Chapter 14

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I stared at the screen, my eyes fixed on those flashes of colour through ink darkness. Cronus, who had devoured so many gods and their descendants that it was impossible to count them. Cronus, who had hunted me—and hunted my family long before that. Noise rang in my ears, heartbeats thumping fast around me and mine the fastest as I made connection after connection.

Others who are yours are inside him.

Empty the prisons, and they will be saved, and you all might survive.

Those were Phoebe's words, the prophet titaness both creepy and eager to help—to win. To end Cronus once and for all. She wanted him dead, and seemed hellbent on insisting I was his downfall. She made the prophecy inked on my spine, the one still there even though I'd died, like fate was daring me.

Kill him, if you dare.

Others who are yours are inside him. I couldn't get that out of my head as I stared at the magic raging in Cronus's stomach—the gods rebelling inside him, their children fighting with everything they had to get out. Lucifer was in there. Poseidon, too.

Others who are mine. But my mates were all here, and Verena was safe with us, and Kaida hadn't existed when Phoebe warned us. All our families had died of old age years ago. Except Wane and Harvey's mum was an archdemon, and so was Kai's dad, and Em … his parentage was still murky and hidden, too painful for him to talk about, even to me. Were his parents still alive? Had Cronus devoured them?

I shook my head, avoiding the concerned look Wyn threw my way. No, the titan only devoured descendants of gods and titans. Archdemons were of no use to him; he had no interest in their power. But he was interested in me, and no matter how many alternate explanations I tried to find, I circled back to the same thing.

To the same dream, a memory unlocked by a being who raged, who protected, but was so distant all he could do was hint. Erebus had shown me the truth.

He's going to find me, Lyall, it's only a matter of time before he hunts us down. You have to go, take Haley to Hell; my grandmother will help conceal you. She hates Cronus.

Cronus hunted my mum. She didn't abandon us; she protected us. Protected me.

I remembered the trip to Hell through a hazy child's memory. I'd seen heartbreak and pain in my dad's eyes, and thought it was because Mum abandoned us. But maybe it was because we had to leave her behind.

"Haley?" Harvey murmured, brushing my back with a warm hand and pulling me into his side when I didn't respond. His lips met my cheek, warm and sweet.

Others who are yours are inside him.

"I want to talk to Phoebe," I said, my voice quiet but cutting through the noise I hadn't realised surrounded me, my mates and Verena in the middle of an argument.

"Phoebe?" Harvey asked, squeezing me tighter to his side. "That conniving bitch?"

"That conniving bitch helped us save our mate," Wynvail pointed out, giving me a calculating glance. "What do you want to ask her?"

Power trembled inside me, both blood magic and my other magic. Titan magic. I glanced away and said, "She said there are other people inside him—others who are ours. I think—it's my mum. Erebus was trying to tell me that in the dream he gave me."

"Haley," Em said with a heavy sigh. "Phoebe could have meant anything."

"That's why I need to talk to her again." I gave Wyn a pleading look. "Can you call her back?"

"A titan can't be summoned, honey," he said with apology in his eyes.

"Then, we'll—" I began, my eyes drifting back to the TV, but I jumped, the words trapped in my throat when the front door slammed open.

"I'm back," Wane yelled down the hall. "But something's wrong. The shields are eroded near the bottom of the path."

My heartbeat skipped; I felt the others' hearts quicken. Hands wrapped around weapons they only removed these days to sleep, and the air crackled as magic was drawn up. We were never at peace, never not ready for a fight. It would never end—the paranoia, the fear. And here was why: a broken shield. Someone had breached the grounds of the house.

"Is it Cronus?" Verena gasped.

"No," Harvey replied, slicing a hand towards the TV. "He's still destroying the Capitol. This is someone else."

I swallowed back my fear, surprised by how little there was of it. I knew it was a bad time to be making life-threatening decisions when loss made me hollow, but I didn't shy from the idea of a fight. I welcomed it.

