a wall surrounding my power.
"It's useless trying to fight those." A male voice came somewhere from the front. My head lifted, coming face to face with a man I knew. Maybe not in this life, but I saw those blue eyes just before I died.
I saw that wicked smile as I cursed him in this life and all the next ones.
And I knew what wickedness hid behind the face of a seemingly benevolent God. A God that killed me. The God that cursed us all.
"Zeus," I bit out, satisfied with the mild shock on his face. My head tilted as the anger I didn't even know existed in me flared to life. As the fury started spreading through my bloodstream, I knew without a shadow of a doubt that this one had to die. "We finally meet. Although." I smiled as I stood up, ignoring the burning pain from the shackles. "I did expect you to be more…" I let my eyes drag from the top of his head to the tips of his shoes. "Well, just more."
26
KAIRA
Bravery is for fools,or at least that's what my mother used to say. Bravery was just a word, concocted by those that couldn't explain the rage coiling tight in their gut, ready to be released into the world. Bravery was just another word used carelessly more often than not to explain the actions and reactions of people that did reckless things just to be called brave.
I wasn't brave.
I was angry.
My fury was a living, breathing thing as the three sisters escorted me from my cell to the upper floors, pushing me every couple of steps as they cackled like hyenas. More than that, they were there when I dared to insult their precious leader.
Or better said—a coward who hid behind the power that was granted to him, but that couldn't gain respect from others if he didn't instill fear in them.
Zeus didn't say a single thing to me after I told him I expected more when I met him, but he didn't have to. I saw the hatred brimming in those blue eyes, but more than that—I saw the fear hiding deep inside his fucking being, because he knew he wasn't enough. He would never be enough, and that's why he used his lackeys to do his dirty work. He used other people, otherimmortals, to do what he never could have. What he didn't have the guts to do.
Truth be told, Zeus was just a spoiled child who wanted all the toys to be in his basket, and now we were all paying the price.
Bits and pieces of my past life kept trickling in, pushing against the barriers that still existed in my mind, and I remembered him. I fucking remembered what a coward he always was and how desperate my mother, Demeter, was to keep me away from all of them. Because she knew what kind of games they played. She knew what viciousness lived inside their hearts. I also remembered the three sisters that walked behind me, poking me with their talons every time I dared to slow down.
Aello, Ocypete, and Celaeno, the three obedient dogs, doing everything he tells them to do, no matter the consequences.
They tried provoking me. They tried getting any sort of reaction from me, but I didn't give them that satisfaction. I didn't allow them to see the rage slowly awakening, touching my power, trying to stir it up, fighting against the magical power of these shackles. These fools had no idea what lived inside of me, but I could feel it now more than ever.
I could feel the darkness that used to terrify me, calling my name, whispering, begging for me to release it. I've spent so fucking long denying it from ever coming out, too lost in my own grief, almost desperate to cease living, to join my family. But this power, this madness existing inside of me didn't allow me.
It let me grieve for as long as I needed to, but somewhere between me finding those journals and coming here, it became alive.
Aello kept yapping since we left the cells, telling me how they already had the shackles with them, which would explain my power retreating so suddenly when I faced them. And the more I listened, the more I understood that initial bout of fear that made me powerless against them.
It was their power, their purpose, to instill the fear in their victims. To render us speechless, powerless, but they never had to deal with an immortal like me. They never had to deal with someone who had death living in their veins and the ability to destroy the Gods.
"She's very quiet today," one of them spoke, and I didn't even want to know which one. There was no point arguing with creatures so brainwashed they couldn't see the reason. So I didn't try. "Maybe we need to nudge her in the right direction."
