Eve


    It all sunk in like a stone in a stream, my pulse hammered against the heavy iron mps that were connected to those on my neck chains. The air was stale with nothing but misery, defeat and the collective scrutiny of those I now stood before.


    My eyes darted around, furtively, looking for a door thar would leaf outside this nightmare but none existed.


    Rhea''s voice became muted against the the echo of my panic and rising dread. "You are...." Her voice died down in my head, drowned and upleted.


    >"Rhea?" I called, screaming into the void of my head. I heard a little but not enough. I swallowed, looking down at my feet, and not at thepany I had, or the judgemental crowd in front of me.


    The sound of a horn ripped through the tentative silence of the execution ground. My heart leapt into my throat, stomach dropping, every hair raising despite the sweltering heat.


    "We are here today to allow the gods to usher in a new era." The voice wasmanding, vibrating down to my marrow, too familiar to dismiss.


    I didn''t need to turn around to know who it was. Who else could it be other than Elysia''s uncle, my descendant, Malrik Valmont himself. Yet, his voice was one that I recalled, one that sank in deep and promised nothing but ruin and more suffering.


    One that called a curse, disowned me, sold, only to try and pull me back into his invidious fold.


    Darius Valmont.


    "Do not see this day as one of demise and one of hope as we all gather to purge our ranks of the maggots that eat away at our flesh. Today, we end what Elysia Valmont started by betraying her bloodline in favour of a Vampire, our predators. Wee to witness as justice is served for her atrocities against our pack. She promised loyalty and instead awarded your trust with treachery and debauchery. Even birthing hybrids for the monster of the night.


    My clenched my jaw, bracing myself against the emotions of dread and fear I could not could not control despite the fact that I knew this was all a memory, made a mirage to further make me sink and deter me for what I was brought here to do.


    Find Hades before he was eraced along with his corruption.


    "Elysia Valmont spat on the moon''s blessing. She took a vampire to her bed. She carried his seed. And for what? Love? Unity? No. Weakness." he continued, his voice twisting with more venom.


    With each syble, the mps seemed to tighten, crushing my throat, trapping the air in my lungs, screaming bing an impossibility. The chains grew heavier as though they remembered thest neck they bound. Mine but in another lifetime, yet i was back for one more round. One more bloody dance.


    "She defiled the rites," Malrik spat, his voice now thunder rolling across stone.


    "Bound her soul to a creature that drinks blood and mocks the sun. She did not die a martyr. She died a warning."


    A low murmur rippled through the crowd. Somewhere, a weapon was drawn—not in threat, but in reverence. A ceremonial de catching the light like a prophecy already fulfilled. The same de that would end this memory. End me. Again.


    > "She was my blood,"


    Malrik growled, and for the first time, his voice cracked. Not from sorrow.


    From exhration.


    Malrik stepped forward, the ceremonial de gleaming at his side, the silver etchings pulsing in time with the crowd''s silent reverence. His lips curled—not with hate, not with grief—but with cruel delight. That same crooked smile. Eerily familiar.


    Just like Darius.


    Though they looked nothing alike, the resemnce wed at my chest. That smile had haunted me in two lives. Father and uncle, legacy and curse.


    "But you will not die just yet," Malrik announced, voice a de shearing through the hush. "No. That would be too kind."


    My breath hitched. My wrists strained against the bonds.


    > "Your first punishment," he continued, stepping to the edge of the execution tform, "will be to watch him die."


    The crowd didn''t cheer. They didn''t breathe.


    My heart mmed into my ribs.


    Two guards moved in unison, seizing my arms, forcing me to turn. I noticed the same "M" symbol.


    And there—


    Vassir.


    Dragged like an animal. Not roaring. Not resisting. Barely conscious. Blood oozed from dozens—no, hundreds—of silver nails driven into his skin like iron thorns. His wings were clipped. His limbs trembled. His mouth was ck.


    That was how they subdued him.


    That was how they nned to end him.


    The nausea rose like a tide. I tried to look away, but the guards gripped my chin, holding me still. Made me see.


    Malrik turned to me, tilting his head with mock sympathy.


    > "Thank you, niece, for your confession."


    His smile widened.


    > "Had you not whispered his weakness to your second-inmand, we would not have known."


    The words echoed.


    A second-inmand.


    The admission I made. In another life. Another loop. Another illusion.