The numb had buried it, but bloodthirst lurked in the pit of my stomach, patient and vengeful. I might seem calm, but deep down I was exactly like Kai. I wanted to take my anger out on the world. I wanted a fight, wanted my fist smacking flesh, wanted blood to spray and magic to clash. I wanted the whole world to pay for what it had done to us. For giving us Kaida and so cruelly ripping her away.

Calm washed over me, so different to the dull bite of numbness and grief. This calm plotted, it waited, and it encouraged me to unleash myself on my enemies. I knew what it was—battle calm. And I knew where it came from, and why my mum had been in as much danger as I was. She was his daughter; I was his granddaughter. It was why I loved fighting, why I was drawn to bloodshed and brutality. Ares.

It's the child of Ares we should worry for. Those were Typhon's words, another domino falling into place.

Every family of every god was under threat by Cronus, every one of us a little magic appetiser before he consumed the gods themselves. How many had he devoured? How many were left? Apollo had been imprisoned but not devoured. And there was something else, something I'd forgotten. A roar of anger that filled the prison just as we fell through the pool of velvet shadow and into the fake timeline. A roar that my magic had responded to, as if it recognised it.

"Haley," Wane said, as if it wasn't the first time he'd spoken. Cool hands cupped my cheeks and he peered into my eyes.

"We need to empty the rest of the prisons. We need to free the prisoners so Cronus can't devour them, and we need to find everyone who got out of that cave so they can—"

"There's no need," a husky female voice cut me off before I could finish, and we all jumped at the sight of the blood-covered woman who stalked into the living room, blackened armour laid over her chest and shoulders, heavy black plates of leather everywhere else. A strip of it was even tied in her soft brown hair, the ends of which were stained dark with blood. There was no joy, no life in her eyes, no mercy in the flat line of her mouth or the brutality written in all her features. I didn't know this woman at all. We all jumped when she sheathed her bloody sword with a rough movement and pinned us with an unyielding stare. It wasn't threatening, but I felt the command deep in my bones, and I swallowed hard.

"Renna, Tali, and Cerberus have already freed the prisoners."

"Lili," I breathed, jerking forward a step and gasping when Emlyn and Wane both stepped in front of me, Harvey and Wyn close at my sides, pushing Verena behind me.

I peered around Wane's shoulders at my friend, at the cruelty and wrath on her face, and understood her on a deeply personal level. This is what I would look like when the numbness tore the roof off my rage, when I let out all the fury and pain festering inside me. I knew I'd looked something like this when I resurrected the first time—joyless and empty, with only revenge and violence to drive me. But now, with Kaida gone and Erebus's words rattling around my head, if I lost a single person, I'd become as vicious as the blood-covered woman in front of me.

"I'm aware you're a descendant of gods," Lili said, her voice hoarse like she'd broken it screaming. My chest pulled tight; I met her eyes and didn't look away from the harshness there. "But you're also a Stygian demon, which makes me your queen and puts you under my jurisdiction."

"You're not taking her," Emlyn rumbled, deep with warning. His grey wings tensed, like he was preparing to dive at her. I knew that man; he'd sacrifice himself so we could get out. I curled my fingers in the back of his shirt and hoped it was enough to hold him back.

"I'm not here to take her," Lili replied in that husky, pitiless voice. "I am here, as your ruler, the Queen of Hell and all its realms, the Justice and the Balance of Heaven and Hell, to command you to fight alongside us. All of you."

I nodded, once, sharp. "He's still alive in there. Lucifer."

"I saw the footage," Lili replied, her voice like a serrated blade. "There's no guarantee everyone survived, but someone did, and it's the sign we've been waiting for. We have a plan, and armies ready, but every prophet we speak to insists we need you. A hellborn angel will deliver death."

I stiffened. Harvey sucked in a sharp breath behind me.

"How do you know those words?" Wynvail demanded, jerking forward a step. "Who told you that? Phoebe?"

"Apollo," Lili corrected, barely sparing Wyn a glance even when light gathered around him, his magic reacting to the danger she posed.

"Apollo?" Verena asked, derision in her voice. "He's a piece of shit. Don't trust him."

