41. Nyssa
Nyssa
Thunder cracked, echoing across the blackened sky. Lightning cleaved the horizon in two.
Everything was drowned in darkness — thick and stifling, nothing like the usual calm of night. The unnatural gloom sent an icy feeling of dread through me, cold enough to crack bone.
I turned — or at least tried to. My body didn’t respond. It remained statue-still, my gaze locked, unblinking, on that black horizon.
I fought and clawed to move, to scream, to twitch a finger — anything at all, but nothing worked. It was like I was merely a passenger inside this familiar body.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” A voice crooned, sounding alarmingly like my own. “Do you see what you are capable of? What you could accomplish?”
My head finally turned, though not by my will.
I looked down at my blackened, bare feet, standing on the edge of Aetherion. Beneath me stretched an obsidian platform, propped high above the rows and rows of gods and creatures bowing in silence.
Everyone I knew and loved was still, frozen in statuesque obeisance — Charon, Caelus, Aphrodite, Aros, Apollo, Archimedes. Even the Primal Council dared not move under my watchful eye.
The entire realm knelt before me, their faces downcast.
The me-that-wasn’t-me laughed with cruel delight. It was a jagged, merciless sound — one I’d never heard escape my mouth.
She raised her hands — my hands — stained black from fingertips to wrist, as if shadows had consumed them. Power surged. Inky shadows bled from my fingertips, curling into spiralling ribbons of darkness. They twirled through the air, looping around everyone below, encircling them, tangling in them.
Then she pulled.
The me-that-was-not-me yanked every single soul from its body in one mass exodus.
She was more powerful than I had ever imagined I could become.
Without resistance, she reeled them in, drawing them into our body, deep down into the place where my soul lived, and consumed them all. Ravenously.
I felt ill.
My eyes stayed fastened on the gods I’d once called friends. She had forced me to watch as they keeled over.
Dead.
Nothing more than empty husks.
And it was all my doing.
My hands.
My power.
My hunger.
I woke with a start, the echo of a scream still caught in my throat. My body was damp with sweat, my heart raced like a warhorse in my chest, and my lungs heaved as if I’d run alongside it.
I was going to be sick.
I threw back the covers and raced to the bathroom with its deep green walls, rosy tiles, and tormenting memories.
My reassuringly pale fingers gripped the edge of the bench. I bent over the basin, flirting with panic. After several minutes of retching and dry heaving, I managed to choke it down.
The nausea faded.
The dream did not.
I twisted the cold, golden faucet, letting icy water rush out. Cupping my hands beneath the stream, I leaned in to splash it on my face, gaze snagging on my reflection in the polished glass.
The woman staring back held a haunted look in her bright green eyes. Her brows were creased in the middle as she watched a droplet of water fall from the end of her slightly upturned nose. I leaned closer, scouring her pupils for any sign of evil. But none stared back.
It was just me.
Was this what the prophecy meant? That I would lose myself to the dark nature of my powers and conquer the realms purely because I could?
Would that not make me no better than a Titan?
Should I not also be kept in a cage deep within Tartarus, if only to prevent the devastation I now knew I was capable of?
A shiver tore down my spine. Suddenly, I was freezing. I padded back down the hall toward my bedroom when I heard voices drifting up the stairs. Male voices.
I crept down the winding spiral staircase, pausing outside the living room doors, which had been left ajar. Firelight threw dancing shadows into the hallway as I hovered in the alcove, silent.
“She doesn’t remember that.” Charon said.
Who doesn’t remember what?
“Do you think they’ll try again during tomorrow’s trial?” Charon asked, his tone pitched low.
A deep voice replied, too indistinct to make out from my hiding place.
Charon spoke again. “And how do you propose to protect her? They’ll be coming for her with everything they’ve got!”
The sound of glass colliding with wood rang out. “They’ll come for all of us.”
Silence.
Then—
“Are you going to lurk in the hallway all night, Nightshade?”
I straightened with a snap, just as Charon threw the doors wide. Surprise lifted his brows into his unruly mop of hair. I strolled past him guiltily, drifting over to the tempting heat of the fireplace.
Caelus’ stare burned a hole in the side of my face until I met his gaze head on. He sat in my favourite armchair, dressed in brown leather battle armour, his sword, Ceraunos, resting across his lap.
An empty glass on the table beside him indicated he’d been here for at least one drink. Though, judging by the way Charon loped back to his own seat, it had been at least four. On Charon’s part, anyway — and I knew he didn’t enjoy drinking alone.
“What are you doing here?” I forced strength into my voice, attempting to disguise the fact that I’d been screaming mere minutes ago.
Caelus’ metallic eyes scoured my face, frowning at the still-visible bruises.
“We need to talk,” he said softly.
“About what?”
Silence.
I turned to Charon. He shrugged.
“You know,” I began, eyes flicking between them, “with only the firelight to see by, you two could quite easily pass as brothers.”
Caelus’ brows twitched, taking in Charon’s blonde hair — only a few shades darker than his own — their similar height, angular jawline. Charon just frowned.
