I couldn't save him. I couldn't fucking save him from myself.
"Kaira!"
I wouldn't be able to save any of them, just how I couldn't save my family.
"Stop this!"
I was the monster, just like they were, and being prophesied to destroy them did not mean I got to live just because they would die. We were all monsters, all destined to die. And should death never find the doors of our lives, then I had to bring it to us, to them, to all the immortals existing in this realm.
"Kaira! Please stop this."
There was no stopping anything.
The wind roared around me, whispering my name over and over.
Kill.
Destroy.
Erase.
But it was the new presence I felt in the back of my mind. Not a malevolent one, not Hera, not any of the Gods.
Different. Ancient. Strong.
I swiveled around, my eyes finally seeing Elandra and my aunt standing on the other side of the meadow, not far from the splintered earth. But they weren't the ones that had me stopping. They weren't the ones that calmed the shadows, letting them hum instead of scream.
It was the three women standing right behind me.
Their hair danced on the wind, dark strands wrapping around their shoulders as if they had a mind of their own. The eyes with no irises, but white sockets, looked down at me, and as if they could touch my soul, that one look at them calmed the fury in my body.
"It's time to stop now, Kaira," all three of them spoke, their attention fully on me. The blood red dresses they wore touched the ground, moving in sync. "You can stop now, child."
But could I? Did I want to?
"Your destiny is waiting for you."
"Fuck you and my destiny," I spat out, earning the tilting of all three heads with no movement of any other muscle on their pale faces. Black eyebrows arched slightly, those dark gray lips lifting just for a second in the corners.
"You can't run." Their voices echoed around us. "You can't hide. And you can't destroy what isn't yours to be destroyed."
The one in the middle straightened and stepped toward me. "At least not yet," she said.
I stood up, hating the forced calmness and the void of the anger I relied on. "Who are you?" I bit out.
"We are the beginning," they said as they walked toward me. "And the end."
"We are one," the one in the middle said.
"And we are many," all three of them added. "We're what you see and what you hear," they continued. "But we are never what you think you know."
"Your beginnings and endings can get fucked as well." I smiled. "That whole psychobabble doesn't work on me, not anymore." I raked through the memories, trying to remember who they could be. Trying to remember the faces.
And then it dawned on me.
The three sisters. The Fates. The spinners. I hated them almost as much as I hated Zeus.
Quicker than I could follow, they moved, stopping right in front of me. "How far are you willing to go, Kaira, for the ones you love?"
