Chapter 17 #2
“Would you like to come in, both of you?” I asked, glancing at the quiet Ares, who looked more like Asher than I would have realized.
His face was a little too perfect, his hair attractively brushed over his eyes, and he had an elegant charm that made it easy to like him.
“I have a proposal for you both, one I believe you will find interesting.”
“Hmm,” Hades said, accepting my invitation like a chilled wind entering a cozy room. He seemed to drift to a chair by the table and then thrummed his fingertips over the edge. He ignored the breakfast and I stupidly realized that, as a vampire, he wouldn’t be interested in anything I had summoned.
Feeling stubborn, I sat across from him and stabbed one of the mini rolls with a fork and stuffed it into my mouth.
Being a goddess made me ravenous. Orion joined me at my side and I could practically hear angel wings vibrating with anxiety to swoop in and save me from the ancient muse with very sharp-looking teeth.
“I’m surprised it took you this long to awaken,” Hades said, making me pause mid-bite as Ares joined us.
The warrior muse leaned back in his chair and rested a hand on a sword that hung loosely at his hip.
He wore otherwise modern apparel, boasting a fitted suit, making the sword seem almost out of place.
But the ancient knowledge in his eyes seemed to fit the supernatural named after a god of war.
Perhaps he was a god of war, given my growing opinion of the male muses. He’d been alive for who knew how long, meaning he very well could have been the Ares who inspired the myths.
I swallowed, then licked the sugar off the prongs before I responded to Hades’s comment. “So you know who I am?”
Ares spoke in his brother’s stead. “Of course we do. Why do you think we’ve been so divided on how to handle you?”
I frowned. “Explain.”
Hades didn’t look like he was going to offer any explanation, especially since I had demanded one, but Ares gave him a raised brow. “You’re the one who was trying to kill her and her mates. Now that she’s awake, it’s best that we try to cooperate.”
Hades glowered at his fellow muse. “Is that an ‘I told you so,’ brother?”
Ares grinned, the disarming gesture definitely reminding me of Asher. “You said it, not me.”
“You’re afraid of her,” Orion said as a smirk rested on his pretty face.
“I’m afraid of the damage an unchecked Creation goddess can do,” Hades corrected as his vibrant eyes landed on my demigod. “Especially one who fate has deemed to be the Champion of a major Echo of Calamity.”
“Does that mean you already knew who I was?” I asked.
Ares nodded. “Of course we did, Lilith. You’re one of many goddesses, but one of the few with your brand of Creation power.
It’s similar to ours, limitless, so we’ve always known of each other.
Unlike others of your type, you didn’t come with sisters.
But you are appearing during the Third Echo of Calamity, so perhaps that applies to the trinity rule. ”
I blinked at him, realizing that he was very old.
They knew me in my past life, I thought at my mates.
Orion rested his forearms on the table, leaning in as sunlight flared to life underneath his skin.
I rested a hand on his and shook my head.
“Care to explain the trinity rule?” Orion asked instead of responding to my realization.
Ares circled his thumb over the hilt of his blade, then he drew it.
Stay, I ordered my angels the moment I heard them rustle.
Ares rested the blade on the table, then indicated the inscriptions on it.
“It’s how magic works, young goddess.” He indicated three interlocking circles, then followed the engraved line to a burst of inscriptions overlapping one another.
“Everything works in threes. Time exists in the past, the present, and the future. The souls of this world travel between Heaven, Earth, and Hell. Other realms follow this pattern, too, as do other worlds and beings of power. Calamity comes from a trinity of gods, as well, or a trifecta, to be more precise.” His gaze dipped to the ring on my finger.
“And when one trifecta encounters another, sparks tend to fly.”
My eyes widened.
Here I was, with three different “trinities” overlapping one another.
The power of the male muses.
Calamity.
And then the Third Echo of Calamity.
