Chapter 29 Kaira #2
Hera scrambled to her feet, wrapping her arms around Zeus's middle, her eyes never leaving me as I kept walking toward them, slowing my pace. She whispered in his ear, her eyes turning into a molten gold, her own power coursing through her. But it was not enough. None of it was enough to stop me.
My fury wrapped around my heart, diminishing any light I had.
They took everything from me.
My choices.
My life.
My love.
I had nothing left to give. I had nothing left to hold on to.
The hope that lived in me, the dreams, the belief that better times would come, had died the moment Hades's heart stopped beating. The moment they tore my heart out, letting it shatter into pieces.
They made their choices.
They made a monster.
"You took everything from me!" The roar erupted from my lungs, from my throat, crawling over the field like a disease clashing against their poor attempt at power.
But they weren't born to destroy the Gods.
I was.
My body propelled me forward, darkness taking over, and as the edges of my vision turned to red, I no longer saw anything but the three figures who deserved a painful death.
The handle of the dagger dug into the palm of my hand, feeding on my blood, feeding on my power. Droplets of rain fell onto my face as I slammed against Ares, pushing him into the forest and away from us, leaving me with Hera and Zeus, both of them trembling in front of me. In front of my power.
And I fed on their despair. I fed on their fear, on their urge to flee and get away from me.
My hand rose as fury enveloped every atom of my body. I let it turn my grief into power. I let it lead me by anger. I let the uncurling of the shadows deep inside my core erupt all over my skin, their wicked little whispers bleeding toward Hera and Zeus.
The rain sizzled as it fell on top of the blade and as my fist connected with Zeus's cheek, his head flying back, Ares appeared out of nowhere, slamming into me, into my chest with his hands and pushing me away from them.
"We need to go!" Hera screeched, lifting Zeus up. But they weren't going anywhere. No. They were mine now.
Mine to play with. Mine to cut. Piece by piece, until there was only pain left inside their filthy souls.
Until their cries satisfied the rage living inside me.
Until they spent the next five millennia, slowly decaying, dying, getting destroyed from the inside until their minds broke and this need inside me disappeared.
Ares's fists flew toward me, landing against my stomach, my cheek, but I wasn't budging.
He was a God of War, but I was so much worse.
I was death.
I was the destroyer.
And as I advanced toward him, I bent down, sliding over the grass and kicking his legs from underneath him.
He fell with a huff, his eyes filled with surprise as I sat down on top of him, wrapping my hand around his throat.
My fingers dug into the soft skin underneath his chin, my lips pulling up as the first crunch of his jaw sounded between us.
Ares opened his mouth, his hands flying up, wrapping around my wrists, but there was no use.
"You're mine now." I giggled. "Remember what you told me once, Ares.
" I leaned down, pressing the tip of my dagger against his heart.
"Remember how you mocked me? How you mocked my husband?
" His eyes widened further as I let the past me bleed into my eyes.
I could feel my soul mending, connecting all those pieces that were floating in the air, too far out of reach.
"P-Persephone?" he choked out.
"Bingo, motherfucker." I moved the tip of my dagger from his heart, and with all the force I had in me, with all the rage, I slammed it into his shoulder, letting it lodge deep inside the muscle, shattering the bones.
Ares bellowed painfully, his head flying back as the poison of death spread through his body, waiting for my final command.
I wrapped my hand around the back of his neck, lifting his head toward me.
"You don't get to die yet," I said, looking deep inside his eyes.
"You get to suffer, just how he suffered all those years while you all laughed at him.
While you all mocked him for daring to love.
For daring to be separate from your filthiness.
You get to experience an eternity of suffering, and I can't wait until we start playing. "
"Hera! No!" I looked up as Zeus's voice wrapped around my consciousness, seeing his beloved wife running toward us with fury written all over her face. I dared to touch her lover.
Oh, how sad.
She extended her arm, the golden tendrils of her power slithering over the grass, like snakes reaching toward me. The dagger lodged deep inside Ares's shoulder ripped out with the skin breaking further as I pulled it out and threw it toward her.
"No!" Ares roared, too fucking weak to get up, but Hera managed to miss the blade only by an inch, cutting her upper arm, leaving a trace of blood in its wake as it lodged itself inside the tree behind her. Hera wrapped her hand around her upper arm, her color draining almost momentarily.
"You—"
But before she could form a full sentence, before she could try to attack again, Zeus materialized behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle. And disappeared. Right in front of my very eyes.
I blinked, and blinked some more, as the earth roared and Ares moaned under my thighs, but they were no longer there. They were no longer on this island.
