Chapter Fifty-Eight
They say a God-Killer cannot be forged by knowledge, nor shaped by study or steel. No ancient spell, no sacred rite, no whispered incantation can birth one. There is but one crucible strong enough to create such a being.
Grief.
Raw, unrelenting, soul-shattering grief. The kind that hollows you out and leaves only fire in its wake.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal barely spared a glance for the dead who bowed in reverence as she passed, her steps echoing softly through the shadowed depths of the Underworld.
Her focus was fixed on the Forest of Silent Cries, its spectral branches whispering mournful secrets only the dead could hear.
There, standing rigid amongst the silence was Thanatos, his obsidian eyes glimmering with something she had rarely seen in him.
Worry.
The moment his gaze met hers, his face hardened, as though bracing for a storm.
Mal slowed, uncertainty catching in her chest.
‘Melinoe…’
Her name, spoken so softly, sounded wrong coming from his lips. ‘What is it?’ she asked, unnerved by the rare cracks in his composure.
‘I…’
The single syllable faltered, leaving only the emptiness of hesitation between them. Fear traced cold fingers down her spine. Thanatos, at a loss for words? The notion felt unnatural, dangerous.
‘Spit it out,’ she demanded, sharper than she intended.
His jaw tightened, but he said nothing. Instead, he stepped aside, revealing a figure standing behind him.
At first, Mal’s mind refused to understand what her eyes beheld. Then recognition struck like lightning, slender frame, familiar pallor, and eyes dark enough to haunt dreams.
‘Kage?’ Her voice broke as she moved closer, disbelief and hope warring within her. ‘What are you doing here? How did you… how did you get here?’
He stood as he always had, tall and refined, sorrow etched in every line of his pale face. The memory of his voice, soft and rich with the weight of stories both real and imagined, swelled painfully within her.
Her hand shot out, gripping his arm, needing to feel his solidity, to prove he was no phantom. Yet deep down, she knew what it meant for her brother to stand here, of all places, in the realm of the dead.
‘He’s dead, Melinoe,’ Thanatos said quietly behind her.
Kage’s eyes narrowed, brimming with irritation at the declaration, but Mal…
Mal froze.
Her grip on Kage tightened, fingers clutching at his arm as though anchoring herself to the one truth she could not bear to lose. She saw the faint narrowing of those sharp, dark eyes, but he did not pull away. Instead, he allowed the contact, as if he too, sought solace in her touch.
‘I don’t understand.’ Mal’s voice trembled as violently as her hands, clutching him harder, terrified that if she let go, he would vanish into nothingness. ‘Who did this?’
‘Freya,’ Thanatos said, his tone flat yet edged with shadow.
Kage’s gaze snapped to him, a flicker of cold annoyance flaring across his face.
‘Why?’ Mal whispered, rage trembling just beneath her skin, barely restrained, a wild storm threatening to burst free.
‘Because she wants you to kill Hades,’ Thanatos explained, his eyes dark as obsidian. ‘With Hades gone, she reclaims her throne, her crown… and her children. But for that to happen, she needs the God-Killer.’
‘Don’t,’ Kage growled, teeth gritted, voice laced with iron. ‘Whatever happens, Mal, do not kill Hades.’
But their words barely reached her. The world blurred and bled away, consumed by the raw, unrelenting anger rising within her like a tidal wave.
Kage’s eyes widened slightly as she crumpled to her knees, a scream tearing through her throat.
Feral, shattering, unrestrained. She barely registered Thanatos’ arms around her, holding, steadying, pleading for her to return.
But Mal was already slipping away, plunging into the depths of her own torment.
Every fear she had ever buried surged to the surface, the terror of being different, of those cursed purple eyes that had drawn nothing but whispers and suspicion all her life.
And yet, through it all, her siblings had been there smiling, steady, unafraid.
They had never once flinched from her, never feared her difference.
Even when the world had turned its back on her, branding her an outcast, her siblings had stood unwavering at her side.
Mal saw Haven as vividly as if she walked those halls once more, poised and elegant, every step a melody of grace. And then her body, broken and lifeless, sprawled upon the warm stone of the drakonian castle, her neck bent at a cruel, unnatural angle.
And Kage…Quiet, lonely Kage, gone too, erased from the tapestry of the world.
Why?
The question tore from her in a scream, raw and jagged, as the pain devoured her from the inside out.
All her life she had craved a purpose. When she had first learnt of her oath marriage to the Fire Prince, she had embraced it, longing to be needed, to be recognised, to be seen in a world where she had been invisible.
And now… now she would burn everything, tear time itself apart, just to return, to undo it all, to bring Haven and Kage back into her arms.
Her eyes snapped open. Black runes slithered like serpents across her hands and arms, carved in searing pain that pierced her very soul. It burnt through her, wild and relentless, twisting everything she was into something unrecognisable.
She fought it, oh how she fought. But it was too late.
Her grief became power, and it burst forth from her trembling hands, purple smoke writhing and coiling like living shadows between her fingers. She screamed, the agony finally breaking free, no longer containable.
Let go of your pain, a voice whispered, soft as silk yet sharp as a dagger.
The magic grew, overwhelming, mingling with her god-blood until it felt too vast, too feral to contain.
Become what you were made to be.
She fought it still, fought the agony of loss, of being hollowed out by the weight of absence, of losing not only them, but herself.
The purple magic crept higher, devouring her arms, her throat, searing into her mouth, flooding her eyes until it poured through her like a tide, unstoppable, inevitable, claiming her.
Mal no longer heard Thanatos.
She no longer heard Kage.
She heard nothing save for a voice.
A sinister whisper, laced with laughter, curling through the hollowed chambers of her heart. It soothed the jagged edges of her grief, stroking it away, piece by piece, until the pain dissolved entirely, leaving only a cold, blissful emptiness.
And Mal… Mal let it happen.
She let it all be washed clean. The sorrow, the rage, the memories…until there was nothing left.
When her eyes finally opened, Thanatos was still clutching her, shouting her name, his face pale with panic; Kage stood frozen, his expression carved from fear.
But the woman they looked upon was no longer the one they had known.
No.
This one bore black witch-runes carved into her arms, and purple smoke coiled, alive and hungry, around her fingers.
This woman felt nothing.
Mal Blackburn was gone.
And in her place stood a God-Killer.