I glanced at Orion, taking note that I also had three of my Virtues with me—all three who took part in Creation magic. Orion was a demigod with divine power. My angels, too, were pure-blooded and functioned on the power of belief, one of the vital segments of Creation magic.
“It’s my brother who put his faith in you, little goddess,” Hades said, breaking into my thoughts.
“But not you?” Orion asked. He didn’t even try to hide the rage in his voice.
Hades glowered down his nose at the demigod as if he was inconsequential to this conversation.
“I believe in results and putting my faith in proven entities.” He leaned in as well, mimicking Orion’s quiet aggression with his own.
“Why do you think I converted to vampirism? I saw my brothers slowly losing their way after wrapping themselves up in the trivialities of the world. I decided to sleep to keep myself distanced, but I wanted to be in control of when I woke up. Only vampires can do that, so I sacrificed a portion of my power in exchange for control.” His red eyes flashed at me.
“What have you sacrificed, little goddess? What have you proven to be worthy of my faith?”
My hands shook, so I shoved them under the table. I didn’t want Hades to see that he was getting to me. “I’ve sacrificed everything. I died.”
He nodded. “Precisely, you died. You had your chance and you lost; now fate needs the opportunity to pick a new Champion. One who won’t fail like you and your mother did.”
My jaw flexed as I ground my teeth together.
Say the word and I stab his eyes out, Azra helpfully offered.
Stay, I ordered in return.
I washed down my anger with a glass of juice before I responded. “It doesn’t work that way. If I die again, Calamity wins.”
Ares tilted his head in interest. He hadn’t come to my defense, but Hades had said that he was on my side. “How do you know?” he asked.
“Because, like we’ve already covered, I died,” I answered with finality, “and a new Champion didn’t rise to take my place. Did it? No. Darkness and chaos ensued, so you can either sit here and try to tell me how to do my job, or you can listen to my proposal.”
Hades glowered but remained silent. I had a point, after all. We only had one shot at this. Fate wasn’t going to choose a new Champion.
I was it.
Ares smiled. “We’re listening, little goddess. Now, I suggest you invite in the angels who are supposed to be in the dungeon before the wild one has an aneurysm.”
I pinched my lips together.
You heard him, I thought at the twins.
They ventured out, both of them armed with their divine weapons that clashed just as much against their suits as Ares’s sword did with his.
He didn’t take up his blade that was still on the table, though. Instead, he leaned away from it and lowered his chin in a subtle nod.
It was a sign of goodwill on Ares’s part. He wanted to hear my proof, my proposal, and he wanted me to win.
Hades… he had just told me his motives and I was going to use that against him.
Unlike Lucifer, he didn’t want to be the Conduit because he wanted power. Quite the opposite.
He wanted to be in control.
Control was exactly what I was going to give him.
I held out my hand and slowly shimmied off the ring. The dark stone seemed to hiss without a host to latch onto. My finger had been slowly going cold, which showed me how difficult Calamity was to handle, even for a fully awakened goddess like me.
And this was just a fragment.
Let’s see how you prove yourself, Hades, I thought, flinging his own words back at him in my head.
“I propose that you take the fragment,” I said, pinching the ring in my fingers as I held it up to him.
Ares stopped breathing and Hades’s red eyes fixated on the object.
He took it with slow, gentle care. A twist of his fingers resized the band a bit larger for his taste before he slipped the ring onto his finger.
The glimmer in his eyes immediately dimmed and he pressed a hand to his chest as his jaw flexed.
“She’s been wearing that the whole time,” Samael said and I noted the hint of pride in his tone.
His wide, beautiful wings spanned behind me as he rested his hands on my shoulders.
“You asked for what she’s proven to be worthy of your faith.
She gives you Calamity’s fragment willingly, even though she’s better equipped to wear it. ”
Hades curled his fingers into a fist. “Indeed, a generous move, but a wise one.” His calculated gaze landed on me. “Is there more to your proposal? I doubt you’d simply hand over the most powerful force in the universe because you tire of it.”