Lili tilted her head, and I noticed more blood splashed on her neck. Shit. It was a testament to how sneaky I was and how distracted my mates were that I managed to slip out of their huddle.

"Where are you hurt?" I asked my friend. "Is any of this blood yours?"

"None," she replied, her mouth pressing thinner. "This is the blood of every demon who disobeyed orders and sought to take me from Luc's throne."

I sighed, my shoulders slumping. "He could be alive in there, Lili."

Her eyes flickered with pain. "Either way, we will storm the Capitol and kill that titan. And you'll be with us."

I nodded. "We're with you."

But Wane snagged me with a thick tendril of shadow and pulled me away from her. "No," he growled, deep and ominous.

"Cronus needs to die," I said, not looking away from Lili's blood-soaked face. "He crossed a line," I told her, "and I don't particularly feel like explaining what he did but I've had enough."

"You already died trying to kill him!" Harvey shouted, reaching me and thrumming with so much panic that he shook.

"Because," I said, voicing something I'd suspected all week, "we weren't ready. The time wasn't right, and it—" I couldn't look at Wane, didn't dare. "I understand that line in the prophecy now. When archdemon's final seeds are sowed—king's final stand, titan's last breath. I can kill him, I'm the hellborn angel in the prophecy, but I couldn't kill him until the final seeds were sown. Until now. Don't." I choked out, pleading with Wane. "Don't."

But he ignored me, reaching up to brush his fingertips along my cheek.

"It won't change anything," I said, choked. The backs of my eyes burned. "We don't get to keep anything, we only ever lose, so—so why should this hold us back? We can kill Cronus now, really kill him. Erebus told me I could, that I have all this magic inside me, and I can use it to murder him."

"Isn't it…" Verena said haltingly, quietly, "too much to lose?"

"The outcome will be the same either way," I replied, hollowness returning. We lost Kaida, we lost six babies before her, and we'd lose this one too."

"What if it won't?" Wane demanded in a rush, his silver eyes round and frantic. His hands dropped to my shoulders, holding tight. "What if it won't be the same outcome? All those other times were different, I don't know what changed but when you were reborn the first time, when Cronus brought you back without us, your body changed."

I held up a hand to stop him.

"What's he talking about, Hales?" Emlyn asked, wary, afraid.

"Remember the cell in Olympus," Wane pleaded, throwing his stare to Emlyn, too. "Haley was burning up, wracked with cramps so painful that there was only one explanation, and it only stopped when Em and I—"

He cut off, eyeing Lili warily. She'd frozen, listening but not interrupting. Her expression was neutral but with blood splattered all over her, she still looked deadly.

"You know why the pain stopped," Wane said, squeezing my shoulders. "This time is different , Haley."

Because that was a mating cycle, because that could have been why none of our pregnancies had been successful before. Could. That word was too big to take for granted.

All we ever did was lose. Maybe Cronus's cruelty had been a gift in showing us what we could have had. At least we'd experienced it once.

"What's going on?" Harvey asked, stepping closer but slowly, hesitant, like he could feel how big this was, how much potential it had to destroy us. "Haley?"

"Nothing," I choked out, meeting Lili's eyes. "It's just so soon after we lost Kaida, that's what Wane means."

Disapproval shone in Wane's eyes, but he clenched his jaw and forced out, "Right."

"And Lucifer isn't the only one inside Cronus. If the gods all survived, everyone else must have, too."

I was forcing optimism, pasting positivity across my face to hide the panic inside. I couldn't afford to love the baby growing in me, because it would shatter me all over again when I lost them. And it would be worse—so much worse—if I let Wane's words fill me with hope. Yes, this time was different. We conceived with a mating cycle. My body was different, my magic was heightened, and so much had changed.

But we didn't get to keep beautiful things like this. That was the truth I could trust.

"Who else?" Lili asked, her hoarse voice deeper. "Who else is inside?"

"My mum," I said, and had to forcibly swallow the knot in my throat. "My mum is trapped inside him."

And I might not have trusted my body not to betray me, but I trusted Erebus. My mum was in there, and I would get her out.

It was the least I owed her after she gave up everything to protect me.