Chapter Sixty-One
I fear the day Mal Blackburn discovers the truth.
The real truth.
Tabitha Wysteria
Mal strode through the volcanic corridors in silence, her fingertips gliding along the obsidian walls as though she could feel the centuries of darkness soaked into the stone. Blue flames flickered in iron sconces, casting restless shadows that danced like spectres across the hallways.
The main hall yawned before her, cavernous and cold, its air thick with the scent of ancient power.
At its heart stood a long black table, carved from some forgotten mountain’s core, its surface polished until it reflected the flames like dark water.
Beyond it, a great hearth crackled, its fire a low growl of heat in a chamber otherwise steeped in chill.
To one side sat the Moirai, veiled and eternal, their spindly fingers forever at work, spinning and weaving an endless golden thread that shimmered unnaturally in the dim light.
Mal lingered at the threshold, watching them with hooded eyes. As one, the three sisters looked up, their faces shifting like water, young one moment, ancient the next, as if time itself could not decide what shape they ought to wear.
‘God-Killer,’ one hissed, her teeth sharp and inhuman beneath the edge of her veil.
Mal merely arched a brow and let her attention drift back to their work. The golden thread called to her, an endless lifeline of fate itself, glimmering against the dark.
‘Death cannot be avoided,’ a voice murmured, smooth and cold.
Mal turned her head. There, sprawled with irreverent ease, sat Hades.
The Lord of the Underworld reclined in his blackened throne, feet propped upon the edge of the table like a careless king.
In one hand he tossed a rotten black apple into the air, catching it lazily as his crimson eyes glowed with sly amusement.
‘You’ve done it at last,’ he said, a grin curving his mouth. ‘You’ve become the God-Killer.’
Mal advanced, her every step echoing against the polished floor, until she stood by one of the many obsidian chairs. Long fingers curled over its back as she drew it out with an unhurried scrape, lowering herself gracefully into its embrace, her gaze fixed unflinchingly on the god beside her.
Hades poured a measure of deep crimson wine into a goblet and slid it towards her, leaning forward as though sharing a secret. His hand gestured invitingly, urging her to drink.
‘Now that I am the God-Killer,’ she said, her voice slow and smooth as still water, yet edged with steel. ‘Will you tell me the truth? All of it?’
Hades pouted faintly, staring into the dark heart of his wine as though the glass itself might hold an escape. ‘And what truth do you seek to unearth?’
‘The reason you created me.’
A fleeting shadow crossed the molten red of his eyes, an echo of unease. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You forged me for this, shaped me into the God-Killer. But why?’ Mal placed her hand on the table, fingers splayed like a queen laying claim to her throne, and arched a brow.
‘You long to sever the curse that binds you, me, and Hecate in its cruel threads. If I strike her down, if I kill my own mother, she will not return. The curse will shatter.’
Hades only watched, silent, his expression unreadable.
‘But here lies the cruel jest… you have already slain Hecate once, only to force her rebirth. Now she walks this world again, somewhere, no more than a helpless babe.’ Mal’s lips curled into a bitter sound that might have been laughter.
‘Thanatos I cannot kill, for he is death itself, eternal and untouchable.’
‘Is that what Thanatos has told you?’ Hades chuckled.
‘Ash Acheron I refuse to slay,’ she said, ignoring his words. ‘That leaves me with…’ Her head tilted, the pale marble of her face twisting into a smile that glittered with danger as her eyes fixed upon him. ‘You.’
Hades laughed, dark and low, the sound curling like smoke. ‘You cannot kill me here, not in my own dominion. Only upon mortal soil.’
‘True,’ Mal said, tapping her fingers against the stone in a soft, deliberate rhythm. ‘You could hide within this realm, a coward’s eternity beyond my reach.’
‘But?’
‘But I know how dearly you crave the end of this curse.’
‘Enough to forfeit my life?’ Hades regarded his nails, idle and thoughtful, like a man pondering the colour of his own blood.
‘Intriguing.’ He smiled. A wicked, perilous thing that promised nothing good.
‘You are right, child. I would do anything to end this curse.’ He leaned forward, his crimson eyes narrowing, burning. ‘But the question is… would you?’
Before she could shape an answer, Hades snapped his fingers.