I was more than tired of Calamity. I wanted to squelch it, to destroy it.
Perhaps that wasn’t possible, but I would throw everything I had at it, which meant I needed to be in top form when the time came.
“Calamity is not a prize to be won,” I informed him.
It was the only warning I was going to give the muse.
Perhaps he was older and wiser, but I had been dealing with this particular god of death for a long time now.
I knew that no one could control it, no matter how much they tried.
“It is a force as strong as time; it moves whether or not we want it to. But I have tempered this small piece as a lure for the greater prize. We can unleash Calamity, together,” I said, spreading out my arms and indicating everyone in the room.
And everyone who wasn’t. “And when it has nowhere to go, we will force it to obey our will.”
Ares raised a brow. “You’re proposing trapping it like the shifters did.”
I nodded. “Yes, which means we need Raze at the table, along with every other supernatural Calamity has touched.”
I named everyone on my invite list, which was a lengthy one.
Every Champion of Calamity, including Evelyn, the founding witch of Fortune Academy, and my mother.
Their mates would need to be there, too. While this was my burden to bear, I was starting to recognize the importance of the power of three.
And the power of three times three… the power of nine. There was a reason the universe had chosen nine mates for me.
Everything had been intentional.
Everything had come together exactly as it was supposed to be.
“All my Virtues must be there,” I said, counting them off on my fingers.
Hades frowned. “That’ll be difficult, given that they’re in the Void right now with Balthazar and Seth.”
My heart shot into my throat as Orion glanced away. I homed in on him as a wave of his guilt washed through me, supplied by our mate-bond. “You knew about this?” I asked.
His sunlit eyes glanced up to meet mine. “I’ve been trying to get them out, my star.”
I blinked at him. “What?”
He blew out a breath, then told me everything, but in the privacy of our minds. “I’m sorry,” he said aloud while he spoke the rest privately, not sharing all the details with the male muses.
Before you pushed out Calamity, my intentions had been to convert the others, rather than save them.
I suppose there was a part of me still inside that was trying to help, because I disobeyed Lucifer’s orders more than once.
And once I was on my own, and you appeared in the twins’ cell, I knew the others wouldn’t be far behind.
What did you do, Orion? I asked as I pinched my lips together.
Sam must have realized what we were doing, because he was buying us time by engaging the muses with the conundrum of my Virtues stuck in the Void.
Apparently, Ares and Hades refused to set foot in a location that wasn’t part of their native trifecta of realms, being Heaven, Hell, or Earth.
While interesting, I focused on Orion’s answer instead.
I intercepted Hendrik’s portal that he hastily made later that night after you dropped through.
While I don’t typically make portals myself, I understand their magic.
I diverted them to the Void with a little boost, thanks to Calamity.
I gave them to the enemy because I knew I would be overcome if they were here.
I had expected Balthazar to bring them one by one, but they’ve remained in the Void. It was a mistake.
“Why are they in the Void in the first place?” Hades finally asked, tilting his head at us as if he knew there was a part of the conversation he was missing.
I sighed. “I think the more important question is, what is that damn Necromancer doing with them?”
I flinched when Azra slammed his fist onto the table. “Don’t tell me that more of us have been taken hostage again? When does this fucking end?”
I wholeheartedly agreed.
“We’ll get them out,” I said and the ground shook with the power of my belief. My skin heated with sunlight, and fire licked off my tongue as I spoke it into reality. “We’ll wait until the end so as not to ruin the benefit of surprise, but I promise, they will join us when it is time.”
The male muses took in the state of my fluctuating power and the rise of my belief. It would happen. All of us would be at the gathering I had planned because I had spoken it to be so.
Hades steepled his fingers, looking like he had something to say, but his jaw remained shut.
He was hiding something, but it didn’t matter.
I was the Champion.
I was in charge.
This was my fight… and I was going to win.