I shrugged. “Or not. You don’t have the same eyes.”
“I have my mother’s eyes,” Charon replied quietly.
“Who did you say your mother was again?” Caelus asked, lips pursed.
“I didn’t,” he said just as I offered a quiet, “Lethe.”
Charon glared at me, shaking his head minutely. The message was clear: we would not be discussing his mother tonight.
Caelus stood abruptly, having noted the southerly turn of the conversation.
“Can we go outside?”
I nodded and led us out onto the black stone balcony, its pavers glistening in the twinkling starlight. It overlooked my mother’s lethal gardens and offered a distant view of the River Styx.
“What is it we so desperately need to discuss,” I began, refusing to look at him, ignoring how much I desperately wanted to, “that it had to be done in a midnight rendezvous, hours before the final trial?”
Caelus stepped up behind me, so close I could feel his body heat radiating through our clothes, and the whisper of his breath against my neck.
“There are things you need to know before tomorrow’s task,” he said quietly. My face snapped to his, and I stepped backwards, leaning against the cold balustrade.
I crossed my arms, frowning, “What kinds of things?”
He ran a scarred hand through his short white hair and sighed deeply. “There is a council.”
“I am aware of the Primal Council, you oaf.”
“No, not the — well, there are Primals on it — ugh!”
He began pacing in front of me, considering his next words carefully. “I guess they’re not really a council at all.” He locked eyes with me again. “They’re a rebellion. But there are lower Olympians, demigods, and champions in it too. An underground organisation, if you will.”
“Go on.”
“They’ve taken it upon themselves to ensure the prophecy comes to pass.”
My mouth dropped open. “How did they even find out about the prophecy?”
He did not answer, letting me piece it together myself.
“Athena knows,” I mused. “Apollo too?”
Caelus nodded, visibly relieved. “I knew you’d work it out.” He smiled.
“So, is it Apollo’s secret organisation? Or Athena’s? How long has this been going on?” I asked, suspicion weaving into my tone.
“Too long,” he sighed. “I’m not sure. They both have roles of leadership. Together, they’ve created alliances with other gods to ensure your ascension to the throne. Apollo believes that you are the ruler we need, and that you’ll save us all.”
“Who else is in this group? Who else has been plotting and ploying and pulling at my strings?” I hurled the questions at him, venom laced through every syllable.
“I’m not at liberty to say. But if you reflect, I think you’ll figure it out. The little instances of assistance, game-changing acts, all ending up in your favour…”
Athena’s surrender; Archimedes’ forging tutorial; Hestia allowing Aros and Caelus to hijack my trial and still granting us all the win.
“Nyssa.” He sighed my name like it was an answer to a question he’d long since asked. “I can’t keep doing this.”
“Doing what?”
“ This .” He grasped my hand and gently turned me to face him. “Pretending. Keeping my distance when it pains me to do so, all in a misguided attempt to keep you safe.”
“I don’t need your protection.” I frowned.
“I’ve become well acquainted with that reality,” he admitted. “But it doesn’t change the fact that I want to protect you anyway. That I’d happily give my life for yours without hesitation.”
“It won’t come to that,” I vowed.
“Good. I truly hope it doesn’t, because I need a million more years of being able to do this .”
Before I could blink, he dragged me towards him. His large, lightning-scarred hands framed my face, fingers tangled in the hair at the base of my skull, thumbs brushing my cheekbones.
His lips crashed into mine. His kiss devoured. It was neither gentle, nor sweet. It was a claiming. A consuming. Like a storm long held at bay, finally breaking and burning through him.
He kissed me like a tether inside him had snapped, like holding back had cost him something, and now, he was through with pretending it didn’t hurt.
I fell into it willingly; I fell into him like my life depended on it — like his lips were all I needed to survive.
I could taste his gift on my tongue — electric and humming.
I could taste all the words he’d left unsaid, all the fear he’d felt when Poseidon dragged me over that dune, all the rage when he saw my broken body.
But beneath it all there was a deep and all-encompassing longing. The kind that erodes you piece by piece until you’re left with nothing but desperate need. The kind that builds day by day, moment by moment, until you either break… or act.
I found that there was a tether within me too, tearing at my chest, yearning to get closer. My fingers wrenched the front of his cuirass, dragging him closer — like I could sink beneath his skin if I just pressed a little harder.
I kissed him desperately, my face tilting up to meet him fully — to tell him without words that I was breaking too. That I had been splintering every time he looked away, fracturing every time he pulled back and shoved those walls back up.
When we finally pulled apart, breathless and burning, our foreheads met, and we laughed.
I smiled, lopsided and full of joy. His matched mine in intensity and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. My smile turned into a smirk as I playfully whispered, “You never did tell me why you call me Nightshade.”
He blinked, a surprised huff escaping him.
“You’re right,” he replied. “I call you Nightshade because, like the flower, you are both devastatingly beautiful and hauntingly lethal. I knew you would be my undoing… and yet, I never cared to survive you. I only knew I would die if you never kissed me again.”