For the first time since the universe exploded into existence and my atoms rearranged into their hellish form, I wept. Those of us who lived beyond the mortal realm were mighty, to be sure, but I’d never experienced such powerlessness.
I’d call in a favor on the realm’s deity of pestilence if I knew who to blame.
I’d speak with our god of storms if I knew which city required fires and flooding.
I’d go in myself and break the necks and stop the hearts of every man, woman, and child if I were given a name.
But the sense of “omniscience” comes from our active legions—two thousand immortal servants per legion, one of whom we would post in the houses of the faithful, in places of interest, in war rooms of enemies—that report back to us. Our time flows in a river separate from mortal waters, and our underlings told us what we needed to know when we needed to know it.
Except, I had posted no legions.
I’d involved no immortals with my human.
She was mine. Not theirs for spying or prodding or touching. It was frustrating enough to imagine how unworthy any human in her presence was as it stood. The idea of an immortal being invading her space without her knowledge was unspeakable.
As such, I had no answers.
I hadn’t even been able to ask her what she’d wanted to do with her soul upon her passing. Perhaps she might have chosen to stay with me, to join me in Hell’s undying realm, to be one with the infernal. Even if she wanted to remain human, she should have been given the chance to decide as much.
To her, I was a star who took snow’s form.
From this moment on, I proved my sister right. I was ice.
I laid waste to anyone who dared to exist between me and Eleni’s memory—Love’smemory.
Before I returned to Hell, I made my way through Granicus, Issus, and up to the Caspian Gates, slaughtering every member of the Macedonian empire I met along the way. I drained the blood of her husband and his men. Whether they blamed the inexplicable decimation of their troops on poisoned water or an act of any god on their dusty earth, I didn’t care.
They needed someone to blame. So did I.
Blood dripped from my hands as I stormed from the deserts into Hell’s palace. Shocked incubi, devils, winged minions, shadowed legions, and visiting dignitaries from the lower courts watched with lifted brows and wide eyes as their prince charged for the throne room.
I pushed past the outer chambers on my way to see my father, interrupting the trivial gossip of succubus courtiers as I pushed past the Soul Eater. My sister caught my tirade and scrambled up from where she’d been lounging, talking to some unrecognizable horror from the Nightmare Courts.
Izi’s feet slapped against the black marble as she sprinted after me.
“Amagi, stop?—”
My growl came from between my teeth. “Leave me.”
“We have visitors! Hell is entertaining! You can’t just?—"
I didn’t know anything about the company she’d kept and made it abundantly clear that I did not care.
“Please, brother, you need to calm down.” A ripple of shadow trailed in her wake as she jogged to keep up with me. Amber and spice wafted around her, filling my nostrils, drowning out whatever had remained of the fresh cloud scent of sky.
My lips pulled back in a soundless snarl. “You have five seconds to get away from me.”
“Your visits to the human realm are supposed to be fun,” she insisted, bare feet slapping against the palace floors as she struggled to keep pace. Inky coils of hair, unbound by earthly gravity, pooled in front of us in a blackened pit in an attempt to stop me. I thrashed through it, pitch-colored smoke exploding at my sides as it rejoined the ever-shifting curls cascading down her shoulders. “No one blames your dalliances, brother! There’s nothing wrong with playing with mortals, but you really need to?—”
I spun at her at the insult.
“Playing?” The word came out in a roar.
She lifted her palms to pacify me. “This is what I’m talking about,” she said. “You’re gaining a reputation, and not the good kind. We can’t have Hell with such an obvious weak spot. Imagine how easy it would be to topple the Nordic pantheon if Odin had only one human? Or how the Hindu pantheon would crumble if Vishnu?—”
“Stop,” I bit, pushing past her.
“You know I’m right!” she shouted, though this time, she stayed put.