It felt like falling through eternity. One moment Mal had been seated upon the chair in the Underworld’s spectral castle, the next the ground was torn from beneath her, the world vanishing into a chasm of nothingness, only for her to land once more in that same chair, in that same hall, as if time itself had folded in on her.
A smile tugged at her lips as understanding dawned.
Hades had cast them back into the living realm, the mortal world. No longer bound by the weight of the Underworld’s silence, they now sat within the Kingdom of Darkness, in the grand, echoing hall of the wyverian stronghold.
Mal turned her head to the window frames—bare, glassless arches that let the cold air creep through, and stared upon skies of leaden grey, as familiar as the scars of memory. And somewhere in that distance, cutting through the wind, she heard the haunting roar of her wyvern.
Hades rose from his chair with lazy grace, leaving behind the half-rotten apple upon the table, its flesh bruised and darkened like a dying star, resting just before her.
‘Did my father know?’ Mal asked, rising too, her fingers curling around the hilt of her sword as she drew it free with a whisper of steel.
‘King Ozul?’ Hades scratched at his neck, eyes narrowing slightly. ‘Know about what?’
‘About me.’
A silence lingered before Hades turned his attention to the skeletal window frames. ‘Yes, he always knew. I doubt he realised that Hecate was the Seer, though.’
‘Why did she do that to me?’ Mal’s voice was quieter, yet edged with venom.
‘She was suppressing your power,’ Hades said, his tone deceptively mild. ‘Caging the godhood inside you, making certain it would not awaken.’
‘Why?’
‘Because she feared you would become what you are now, the God-Killer. And that you would strike her down.’
Mal nodded once, slow and deliberate, her grip tightening upon her blade until her knuckles paled. Hades’ eyes, sharp as garnets, drifted down to the weapon.
‘If I kill you,’ Mal said softly, dangerously, ‘the curse will end, won’t it? I will be freed from Ash and Thanatos, and he will no longer hunt Ash.’
Hades said nothing, and in that silence was the weight of an unspoken truth.
Mal took a step closer, her presence a blade all its own.
‘Will the curse end when I kill you or will it linger still?’ she pressed, eyes narrowing to flint-edged slits.
Hades’ tongue darted across his lips, slow and deliberate, his gaze drawn not to her blade but to the rotting apple on the table, as though its decaying flesh held answers she could not see.
Mal’s eyes followed his for the briefest moment, confusion shining, before his sigh fractured the silence.
Then, with a fluid, almost resigned motion, he sank to his knees.
‘Yes,’ he said, those crimson eyes fixing upon her with unnerving calm. ‘It will end.’
A chill slithered along Mal’s spine, a whisper of suspicion she had felt before, his lies cloaked as truths, his silences heavy with secrets. Yet she forced herself to bury it. There was no turning back now. This had to end, once and for all.
She would forever be the God-Killer, her hands stained with divinity’s blood, but Ash… Ash could be safe.
Her stare did not falter from those infernal red eyes, eyes that had deceived, manipulated, wielded her like a weapon forged for his will. She would end them all, every god who played their cruel games. Hades was but the first.
Her fingers tightened around the hilt of her sword until the leather creaked in protest.
‘Thank you,’ Hades said softly, and a smile, a genuine, startling in its warmth smile broke across his face, something she had never seen before.
‘For what?’ she asked, the question edged with suspicion.
‘For keeping your promise.’
She didn’t understand, not truly, but it no longer mattered. If she hesitated, her resolve might waver.
Hades closed his eyes.
And Mal drove the blade home, piercing through heart and bone, her free hand resting on his shoulder to steady him on his knees. His eyes snapped open for one fleeting instant, crimson orbs meeting hers, and there was no fury within them, no grief.
Only peace.
She drew the sword free, watched him crumble, collapse, his body breaking apart, disintegrating into fine ash that curled skyward, stolen by an invisible wind, until there was nothing left of the god at all.
Thunder rolled across the heavens, the skies shattering open with a growl as if the world itself cried out that the king of the Underworld was gone, truly gone.
And Mal stood silent, blade dripping, as a bitter thought clawed at her mind.
The thought that, perhaps, her father had lied to her yet again.