Realm of Shadows (Heir of Hades Romantasy #1)

Chapter 1

Well... maybe one thing.

But he’s never wanted me back.

The lead in the local town play, at least, feels plausible. Not some impossible, pie-in-the-sky fantasy love story but something real. Attainable. The kind of thing you can actually earn with talent and a lot of hard work.

That’s why I spent my entire summer vacation holed up in my bedroom, memorizing lines, studying Greek mythology for character work, and watching Hercules on repeat until I could sing every word of “I Won’t Say I’m in Love” backward in my sleep.

Then I learned “The Gospel Truth,” “Zero to Hero,” and “A Star is Born” for good measure—even though Megara doesn’t even sing those songs.

Megara isn’t just another character in Hercules.

She’s the heart of it. Not some simpering, insipid princess, but fierce.

Witty. Jaded, but not broken. She has a sharp tongue and a soft heart buried beneath all that armor, with a backstory soaked in heartbreak.

The kind of part that sinks its teeth into you. That feels like me.

I don’t just want the role. I was made for it.

And I’m going to get it.

My heart thunders as I reach the doors of LHU’s Performing Arts Center, where the Players share space with the local college.

I spot the cast list right away, pinned to the lobby bulletin board, and make a beeline for it.

The first thing I notice is my little sister’s loopy, overly girly handwriting.

The lined paper even smells like her too-sweet, vanilla-scented body lotion.

That little snake.

Amber must’ve come early to help the director post the list. I’d overheard her bragging to Mom last night about how tight she and Mr. DeWitt had gotten over summer after she’d spent the break volunteering and helping out with auditions.

I scan the paper eagerly, my eyes darting straight to Megara. I expect to see my name there—need to see it. It should be there.

Except… it isn’t.

I read through the list again.

Then again.

My name isn’t next to Megara. It isn’t next to anyone. I’m not even listed as a damn understudy. It’s like I was never even considered for any role. Like I didn’t exist at all.

I clench a fist behind my back, resisting the urge to rip the paper off the board and stomp it under my black combat boots.

There must be some mistake. I crushed that audition. I know I did. So what the hell happened?

College students I don’t recognize start trickling in, along with a few seniors from my old school, Laguna Hills High. They push past me, elbowing in without so much as a glance in my direction.

One by one, I hear their delighted squeals and giddy laughter as they find out they got the roles they wanted. Blood pounds in my ears as my eyes keep coming back to the name listed next to Megara, instead of mine. I want to scream. Or cry.

Maybe both.

How can her name be there instead of mine?

“How the hell did Amber get the lead?” I snap at the board, too furious to care who hears me. “She’s tone-deaf!”

“Oh, don’t be such a sore loser. I won Megara fair and square.”

I turn around to find my sister standing there with a smug little smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

With her pale blonde hair and mermaid-blue eyes the color of sunlit water, Amber looks like some kind of fairy-tale Disney princess.

Which is ironic, considering the fact she’s usually playing the villain in my life.

Today, she’s all soft curls and bronzed skin, dressed in a frilly, bubblegum-pink dress that looks like it came with a tiara. Flanking her sides are her two best friends, Brooke Bancroft and Tiffany Voss, nodding along in synchronized approval.

“How could you do this to me?” I whisper, low and sharp. “That part was mine.”

Amber just shrugs. “Guess you should’ve gone for the Cyclops. That role had your name all over it, Alysander.”

She says it with that fake-innocent tone she’s perfected, like my name itself is the punchline.

Her friends chuckle—not because it’s actually funny, but because it’s Amber.

She always knows how to get a laugh at someone else’s expense.

And she knows exactly how much I hate my name.

It’s supposed to be a modern twist on the great Greek hero Lysander, but all it’s ever done is confuse people.

No one can ever pronounce it or spell it right.

“You don’t get it. I really needed this.” Heat crawls up my neck as I dig my nails into my palms.

“God, no need to be so dramatic.” She groans. “I already asked DeWitt to stick you in the chorus. He’s basically obsessed with me, so I’m sure he’ll find you a spot.”

“Chorus? Are you serious?” I gape at her. “You can shove chorus up your ass, Ambrosia!”

I feel a small flicker of satisfaction as her face flushes red. She can’t stand her own weird name any more than I can stand mine.

