Chapter 26 Kaira
KAIRA
Bravery is for fools, or at least that's what my mother used to say.
Bravery was just a word, concocted by those that couldn't explain the rage coiling tight in their gut, ready to be released into the world.
Bravery was just another word used carelessly more often than not to explain the actions and reactions of people that did reckless things just to be called brave.
I wasn't brave.
I was angry.
My fury was a living, breathing thing as the three sisters escorted me from my cell to the upper floors, pushing me every couple of steps as they cackled like hyenas. More than that, they were there when I dared to insult their precious leader.
Or better said—a coward who hid behind the power that was granted to him, but that couldn't gain respect from others if he didn't instill fear in them.
Zeus didn't say a single thing to me after I told him I expected more when I met him, but he didn't have to.
I saw the hatred brimming in those blue eyes, but more than that—I saw the fear hiding deep inside his fucking being, because he knew he wasn't enough.
He would never be enough, and that's why he used his lackeys to do his dirty work.
He used other people, other immortals, to do what he never could have. What he didn't have the guts to do.
Truth be told, Zeus was just a spoiled child who wanted all the toys to be in his basket, and now we were all paying the price.
Bits and pieces of my past life kept trickling in, pushing against the barriers that still existed in my mind, and I remembered him.
I fucking remembered what a coward he always was and how desperate my mother, Demeter, was to keep me away from all of them.
Because she knew what kind of games they played.
She knew what viciousness lived inside their hearts.
I also remembered the three sisters that walked behind me, poking me with their talons every time I dared to slow down.
Aello, Ocypete, and Celaeno, the three obedient dogs, doing everything he tells them to do, no matter the consequences.
They tried provoking me. They tried getting any sort of reaction from me, but I didn't give them that satisfaction.
I didn't allow them to see the rage slowly awakening, touching my power, trying to stir it up, fighting against the magical power of these shackles.
These fools had no idea what lived inside of me, but I could feel it now more than ever.
I could feel the darkness that used to terrify me, calling my name, whispering, begging for me to release it.
I've spent so fucking long denying it from ever coming out, too lost in my own grief, almost desperate to cease living, to join my family.
But this power, this madness existing inside of me didn't allow me.
It let me grieve for as long as I needed to, but somewhere between me finding those journals and coming here, it became alive.
Aello kept yapping since we left the cells, telling me how they already had the shackles with them, which would explain my power retreating so suddenly when I faced them. And the more I listened, the more I understood that initial bout of fear that made me powerless against them.
It was their power, their purpose, to instill the fear in their victims. To render us speechless, powerless, but they never had to deal with an immortal like me. They never had to deal with someone who had death living in their veins and the ability to destroy the Gods.
"She's very quiet today," one of them spoke, and I didn't even want to know which one. There was no point arguing with creatures so brainwashed they couldn't see the reason. So I didn't try. "Maybe we need to nudge her in the right direction."
I felt their claws inching toward my back even before they touched me just as we came to the massive golden doors, spanning from the ceiling to the floor.
I bit down on my lower lip, stopping my power from flaring out.
These shackles I wore were powerful, but this thing living inside of me was chaos.
It was pure, wild energy I didn't know how to control.
At least not yet. But I will learn.
The tips of their claws touched my back just as the doors opened, and in the last second they retreated, pushing me through the barely open door and into the illuminated room, with white marble floors and the dais on the opposite side, where their mighty leader sat.
Many times over the course of my life I had met those that appeared to be sunshine and everything nice, and most of the time they were the ones you needed to be afraid of.
They were the ones hiding in plain sight, presenting themselves as the saviors, the benefactors, the good managers and perfect fucking colleagues.
I've learned the hard way that just because something shines, it doesn't mean it is good.
Just like not everything that's dark isn't bad or evil.
True evil sat on the thrones made of gold, looking down at those they thought were beneath them.
Men with small fucking dicks, sitting in their ivory towers while the rest of the world crashed and burned.
They used their power like a whip, threatening those that dared to go against them.
Disposing of those they regarded as threats and destroying the world we knew.
I couldn't help myself but smirk when I saw the worried look on Zeus's face the deeper I went inside the room, comparing him to all those men I had met over the course of my life.
It didn't matter if they were mortals or Gods, they were the same.
Their greed, their need for more and more and more, could only destroy innocent lives.
Maybe I couldn't stop the CEOs of the companies, or the manufacturing of the guns that killed thousands of innocent people who were presented as the evil ones just because they wanted to be free, but I could stop Zeus.
Even if it was the last thing I'd do.
"Kneel!" His voice boomed around us, and one by one, the immortals and mortals standing around us, lined in two perfect rows on each side of me as I walked toward the fucker, knelt to the floor. Including the harpies that came with me.
But I didn't kneel. I would never kneel for any man—God or otherwise.
Zeus's eyes connected with mine, his fury evident in those blue depths, but he didn't scare me. Not anymore.
The little fragments of a time long ago when I was just a Goddess of Spring, eager to please every single one of these immortals, came rushing into my mind.
How afraid I was of this bitch sitting at the dais, elevated above everyone else.
How powerful he seemed to me back then, because I didn't know better.
I was just a simple girl, wishing to live the rest of her life in peace and quiet, far away from these pompous asses.
But they didn't let me.
I saw them behind him, kneeling like good little puppies—Hera, Ares, Athena and several other Gods.
Almost everyone that hadn't been there at the meeting, keeping their eyes to the floor, kneeling to the fucker who would sacrifice them without even blinking.
But they were here by choice, not by force, and that was one thing I needed to remember.
They weren't the victims. They were the perpetrators, the fuel Zeus needed to fulfill his fucked-up vision of ruling the entire world.
They were the enablers and they would pay, just like he would.
"Kneel in front of your king!" came from the back row, and my eyes connected with Ares, the God of War. The motherfucker who held me as his father plunged that knife through my gut, poisoning me.
"A king?" I laughed. "I see no king." I mocked them.
"I see a coward." My feet carried me closer to them, closer to all these traitors living their perfect little lives, thinking they were untouchable.
"I see a bunch of immortals, kneeling in front of a coward, thinking he would save you.
" Ares stepped in front of the dais, the vein on his forehead pulsing, his eyes two razors trying to slice through me.
But didn't he know? I already lost almost everything.
My soul, Persephone's soul, had already lost more than any of them could imagine and we were back for revenge.
A sharp stab of pain sliced through the backs of my knees, sending me tunneling down to the floor. Ares laughed, joined by the three harpies now standing behind me.
"I told you, you would kneel," Zeus said somewhere from the top. "They always kneel!" He laughed, joined by all his brainwashed minions. Perhaps it was suicidal offending them in their home, but I didn't care. Not anymore.
I straightened myself and stood up, keeping my head high. Higher than ever before.
Retribution shone in Zeus's stormy eyes, but I didn't care anymore about him and what he could do.
I had already felt on my own skin what his kind was capable of even when I offered nothing but an olive branch and a solution for everyone to live in peace.
But men like him didn't want peace. They wanted chaos, power and destruction of anyone and anything that stood in their path.
"And I told you," I smirked, my head tilting as I watched the color drain from his face, "I would never kneel. Not for you. Not for anyone."
The click-click-click of heels over the marble floor made me look away from the coward in front of me and toward the sound, where a red-haired woman walked toward us, her eyes and face set in stone as she observed me.
Zeus straightened, his chest puffing, and it would've been hilarious if it wasn't for the fact that I knew her.
I knew her face.
I knew her viciousness.
And I knew she was sometimes worse than Zeus himself.