I couldn't feel them as my mind brushed over each hill, each tree, and each house existing on the island.
They. Were. Gone.
"No!" I thundered, getting up from the man underneath me. "Nooooo."
My feet carried me toward the tree where my dagger stood lodged, needing to destroy something, someone.
What was the point of Earth even existing if they would try to control it? What was the point of anything when the second half of my soul was no longer here? What was the fucking point of pretending to be the good guy when the villains almost always somehow got away with their shit?
My fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dagger, pulling it out, feeling the rage existing inside the weapon just as it existed in me. And I dropped down onto the cold ground, feeling despair coming from the place I once called home. A place where Hades and I loved each other.
And as tears rushed down my cheeks and the crack in the middle of my heart expanded, I raised the dagger above my head and slammed it into the ground, feeling its power seeping into the earth.
The trees, the life around me, no longer existed. My vision blurred, tinted with shades of red and black.
They all had to die. They needed to disappear.
They deserved death more than they deserved life.
With closed eyes I pressed the dagger deeper into the ground, letting it consume me. Letting it bleed me dry, eating the power seeping from my soul, ready to take over. If I had to die, if I had to disappear, then so fucking be it, but they wouldn't find peace.
They wouldn't own the earth.
The thunderous skies wrapped around me like a blanket, roaring with the madness existing in my very bones. My bloody hand landed on the ground, feeding the ground with the blood of darkness. With blood that could only kill.
I couldn't save him. I couldn't fucking save him from myself.
"Kaira!"
I wouldn't be able to save any of them, just how I couldn't save my family.
"Stop this!"
I was the monster, just like they were, and being prophesied to destroy them did not mean I got to live just because they would die.
We were all monsters, all destined to die.
And should death never find the doors of our lives, then I had to bring it to us, to them, to all the immortals existing in this realm.
"Kaira! Please stop this."
There was no stopping anything.
The wind roared around me, whispering my name over and over.
Kill.
Destroy.
Erase.
But it was the new presence I felt in the back of my mind. Not a malevolent one, not Hera, not any of the Gods.
Different. Ancient. Strong.
I swiveled around, my eyes finally seeing Elandra and my aunt standing on the other side of the meadow, not far from the splintered earth. But they weren't the ones that had me stopping. They weren't the ones that calmed the shadows, letting them hum instead of scream.
It was the three women standing right behind me.
Their hair danced on the wind, dark strands wrapping around their shoulders as if they had a mind of their own. The eyes with no irises, but white sockets, looked down at me, and as if they could touch my soul, that one look at them calmed the fury in my body.
"It's time to stop now, Kaira," all three of them spoke, their attention fully on me. The blood red dresses they wore touched the ground, moving in sync. "You can stop now, child."
But could I? Did I want to?
"Your destiny is waiting for you."
"Fuck you and my destiny," I spat out, earning the tilting of all three heads with no movement of any other muscle on their pale faces. Black eyebrows arched slightly, those dark gray lips lifting just for a second in the corners.
"You can't run." Their voices echoed around us. "You can't hide. And you can't destroy what isn't yours to be destroyed."
The one in the middle straightened and stepped toward me. "At least not yet," she said.
I stood up, hating the forced calmness and the void of the anger I relied on. "Who are you?" I bit out.
"We are the beginning," they said as they walked toward me. "And the end."
"We are one," the one in the middle said.
"And we are many," all three of them added. "We're what you see and what you hear," they continued. "But we are never what you think you know."
"Your beginnings and endings can get fucked as well." I smiled. "That whole psychobabble doesn't work on me, not anymore." I raked through the memories, trying to remember who they could be. Trying to remember the faces.
And then it dawned on me.
The three sisters. The Fates. The spinners. I hated them almost as much as I hated Zeus.
Quicker than I could follow, they moved, stopping right in front of me. "How far are you willing to go, Kaira, for the ones you love?"
I didn't need to think. "Until the ends of the earth and beyond."
They pulled back, looking at each other as if they were having a silent conversation only they were privy to.
"He's not dead," the one in the middle said while she was looking at her sister. Those white eyes connected with mine as I took a step backward.
"Who?"
"He who holds your soul," the one on the left clarified. "He whose heart bled for you and will keep bleeding."
"The one you're destined for."
Their presence was suffocating, almost too much to fucking bear, but I didn't budge.
"Hades isn't dead, Kaira," the one in the middle added, her words slicing right through my chest. "But he is not the man you knew."
The one on the right came to me, wrapping her hand around my right wrist. "So tell us, Kaira," she droned.
"Are you willing to kill the man you love if you can't save him from the darkness threatening to destroy us all?"