    I had doomed him.


    Again.


    Vassir''s eyes—Hades'' eyes—met mine. Not with fury. Not with me.


    But with pain.


    Tortured understanding.


    He knew.


    Malrik faced the crowd once more, raising his voice, letting it crash over the assembly like a wave of stone.


    > "He betrayed his kind. For love. For Elysia. He turned against the Night Court, and now they will not answer his cries. They will note."


    He stepped forward, grabbing Vassir by the horn, just behind the curve.


    My body tensed.


    > "They will let us do this."


    And then—


    He tore it off.


    A scream exploded from Vassir''s throat—a sound no creature should make. Power burst from the wound like a geyser, silver and ck light twisting skyward like a beacon of death. It reached the heavens.


    And then fell.


    Like ash.


    Vassir copsed.


    No longer a beast. No longer a god.


    Just a man.


    And all I saw—


    All I felt—


    Was Hades.


    His face.


    His agony.


    His end.


    The sword came down.


    Clean. Silent.


    Final.


    > "NO!" I screamed, the sound splitting through space, raw and wild.


    But it was toote.


    He was gone.


    Again.


    And this time, the chains weren''t on my wrists.


    They were in my soul.


    "Eve."


    The voice cracked like a whip across my mind.


    Not Malrik''s.


    Not the crowd''s.


    Rhea.


    > "Snap out of it! This isn''t real!"


    My lungs convulsed. The world wavered—no, peeled. Like skin king off a corpse. The chains tightened, then—


    Shattered.


    They disintegrated into dust around my neck, wrists, ankles, floating like ash in a windless sky.


    The tform buckled beneath me.


    > "Eve, RUN!"


    The guards still held me—but now they flickered. Their hands blurred like smeared ink on wet paper. One blink, and their faces melted into void.


    The fire began at the edges.


    The crowd caught first. Like dry grass soaked in oil, they went up without a sound—only light, red and gold, consuming robes and runes and banners. The tform splintered beneath my feet, the stone dissolving into me-licked air.


    Vassir''s body—Hades'' body—jerked.


    ck veins pulsed once.


    Twice.


    And then his skin peeled open like old fruit, decaying in fast-forward. The silver nails hissed as his form copsed, curling in on itself with a sickening crunch. Bone shriveled. Wings twisted. Eyes zed.


    I tore my gaze away.


    > "Now, Eve—MOVE!" Rhea bellowed.


    A door exploded open behind the pyre. I didn''t question it.


    Didn''t think.


    I ran.


    I sprinted past the burning corpse, past the altar of false justice, past the melting stone and memory. Heat singed my back. The roar of mes chased me like the voice of the past refusing to let go.


    I dove through the threshold just as the fire lunged—


    And the world behind me copsed in a st of silence.


    No smoke. No scream. No breath.


    Only—


    Air.


    Real air.


    Inded hard—knees scraping gravel, hands stinging from stone and ash. My chest heaved. Sweat poured down my back. My heart pounded, a drum that wouldn''t slow.


    When I lifted my head—


    I froze.


    The city stretched out before me, but not as I remembered it.


    Obsidian Tower—reduced to half a spine of ckened metal.


    Shattered bridges. Cracked domes. Spires broken like teeth.


    The world was ruined.


    This wasn''t just a memory anymore.


    This was his mind.


    What was left of it.


    The copse wasn''t metaphor—it was actual, spiritual decay. The tower''s bones, the fractured ss of the council chamber, the echo of Elliot''sughter all buried underyers of mental rot.


    > "Rhea," I gasped, rising on shaky legs. "Where is he?"


    > "Somewhere close. But the Marker… it''s waking. If it finds him first—"


    Her voice faded into static, like a radio losing signal.


    "You have to move. Now."


    The ground cracked behind me.


    I turned—


    A fissure, deep and glowing with veins of crimson, split the earth. Something snarled in the dark.


    The Marker was near.


    It had no form. No shape. Just heat and malice and memory—twisted into a storm of judgment. And it was hunting. Not me.


    Him.


    My lungs burned as I ran, feet pounding over rubble and ss, past toppled statues of wolves, of kings, of gods no one believed in anymore. The deeper I ran, the more the world warped. Time folded in on itself. Hallways stretched, then crumbled. Rooms bled into each other—Elliot''s nursery became a war room, became a chapel, became a prison. All of it in ruin.