“My name is Amber,” she hisses, jaw tight.

I flip her off and stalk toward the campus parking lot. Sadly, whatever petty thrill I get from the jab doesn’t even come close to the sting of losing Megara.

I yank open the rust-flecked door of my beat-up Toyota Camry and collapse inside. I won’t give anyone at school—or this damn town—the satisfaction of watching me break. Certainly not my stupid sister and her friends. It’s just… I really did need this.

Megara was supposed to be the thing that saved me.

Last year, I got rejected from my dream school, NYU.

I’d spent my whole life wanting out of this too-bright, shallow little beach town, with its perfect facade and pastel everything.

I’d never fit in here. But New York? That city breathed people like me.

NYU’s elite performing arts program, Tisch, had the best theater training in the country, and Broadway was right around the corner.

NYU wasn’t just a school to me. It was a way out.

I’d been gutted when the rejection came.

My high school guidance counselor said I could try applying again as a transfer after my freshman year of college.

My grades weren’t the problem. I’d graduated with a 4.

0 unweighted GPA and an almost perfect SAT score, but everyone applying to Tisch had numbers like that.

What I lacked was real “performance arts experience.” I’d taken Advanced Performance Choir in high school last year, but apparently, that wasn’t enough.

I’d pinned all my hopes and dreams on community theater this fall and landing the lead in Hercules.

I figured this way I could pad my résumé enough to earn a shot at a live audition.

I just knew once I got in front of the actual decision-makers at NYU and they heard me sing, they’d have to let me in.

Now what was I supposed to do?

I start the car’s engine and Thom Yorke’s haunting voice fills the space as the radio syncs with my phone’s playlist. The aching melody of “Let Down” wraps around me like a second skin, and I close my eyes, letting the lyrics settle in.

The song’s about the kind of helplessness that makes you want to scream and, right now, I feel every single word.

A wave of failure crashes over me, and I tear off the tourmaline quartz necklace my mom made me wear for good luck, tossing it into the glove box. I know my eccentric, hippie-dippie mother means well, but no amount of “magical” crystals is going to fix the mess that is my life.

Fucking Amber.

It’s just like her to ruin this for me. My sister and I have been butting heads since birth.

Less than a year apart—both October babies—we’ve always been locked in some twisted sibling rivalry, fighting over everything: clothes, toys, Mom’s attention, even who got the biggest slice of cake at our shared birthday parties.

Separate celebrations were a luxury we couldn’t afford.

Mom did her best, but there was never quite enough to go around.

Our father walked out right after Amber was born, and Mom’s been scrambling to raise us ever since. She calls herself a “mystic artist,” which is basically code for painting people’s auras and peddling healing crystals to bored housewives.

I’ve never believed in that stuff, but it pays the bills. The women in town flock to her readings with the same manic energy they bring to their overpriced hot yoga classes and bulk-buy kombucha hauls at Erewhon.

I should’ve known Megara was a lost cause the second Amber got involved with the Players. It doesn’t matter that I can sing circles around my sister. People just love Amber for some reason. Always have. She’s got that thing, that effortless, impossible-to-name It girl factor.

One time, we were walking through Sephora when a casting director from LA stopped her mid-aisle and offered her a national cereal commercial on the spot. It aired during the freaking Super Bowl, too. That’s just how Amber’s charmed life works—opportunity finds her.

The most obnoxious part? She doesn’t even like musical theater. This whole play is just practice for her. A stepping stone.

What she really wants is to be some glossy, vapid Hollywood starlet or maybe the next reality-star Kardashian, as long as it means paparazzi and a designer wardrobe. Fame is the goal and looking good while getting it.

Unlike my sister, I’ve never been the girl everyone likes.

I mean, yes—technically—I know I’m attractive, in my own emo-Elvira-meets-Wednesday-Addams kind of way.

Pale, icy-blue eyes. Jet-black hair down to my waist, thick and shiny enough to land a shampoo deal.

Mom’s begged me to cut it for years, but I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than lose even one inch.

Even Hayes—my best friend and lifelong source of brutal honesty—once admitted the guys on the LHU football team think I’m hot.

Like goth Megan Fox hot. But apparently, I also give off “major demon succubus vibes,” like I might devour their souls in the quad between classes.

So they’re all too freaked out to actually ask me on a date.